Kelly’s story: Building a high-performance culture through coaching

Kelly VanBuskirk’s relationship with leadership coaching goes back to Vision Coaching’s earliest days.

As a lawyer, Kelly was among the first professionals Vision CEO Dave Veale coached. Kelly quickly saw the value of having an objective person help him examine both his strengths and opportunities to improve.

“Through the coaching process, there was clarity brought to questions that were in my mind,” Kelly recalls. “I personally found the process efficient, helpful and beneficial in the long term.” 

Today, as Principal of VanBuskirk Law, Kelly has taken that experience much further – making coaching part of how the growing firm develops both individuals and its team.

One-to-One Executive Coaching is available to anyone at the firm who needs it, providing confidential access to an independent coach who can help them think differently about a challenge. Team members can reach out directly for coaching support – without Kelly or Chief of Staff Sarah Brooke necessarily knowing they have done so. 

The firm also works with Vision through High-Performance Team Coaching, helping a group of accomplished lawyers turn individual excellence into collective performance.

“We’ve got a team of high performers who have high expectations of themselves and of each other,” Sarah says. “Team coaching brings what could potentially be individual silos together. It helps us understand why someone thinks or works differently – and we’ve all benefited from that.” 

That matters in a firm where complex files demand collaboration. VanBuskirk Law requires lawyers to work together on every file – an approach Kelly says has made the firm faster and better able to support clients when one lawyer is tied up in a hearing or away. 

For Kelly, it starts with one of the firm’s core values – humility.

“As soon as you accept that you don’t know everything, and that perhaps you could be better at what you’re already doing, the next logical question is how you can improve,” he says. “One way is to engage with a coach.”

Want to explore how One-to-One Executive Coaching or High-Performance Team Coaching could strengthen your leadership or your team? Connect with us to start a conversation.