- Coaching Assessments
- Facilitation, training and workshops
- Consulting Services
- Co-facilitation with trusted colleagues
Services
Coaching
Coaching can help you identify which specific skills or competence to develop that will serve you, strengths you have that you can leverage and it can help you to identify when you need to ask for help, as not all gaps are worthy of development!
Coaching can help you become aware of your blind spots, your biases and your preferences that can interfere with objectivity, relationships, conflict management and collaboration.
Coaching comes in many focus areas:
Leadership Development
Coaching can help you identify which specific skills or competence to develop that will serve you as a budding or existing leader, strengths you have that you can leverage and the vulnerability to know when you need to ask for help, as not all gaps are worthy of development!
Our work helps you become aware of your blind spots, your biases and your preferences that can interfere with objectivity, relationships, conflict management and collaboration. Leadership and vulnerability are synonymous so we can help you learn how our egos serve and limit us.
Skills and performance coaching
If you need to develop a specific skill or develop your performance in an area that you have yet to feel confident or competent, we can target the skills you need, identify the strategies and opportunities to test, play, practice and get feedback to boost your self knowledge and application of that new knowledge.
Career coaching
Coaching can help you connect to the strengths that are relevant and transferable to the position or profession you are working towards. We can also understand any gaps you need to tackle to prepare for a new level of engagement and challenge.
When you know where you’re headed, preparing the tone and messaging of any written materials (resumes, cover letters, work samples) is key to setting a tone and preparing the audience to receive you in a certain way, so that by the time you are facing each other, you can cast some pretty impressive pearls!
Together, we help you identify and articulate your key messages and prepare you to relax enough to be fluid, responsive and creative. Interviews are great opportunities to learn about yourself for life, not just for the hour on the hot-seat! I can help you present to prospective employers with a blend of confidence and humility that comes through when you listen intently and respond articulately about your fit for the position.
transition coaching
Transition can be energy draining, full of unknowns, to-do lists and ambiguity. Approaching your transition intentionally, planfully, methodically can reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed. Self-kindness and patience can help set you up for success in a new role, a new life chapter or a new self reinvention!
Conflict coaching – Our self-awareness is put to the test in times of conflict, crisis and error because the emotional stakes are higher, the brain is processing in survival mode and the last thing we want to do is make ourselves more vulnerable. And yet these are the most crucial learning opportunities to be examined. The art and skill of planning and preparing for intentional conflict handling, or recovery and repair from conflict can go a long way to reducing the trauma that can come from unnecessarily intensely emotional experiences.
Coaching Assessments
Standardized assessments can help us gain insight into our personality type, emotional intelligence, conflict handling and communication preferences.
Sometimes our preferences or ‘defaults’ subconsciously prevail in life. These preferences can mean that we repeat cycles of thought or behaviour that may not serve our new goals or circumstances. Gaining knowledge and awareness about who we are can help us make more conscious choices when we need to, rather than default to long standing patterns that no longer serve us the way they may have in the past.
A list of the standardized assessment tools I administer:
- Bar-On EQ-i™ Emotional Quotient Inventory
- Bar-On (EQ-i) 360™
- CPI-260®
- FIRO-B®
- MBTI®
- Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)
- Strong Interest Inventory®
Facilitation, training and workshops
I am fastidious when it comes to design. I design to both guide and foster emergence simultaneously. It takes teamwork with my clients for me to understand what it takes to create conditions for success.
I use all kinds of media to help people express themselves, even a session or two around a kitchen counter! Creativity brings out our inner child and playfulness. We can let down some of the defenses that stop us from sharing our realities, perceptions and feelings in certain contexts.
When everyone participates by creating together in a non-threatening environment, the team often experiences purer teamwork with less weight and noise than they have accumulated in the workplace. Activities can be designed as ‘levelers’ in terms of hierarchy and titles. Everyone is learning and creating together from a clean slate. No one is better than or an authority on. Everyone can literally experience a level playing field!
The activity coupled with highly meaningful debriefs of their teamwork and what they can take back into their workplace is transformative in how teams and people work together beyond these sessions.
A mindful and intentional design allows us to trust the process, the group and the facilitator to be the guide.
Consulting Services
I provide consulting on organizational development, some focus areas include:
- mental health and wellness, psychological safety in the workplace
- Coaching and collaborative environments
- behaviour and culture in organizations,
- succession planning,
- recruitment and talent development,
- performance and feedback approaches and frameworks.
- strategic planning
If you have a question about whether I can support you or your organization, reach out and we can discuss to learn whether I can provide what you need.
Co-facilitation with trusted colleagues
Co-facilitating, co-creating, co-designing and co-llaborating brings me joy, fun and to the client we bring rich depth of content, ideas and designs. We deliver powerful experiences in the room or on-line. The power of collective wisdom and creativity is a beautiful thing when set in motion.
Benefit from the powerful dynamics of co- facilitation that role models behaviours such as respectful challenge and problem solving, questioning and constructive conflict and creativity, in the moment. We pride ourselves on fluid, present engagement. We provide outstanding workshops and facilitation for your teams or groups.
Client Experience
here are a few comments clients have offered about their experience:
About
I am a Glaswegian and a Canadian, and trust me the two don’t always get along. Scots are feisty and independent, happy to forge their own path! Canadians value collegiality and often go out of their way to accommodate.
Careers in occupational therapy, coaching and facilitation have offered me the privilege of listening to, learning with and serving thousands of clients. Whether the goal is thriving beyond injury or trauma, whether it is a keen desire to grow or invent, or whether conflict is a barrier to enjoyment of life, sometimes all we need is a catalyst to spark the shift.
More than ever we can benefit from understanding our success in the context of how to plan for, navigate and learn through change and transition. Our mental health and emotional stability can be predictors of our capacity to move through changes and handle conflict. Self awareness and the application of the knowledge we have about ourselves can build resilience and competence in times of high stress and demanding performance.
Fit is as important when you hire someone to facilitate change. The consultant or facilitator for your change will serve you well if they have the necessary risk comfort to guide you and perhaps challenge what it is that you think you need, just to be sure you are addressing root causes to resolve issues rather than symptoms.
Below are some reasons I am hired which may help you to understand some of the experiential outcomes and reactions to the services I provide. My clients will provide a reference or discuss my work should you require more detailed information.
I am hired to:
- Consult on change design, management and execution, on organizational culture, structure and behaviour.
- Facilitate important conversations that make space for creative thought, insight and new beginnings.
- Synthesize and summarize layers of key information, often abstract concepts, ideas and exchanges from group dialogue, communicating it back in a way that people understand and can act on in concrete ways.
- Create safety that leads to risk-taking, honesty and new behaviours at individual and team levels.
- Create conditions for difficult conversations to be hosted and held, for mediating long-standing conflicts and apparent impasses
- Facilitate conversations for groups and teams, from fun retreats to entrenched team conflicts, to strategic planning and design.
Background
Occupational therapy as foundational to my coaching practice
in 1987 I emigrated to Canada as an occupational therapist. My training, and experience in mental health, community health, brain injury rehabilitation provided me with an excellent foundation for coaching and neuroplasticity needed to change attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. I ran a successful private practice for clients with brain injury for over ten years.
I recognized the need for me to make a transition to a new career, seeking new challenges at organizational levels and in the realm of leadership and performance. I am fascinated by the power we have to heal and grow from loss, change, trauma and challenges. I am passionate about supporting that work for individuals, groups and organizations. The ability to emerge from conflict or challenge re-energized, re-engaged, re-paired and re-invented is within each of us.
I certified as an executive coach with the College of Executive coaching, taking additional training from Inspirational coaching international in 2006. I became certified in various psychometric assessments and have since taken additional training in the following:
- Virtual Facilitation Aprendix. Global Issued Sep 2021Issued Sep 2021
- Change management FoundationChange management Foundation
- APMG InternationalAPMG InternationalIssued Dec 2020Issued Dec 2020
- Transformational MediationTransformational Mediation
- Community Justice InitiativesCommunity Justice InitiativesIssued Jun 2020Issued Jun 2020
- Third Party Neutral Mediation, coaching and facilitationThird Party Neutral Mediation, coaching and facilitation
- Cicr Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution–Institut canadien pour la résolution des conflits Issued Jun 2018
- BarOn EQ-i and BarOn EQ-i 360BarOn EQ-i and BarOn EQ-i 360 Multi-Health Systems Inc. (MHS)Multi-Health Systems Inc. (MHS)Issued Jun 2008
- Change Management PractitionerChange Management Practitioner
- APMG InternationalAPMG InternationalIssued Jan 2021 · Expires Jan 2026Issued Jan 2021 · Expires Jan 2026
- CYNERGY Level 1 Conflict Management CoachingCYNERGY Level 1 Conflict Management Coaching
- Certified Professional CoachCertified Professional Coach
- College of Executive CoachingCollege of Executive Coaching
- Myers Briggs Type IndicatorMyers Briggs Type Indicator
- Sychometrics CanadaPsychometrics Canada
- Strong Interest InventoryStrong Interest Inventory
- CPP