Ahead of our 2024 Insurance CX Awards at Proud Embankment, London, Modern Insurance Magazine sat down with Roger Taylor, Co-Founder and Lead Coach at Famn, to discuss the importance of psychologically grounded coaching for both business and personal success.

Q. Hi Roger, it’s great to meet you! We’re delighted to have you on board as a judge and sponsor for the 2024 Insurance CX Awards!

Why don’t we start by talking about Famn, the work you do and the support you provide for businesses and individuals?

A. Famn is a psychological coaching consultancy. We use an evidence-based approach, combining transactional analysis, gestalt psychotherapy and sensory-motor psychotherapy to provoke personal and organizational change. We work with senior leaders and their teams to develop their self-awareness and resilience through 1:2:1 coaching, our Group Coaching Programme, and other workshops. Our clients are invited to honestly explore their habitual patterns, their flaws as well as their brilliance. Enabled by this self-awareness, they learn to disrupt the patterns that don’t serve them well.

Q. From where does the name ‘Famn’ originate, and how do you differ from other more traditional coaching consultancies?

A. We’re different to the vast majority of coaching consultancies in that our work is psychologically grounded, and built on the belief that meaningful change is only possible by first developing a deeper understanding of who people are in the here and now. By exploring our habitual patterns and responses, we’re better able to spot where they serve us well and where they don’t.

Our approach to coaching is supportive, stimulating and challenging in equal measure, providing an opportunity for developing self-awareness, resilience and emotional intelligence in the workplace & beyond.

Famn is a Swedish word that translates as the ‘space between our arms when we are embracing’. The equivalent word in Danish has the additional meaning of ‘a harbour’. We hope Famn is both a safe place where people can find some sanctuary from their intensely busy, demanding and challenging lives, but also a place where the hard work can be done to ready ourselves for the sometimes stormy seas beyond the harbour wall.

Q. How do you foster a yearning for inclusion and diversity through your work?

A. Emotional intelligence enables us to create psychological safety, build resilience and manage our lives and careers. A big part of the work we do is aimed at supporting our clients to develop their emotional intelligence and self-awareness, as well as their understanding and appreciation of how other people go about living their lives. In turn, this enables people to build their self confidence in situations that they may otherwise find difficult; for example, in situations where a sense of belonging or inclusion is absent, or when people don’t appreciate their perspective.

Q. Tell me more about ‘Famn Flex’…

A. Famn Flex makes our psychologically-grounded approach to coaching accessible across the organization. Through our Executive and Group coaching programmes, we typically work with C-suite & senior leadership teams. With Famn Flex, the entire organization is able to benefit from 1:1 coaching in a flexible and cost-effective way.

Q. Which aspect of the Awards night are you most looking forward to?

A. I am excited for the opportunity to meet some of the nominees and get under the skin of their work; the difficulty and the struggle as well as the brilliance and the accomplishment.

Q. If you could offer one piece of advice to the award winners, what would that be and why?

A. As coaching psychologists, our practice is to avoid giving advice! Instead of that, I’d encourage the winners to find a way of integrating the feeling of success and accomplishment, as well as developing the means to recapture those feelings when needed, maybe when they’re facing difficulty or when their confidence is low.

To find out more about Famn’s services for businesses and individuals alike, visit their website here.