Graham Lee
I have always been deeply
curious about why people do what they do. For me behaviour is always a
product of underlying motivations, beliefs, and habits, and, with the right
conditions and conversations, any of us can learn to be more skilful.
My coaching and consulting
approach is informed by three core strands: my experience of managing and
leading in pharmaceuticals and consultancy, including the role of Managing
Director; my training and experience as a psychologist and psychotherapist; and
my long-standing practice and teaching of mindfulness. I have 20
years experience of coaching and consulting to a wide range of people from CEOs
to high potential managers across a range of sectors, including financial
services, media, pharmaceuticals, energy, education, and the charity sector. I
am known as someone who will invite people to inquire deeply and to develop a
‘real-time’ reflective capacity as the bedrock of enduring change and
transformation. My focus is to support clients to translate awareness and
insights into tangible changes in behaviour, often by targeting key business
relationships and the pivotal conversations necessary to bring about real
change. I believe that safe challenge lies at the core of change,
and although aspects of the work can be profound, the journey to insight often
includes a sense of lightness or playfulness.
"A key challenge for me was learning to manage others by supporting and empowering. I found the techniques for managing myself - biofeedback technology and mindfulness practices - profoundly impactful, enabling a paradigm-shift in how I think about my challenges, at work and at home. The coaching with Graham has supported me to operate as a true manager, and my team are feeling the benefit as much as myself.”
Simon Wayne, Senior Lawyer, Insight Investment
Jane Brendgen
My
14 years of working as a coach and consultant in organisational settings
has offered me the opportunity to engage with a wide spectrum of people,
from board level leaders through to graduate trainees. This experience
has
given me insight into the kinds of beliefs, assumptions, unconscious
elements, systemic norms and unspoken truths that can manifest as personally
limiting behavioural patterns in these settings. It's clear that people
in
the workplace are aspiring to different values - a sense of connection,
collaboration, authenticity and a deeper sense of purpose that surpasses the
value that a paycheque or corporate ladder-climbing can offer. I am
convinced that, in the new prevailing economy, creating high trust
environments can support people to thrive and excel. My masters degree
research into relational mindfulness has fortified my view that humanising
the workplace can be encouraged through supporting people to foster greater
personal and interpersonal awareness. Translating this into behavioural
terms, this supports greater personal accountability for self-directed
learning and cultivates emotional intelligence competencies and relational
qualities such as empathy, compassion and kindness.
"I
really enjoyed doing the mindfulness course under your guidance, with the
immense skill, clarity, presence and leadership you brought to the
proceedings." CA
Peter Young
I believe that organisations can achieve high levels of performance and
be great places to work. And yet all too often the greatest qualities and
energies of team members remain untapped or even frustrated. Helping leaders
and managers to harness that energy and excellence is what continues to draw me
to the work of coaching and training.
A variety of influences have shaped my professional practice. These
include ten years delivering training for global law firms and corporates in
the fields of management, leadership and communication; fifteen years providing
executive coaching and career coaching at all levels of the organisation; a
former career as a board director within the book publishing industry; and most
recently a Masters in Psychological Coaching at the Metanoia Institute. These
influences have shaped an approach that combines psychological depth (working
with people from the inside-out), with a strong grasp of leadership
behaviour and human language (working from the outside-in).
In addition to extensive work in the legal and professional services
sectors, my clients include corporates, banks, not-for-profits, and the public
sector.
“Peter is incredibly insightful and through probing and
persistent questions, time and again, has helped me get at the real issues. I
appreciate his ability to persist and be tenacious whilst sensitive to the pace
and depth of change I can handle. His ability to balance the professional and
the personal, the job and the person spot on. I have grown as a person
and a leader through the coaching I have received and am thankful for Peter's
wisdom and patience.” Director, International Charity
Emma
Donaldson-Feilder
For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by people –
wanting to understand human behaviour, motivations and mind-sets and to find
ways to help improve people’s lives. When I joined the world of work, this
fascination became increasingly directed at exploring management and
leadership, and how these affect people’s sense of wellbeing, and my aim became
one of finding ways to humanise workplaces and support people to flourish. For
the past 15 years, I have been pursuing this aim by working as an Occupational
Psychologist. In order to have the best possible evidence-base for my work, I
am actively involved in research; and, conversely, my consultancy and coaching
ensures that my research is of genuine use in real-world settings. These
strands of activity all have a particular focus on leadership, management,
workplace health and wellbeing, employee engagement and resilience. My clients
have included CEOs, high potential managers, managers/leaders at all levels and
practitioners (e.g. HR and OH professionals) in organisations across a range of
sectors.
My aim is to create non-judgemental and supportive conditions in which
clients can achieve self-directed learning, build on their strengths and
values, and embed new ways of perceiving, thinking and acting into their
day-to-day life. Increasingly, my approach has become infused with my deep
appreciation for and teaching of mindfulness and interpersonal mindfulness. I
also draw on my 12 years’ experience of managing people, projects and events
gained from my initial career in international relations.
“I found working with Emma very helpful and challenging in a positive
way. I was impressed by her commitment and her manner, which was open and helpful
as well as firm. I would certainly recommend her to any organisation with the
added point that to engage with Emma sooner rather than later is also key.”
Alexandra McAdam Clark, Past Chair
of the Board of Trustees of the Bridge
Gayle
The focus in my
work is concerned with supporting people to find the awareness and compassion
to operate most effectively in their lives, whether at work or in their
personal relationships. As an experienced mindfulness coach, I support individuals to become clearer about who they
are and what they want. In addition to working as an individual coach, I also teach a range of mindfulness courses for adults and for
children. Interestingly, often it is the techniques used within schools
that land most effectively for adults, perhaps because the approach has been stripped
of unnecessary jargon.
A distinctive
aspect of my coaching approach is using mindfulness as a technique for
deepening self-listening and for cultivating a more compassionate way of
relating to oneself. In my experience managers in organisations often achieve
success through a strong internal drive, but this internal drive can quickly
become a harsh inner critic that tends to undermine confidence and creativity,
and ultimately limits potential. In my view mindful self-compassion
is a key ingredient for helping ambitious managers to become more supportive of
themselves, as well as others, and so create more positive team environments.
“A life changing course – well structured, excellent content and
I feel committed to making it part of my daily life”
Marketing Director, Food Retailer
Take a fresh approach to leadership development.
Release authenticity and leadership impact.
Every organisation has a wealth of untapped leadership potential
The full expression of people’s talents remains untapped because the increasing complexity and pace of organisational life triggers habitual and reactive leadership behaviours. Running faster is no longer enough for success.
Honing mental capacity is key to releasing leadership
potential
The key development challenge, for executives and managers, is to expand their mental and emotional capacity; to see challenges from a larger perspective and to build their emotional resilience to be more consciously agile, creative and collaborative.
Our approach integrates three essential domains of
skillful leadership
Our coaching and leadership programmes integrate development across three domains: awareness, leadership and communication, and translate profound shifts in personal insight into specific and practical changes in leadership behaviour.
Our Approach:
Our coaching and leadership programmes integrate development across three domains: Awareness, for deepening presence and self-management, Leadership, for developing key leadership competencies, and Communication, for translating wise intentions into collaborative action.
Our coaching and development programmes draw flexibly on each of these domains, depending on the specific development goals. This integrated approach supports profound shifts in mental and emotional capacity, and enables the translation of intrinsic talents into skillful, emotionally-intelligent leadership.
Benefits of our Approach:
for EXECUTIVES/managers:
- Increased self-awareness, presence and resilience
- Sustaining engagement whilst being decisive and driving for results
- Being less reactive to challenge and finding common ground
- Listening more effectively and drawing out the creativity of others
- Developing trusting relationships
for organisations:
- Increased clarity of purpose and ownership of results
- Working smarter with less fire-fighting
- Reduced silo thinking and increased cross-functional collaboration
- Increased creativity and innovation
- Greater engagement and productivity
Services:
Our
services fall into three categories: Leadership Development, Team Development,
and Organisation Development.
Leadership Development
INDIVIDUAL COACHING
Working with individuals, from board directors and executives through to junior managers, to support profound shifts in self-awareness, presence, influence, decision-making, and contribution.
RELATIONSHIP COACHING
Facilitated 3-way meetings supporting managers to deepen mutual understanding, identify shared intentions, resolve differences, and release shared creativity.
MINDFULNESS COACHING
A 6 or 8-week coaching programme, available face-to-face or online, for cultivating and applying presence in relation to key leadership tasks.
LEADERSHIP REVIEW
Assessing performance and potential through in-depth interview, 360° feedback, and psychometrics, and recommending the steps required to accelerate development.
groupS
programmes
Provide a sustained development experience across 2-6 months, enabling participants to translate insights into practical shifts in behaviour. Popular programmes include: The Mindful Manager™ and Pivotal Conversations.
MASTERCLASSES
Tailored half-day or whole day sessions designed to address a core area of leadership development. Popular masterclasses include: Leading with a Brave Heart™ and Cultivating Resilience.
TASTER SESSIONS
Brief sessions of 1-2 hours designed to spark interest and engage motivation. Popular taster sessions include: The Courage to be Still™ and The Purposeful Pause.
COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP REVIEW
A group version of the individual leadership review, providing aggregated feedback, and recommendations for individual and group development.
Team Development
team COACHING
Working with top teams and functional teams, often in tandem with coaching the team leader, to facilitate shared understanding of team goals, roles, processes and relationships, and to engender more skilful communication collaboration, creativity and decision-making.
team review
Assesses team dynamics through observations and reflective feedback processes, so that teams learn to observe their own patterns and how to create conditions for collective performance. Typically includes gathering internal and external feedback about perceptions of the team.
Organisational Development
culture review
Assessing the culture of an organisation through structured interviews and questionnaires, providing insight into the underlying or unspoken assumptions that shape interactions between organisational levels, functions, stakeholders and clients.
process review
Either as a stand-alone review, or as part of a culture review, assessing how implicit meeting and decision-making processes support or limit stated organisational intentions, thereby providing the basis for recommending and developing explicit processes aligned to organisational vision and values.
Some Client Comments:
“They have supported senior leaders to be more effective in leading and influencing at all levels of the organisation."
Sarah Aitken, Head of Distribution, Investment Management.
“The coaching has provided an invaluable space for examining how I lead, and for markedly enhancing my impact.”
Simon Ramage, Director of Group Legal
“I found the session incredibly insightful. One of the best workshops I’ve experienced to date.”
Graham Roberts, Behavioural Change Consultant
“At a time of leadership transition the coaching was acutely insightful as well as practical. ”
Sara Osbourne, Head of Patient Communication Cancer Research UK
“The team has provided valuable insight into our executive and director population, individually and at an aggregated level…”
Elizabeth Sideris, Executive Director, HR
“The session for about 50 of our staff created great interest in how simple awareness practices can strengthen resilience.”
Susan Kennedy, HR, Studiocanal
“In a crowded field of impressive tutors this was truly outstanding. A skilful blend of neuroscience, psychology and practical ideas.”
Paul Heardman, UK Civil Service
“As trusted advisors and coaches to our executive team for a number of years they have unquestionably enabled the team to develop as the business has demanded.”
Heather Davies, former Head of HR
Meet the Team:
Our consultants have at least 15 years experience of consulting and coaching, with extensive experience of working with individuals, groups and teams. We are trained in a wide range of psychometric instruments and development approaches. We are also trained in teaching mindfulness and in the use of biofeedback technology.
In Print:
our books and book chapters
A selection of our chapters, articles and conferences presentations
- The Location of
Authenticity, in The Winnicott Tradition,
Karnac, 2015.
- Positive
manager behaviour for engagement and wellbeing, in Flourishing in Life, Work, and Careers. Edward Elgar Publishing,
2015
- Developing
managers to manage sustainable employee engagement, health and well-being. CIPD
Publications: London, 2014
- Mindful supervision. At Coaching at Work conference, London, 2 July 2013.
- Leadership
and employee wellbeing, in Handbook of
the Psychology of Leadership, Change & OD. Wiley-Blackwell: Chichester.
2013.
- Perspectives
on leadership in Implications for HR.
CIPD Publications: London. 2012
- Mindful Insights. Coaching at Work. 2012, Vol 8, Issue 1.
- The Psychoanalytic Approach to Coaching. In, The Handbook of Coaching, ed, Cox et
al. Sage, 2010, p23-36.
- Authentic Leadership in Coaching. In Leadership Coaching ed, Passmore,
J. Kogan Page, 2010, p 17-34.
- Preventing
stress: Promoting positive manager behaviour: Research Insight. CIPD Publications: London. 2009
- Brain Train, in Coaching
at Work. Article about Mindfulness training, 2008, Vol 4, Issue 2.
- Management competencies for preventing and
reducing stress at work. Norwich: HSE Books. 2008
- The Relationship Dimension in Management Development”
– in Organisations and People, August
2001, Gower
- Relationship Mentoring – the Fast Track to Change” in
Proceedings of the 7th European Mentoring Conference, August 2000
- Your Boss is not Your Father. Unravelling
paternal projections at work, in Proceedings of the 6th European
Mentoring Conference, August 1999
