The services I offer fall into the specific fields of coaching, training, and personal development within companies. I work in both English and French.
I like to get to know my clients. For individual coaching this isn’t quite so necessary, there’s even something to be said for not knowing much about a client’s world (although there is a counterargument to knowing their stakes and ecosystem that is also quite compelling), but when coaching multiple people from the same company or working with a board of directors I will spend time speaking to as many people as I can about the stakes, not just for individuals but for companies as a whole and the industry.
For many companies, I work with the training department to create something that really connects with the participants. It might be starting a coaching process with assessment for people to get to know themselves better, or matching up team coaching, made-to-measure seminars or workshops, and individual coaching. If it fits into the areas I specialize in we can talk about it and create it and any combination of ideas that could help meet specific needs.
Accompanying individuals for a short number of sessions (usually between four and ten) to achieve a specific objective. This is usually prepared by a meeting with key stakeholders (a direct manager and or an HR representative) and the participant to establish objectives and how success will be measured.
This can resemble team coaching and there is a lot of crossover between the two. Training usually comes from identifying a subject people would like to increase their competencies in and creating seminars and exercises, using coaching values.
(Assessments with the objective of helping people to identify their own capabilities and areas for development) – These assessment processes can be written to a specific brief to help people identify areas they would like to work on and can also be the start of a coaching process. Assessments are always created in dialogue with the client company but there are many best practices to guide the process.
The SOSIE is unusual for personality tests in that it doesn't put people into categories, but places them on a scale of 1 to 100 on 20 different qualities, making unique profiles. From this, hypotheses are formed about how a person might function. These tests can be remarkably revealing, often moving, and frequently give results that connect with participants. For this reason, I occasionally use them as preparation for coaching, for personal development and in assessments.
I have substantial experience training small groups in basic management theory – usually for two intense days with exercises and role plays. These introductions can have a profound and positive impact on people managing for the first time or wanting to improve from difficult situations. I don’t have any wish to take this to more advanced levels of management theory and prefer creating made-to-measure programs relating to specific needs or to using coaching.
I frequently re-write this training program for specific needs and levels of detail. But understanding how (what is commonly known as) Emotional Intelligence can help build stronger teams, and better outcomes for individuals and whole companies is often eye-opening for many and for some life-changing.
The role of a coach can vary in large teams, from setting a theme and structure for a meeting (such as Theory U), to helping establish a code of conduct and system for dealing with anything from weekly meetings to attaining a specific result.
There are many existing and highly effective structures for working with small teams such as Action Learning, Co-Development, and Case Clinic to bring out the collective power of thinking together to give each individual a voice, but also similar techniques can be used as for individual coaching but with rules to ensure the inclusion of all parties at all stages.
360° feedback evaluations are where a client's colleagues team and boss all give structured feedback on strengths and areas for development. It can be a very powerful and debriefing with a professional is key to helping the client get the most from this experience.
I work with clients to create questions for participants to ask the people that they work with to better understand how they are perceived by others. Responses are officially anonymous but this can be a very sensitive process and experience and care in setting up the process and the debriefs is key. There are many ready-made 360 feedback questionnaires that give fascinating statistical results. The ones I create with clients are much freer in their content and allow highly nuanced responses.
from 3-hour interactive seminars, masterclasses in coaching techniques, to multiple-day training based on what people want to learn. Training is largely based on interactive exercises and in most cases invites people to bring real-life situations to be coached. It is common for companies to combine training with follow up individual or group coaching.
Subjects so far offered have been:
-
High Level Listening Skills
-
Story-telling and building narrative
-
How to build an efficient culture of meetings
-
Moving beyond interpersonal conflict
-
Bringing Coach Skills into Everyday Management.
-
Coaching Tools for Managers
-
Bringing Added Value from Intercultural Awareness