I remember my greatest anxiety as a little boy was that everyone else seemed to understand except me.  My schoolteacher at the time reinforced it by telling me he thought I was stupid.  It’s interesting how such influences follow us through our lives, and one of the effects on me was that I developed a habit of running faster and harder than everyone else in order to keep up.

That chronic bewilderment for me was stressful, and I didn’t enjoy school very much. As an adult, I discovered that bewilderment is more common than I thought, although rarely owned up to.  And even though we all have our lived experience to draw upon, in real terms, most of us have to invent solutions, and to make up every day as it comes.

One of my biggest realizations was that, as a manager, the times when I messed up most severely were often those when I was absolutely sure I was right.  Much of my experience as a manager and leader in those early days was of making mistakes, and having to clear up afterwards.  It was sometimes painful, and I learned a great deal, both in leadership and in human terms.  I also learned a lot about the pitfalls of “certainty.”  I observed that, when other people seemed to know what to do and they were most sure of themselves, they were often not correct.

How did I get started with my own consulting business?

I learned my craft as a consultant over fifteen years starting around 1991, working nationally and internationally for consulting companies, and for myself.  I had spent years both coaching and training coaches in my work as a management consultant, and now wanted to dedicate more of my time to that.  I also wanted to increase my skill and capabilities with the technology of Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) and to train as a Trainer of NLP.  NLP, especially in its latest evolution called New Code NLP, provides the most powerful set of tools I know of for continuing to know myself, and for helping other people to help themselves too.

I was born in the UK Baby Boomer generation of the mid 1940s, and have had the privilege to be a catalyst for extraordinary change in many people’s lives.  As a Coach or Change Strategist to people in senior roles, I have in the recent past, been involved in the planned creation of an international group of probably the most effective Coaches in the world today, applying to their work the exclusive technology of the latest advances in human communication, New Code Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).

My role included training and preparing Coaches to operate to these global standards.  I was first trained in NLP in 1988, and graduated as a Master Practitioner in 1993.  This meant I was already an experienced Practitioner when I was later certified (UK, 2006) by Dr John Grinder, Dr Carmen Bostic St Clair and Michael Carroll as a Trainer of New Code NLP.  Also certified by them as an International NLP Coach, I am a Chartered Member of two professional institutes in the UK, The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).  I have a Master of Philosophy degree (MPhil 1990) in Training & Development from International Management Centres (IMC) in Buckingham, UK, and an earlier (1984) Diploma in Training Management (DipTM).  I am a Founder Member of the International Trainers Academy of NLP (ITANLP).

Pioneering spirit

As a formal and informal leader over more than 45 years, I have been a Coach and trained others extensively in those skills since the mid 1980s.  I feel proud to possess something of a pioneering spirit, and at age 21, through an innovation, I influenced the achievement of my then shipping industry employers in gaining the biggest world-wide agency contract for hiring freight containers.  This was at a time when sea freight in and out of the UK was suffering badly.  Through a later accident of fate, I had the chance to co-pioneer the introduction of modern horticultural growing systems in Almeria, Southern Spain in the late 1970s.  Then in the following decade, established a dynamic central training division at a leading UK airport in the late 1980s, supporting development of sophisticated business planning in a then new public limited company.

Facilitation

In 1988, I discovered a powerful way to think about the future, and from it created Future-basing^®, a highly effective process for strategy formulation, vision-building and co-operation (www.future-basing.com). One of its most exciting applications was in 1997 when I facilitated the creation of a key international co-operation agreement in a world humanitarian organization.   A particular talent I enjoy is for facilitating complex discussions and agreements in small or big groups, often on an international scale.  I’ve had the pleasure of serving as a Team Coach, Consultant and Facilitator in many countries and contexts over the years, and my greatest satisfaction comes from seeing those clients get results. This spirit of the pioneer continues to show through with my association at the forefront of developments with New Code NLP with Drs John Grinder, Carmen Bostic St Clair and Michael Carroll, and its application to world-leading Coaching.

Style

My style as a Coach and Change Strategist is quiet, patient, attentive and deeply incisive.  In this way, results come quickly as I help you to clarify what you want and need to achieve, how you will recognize and measure results, and how to discover the shortest routes to best performance.  Most people come to gain strength and improved functioning in their professional or their private lives.  They tend to leave having explored and discovered that what IS possible is so much bigger than that.