My overall goal in the work that I do with my clients is to support them in their continuous journey of learning and personal growth.
For me learning is about working with the whole person – their self awareness at an emotional and intuituve level (their roots), their knowledge and intellectual thinking (their trunk) and their set of behavioural skills as they interact with the people around them (their branches). It is the ‘whole’ person that needs to learn to adapt and be flexible in the face of change and new challenges.
I believe we have most to learn when we seek to understand ourselves first. To be an effective leader, manager, salesperson, friend, husband or wife requires, in my opinion, a high level of self-awareness. Whether I am working with one person as their coach, or whether I am facilitating a group of people, my starting point is always to encourage my clients to look first at themselves. Through understanding ourselves better, we are able to better understand others. As we better understand others we are able to develop new and more effective ways of working and communicating.
In my approach to my work, I always endeavour to support and challenge my clients to develop new skills and behaviours, and to reflect on and sometimes challenges their own opionions or mindsets, so they are able to make significant and lasting changes in how they work, and on the impact they have on those around them.
Executive Coaching
As a coach, my focus is on developing the self-awareness and emotional intelligence of my clients so they are better able to understand and therefore manage themselves in both their working relationships, and in the workplace situations they face. My coaching practice therefore encourages my clients to reflect on past experiences, as well as current emotions and thinking, so that they are able to explore and understand their current challenge and effectively plan their next steps towards changing, unblocking or developing a relationship, or moving forward with a business idea or issue.
I combine and balance my background in business with my knowledge and practical understanding of psychology in the work that I do with my clients.
Leadership & Team Development
My workshop and programme design, and my way of working, focuses very much on experiential learning (i.e. learning by doing) with the objective of developing the emotional intelligence of the participants. That is their intra (i.e. self) and interpersonal awareness and skills.
To support my philosophy of learning by doing, I blend theory with actual practice using frequent exercises and role plays. These may take on the form of scripted scenarios or I can work with the participants’ own ‘real-life’ situations. With any exercise or role play my focus is on ensuring that participants receive sufficient personal feedback to support their learning and to enable them to decide on their next course of action.
With this in mind I ideally like to work with small groups – typically up to 12 participants – to ensure I am able to provide sufficient support and feedback to each participant.
My programme design aims to provide sufficient time for each participant to personally reflect, receive specific feedback and coaching, and lastly to plan their next steps.
Design & delivery
I am able to design stand-alone development workshops focusing on one or more skill sets, for example communication skills or influencing skills. And I am also able to design longer term, modular programmes for leadership or key talent development.
Given my own extensive network of coaches and facilitators across Europe, I am able to find the necessary people resources to support the aims of larger or broader development programmes.