Strategic Coaching

I spent time working with the Vice Chancellor of a Russell Group university.  Given that my specialism is collaboration, conflict and relationships, we spent the sessions exploring how this person needed to influence their senior team towards stronger more aligned working relationships.  We looked at where this needed to be slowly nurtured and where focussed and specific action needed to be taken.

In order to do this, we explored the client’s own tendencies and patterns, helping them build new strategies and styles where needed.

We used ongoing sessions to review what was and wasn’t working so that we could refine and develop this person’s approach.

Coaching to Alter a Pattern

I was asked to coach a senior leader who was finding it impossible to say no to people who asked him to do tasks. As a consequence he was always missing deadlines; this meant other people got irritated with him and he felt both overwhelmed and bad about his behaviour.

Very quickly by using a mixture of talk and some embodied coaching, plus his willingness to talk in detail about his personal history, we hit on the reasons that he was unable to say no. These had to do with his personal history and a strong feeling of having to always please others. He decided on an approach to change this and together we looked at the requests in his inbox and he decided which ones to say no to; this all happened in our first meeting. By our second session he said that his life had changed for the better, he had met deadlines, said no more times and was less stressed. We spent that session and the subsequent one helping him reinforce the changes, deal with challenges and think about his future actions.

Team Mediation

I worked with a large group of surgeons and anaesthetists where relationships had broken down to such an extent that people were refusing to work together.

I spent confidential, individual time with everyone involved so that they had a space to explore their specific hopes and concerns – this time also allowed me to build rapport with them.

I then conducted some 2 and 3 person mediations where there was most active conflict, fortunately these had positive outcomes which cleared the way to run a whole team facilitated event.

At this event the whole group engaged in naming the concerns at practical and relational levels, they started the process of rebuilding relationships and addressed new strategies for future working.  We also built in a ‘what happens if it starts to fall apart’ process.

Personal Mediation

A son in his 40s was estranged from his mother, there had been lots of issues that led to this point over many years.

The son approached me as he knew that his mother was ill and he wanted to see if there was a way of healing/repairing the relationship.  I spent a couple of meetings with the son helping him get clear about what he wanted, looking at his expectations and considering what would happen if they weren’t met as well as if they were.  We decided on a strategy for approaching his mother about mediation. She was willing and scared to meet with me and potentially with him. I met her by herself and then later held a meeting with them both together. It was a challenging process for them – old hurts don’t miraculously disappear – but they ended up speaking from places of vulnerability about what they wanted. They set up a way of ongoing communication that they both hoped would lead slowly to a richer relationship – which through my follow up, I know did.