We have worked with Paul for over 10 years and in those years he has enabled many people to get closer to their full potential. He started by leading groups of people to develop their personal skills but is now a valued external coach providing support to some of our best talent in the business.
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In my experience Paul builds effective relationships with those he is coaching and has genuine insight into what will help individuals become more effective in the workplace. I would have no hesitation in recommending Paul as a facilitator who can instill personal change. When we have an individual with great talent but has a personal "blind spot" we always bring in Paul to work with the individual.
Peter Sheppard -
Competence & Employee Relations Director
Ericsson North Western Europe
I started working with PEC to have a speaking partner about the difficult political situations I was dealing with at work. It was important for me to bounce ideas and get feedback from an external source not bogged down in the day-to-day situations and escalations. This was critical to the success of the current job I was in and to continue moving upwards in the company.
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Shortly after working with PEC I was able to reflect on the situation and put some more clarity into some of the difficult situations I was experiencing. PEC was able to help me put perspective and reality to the situations as well as reflect on how I could change my own behaviour, in order to improve my performance and/or relationships.
I was able to drastically turn around some of the situations I was dealing with simply by adapting my behaviours, and leadership styles to the individuals that I was working with. The depth of evaluation and the depth of searching into the issues were much more than you could ever imagine taking out of any management program within the industry, or company, regardless of it’s size.
The trust and intimacy built with PEC allowed me to open up and talk about issues in the workplace, as well as in my own life and ways of working. The relationship I had with some senior people in the company also changed significantly and over a period of time, I was viewed differently and in a positive way.
The personal nature of the consultation was by far the most appreciated aspect of working with PEC, the ability to understand the business that I was in and the level or relationships/politics that I was dealing with. Flexible, professional and without doubt, a trusted thought partner.
Robert – Head of Managed Services,
telecommunications industry
Paul became my main leadership coach, and under Paul's microscope I examined my leadership style and identified improvements that would allow me to stay true to it but still lead more effectively in a wider range of situations. Paul pushed me forward when I was getting complacent, and reigned me in when I was becoming too self-critical.
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The bottom line is that I am still trying to emulate Paul's uncanny ability to help me learn. When Paul reflected back to me his interpretations of my own communications and behaviours, it consistently helped me see how I might either be unclear of my own intentions or misinterpreted by others. Refining my ideas and my communications in sessions with Paul allowed me to go back into the 'real world' and be more effective.
Paul's relentless suggestion that we verbalise honestly what we were feeling internally - the absolute root motivations of our conflicts or concerns - is a lesson I have found as applicable and effective as it is difficult to implement.
Jeff – Managing Director,
satellite engineering industry
I was ‘stuck’ in my working life – not very satisfied with what I was getting from work but, more importantly, unsure of what it was I wanted from my career. I was contemplating a complete change and was considering returning to study – but no matter how much I thought about this (over several years prior to working with PEC) I seemed unable to make a decision.
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Working with PEC helped me to assess, with much greater clarity, exactly what it was that I felt about my working life – what needed to change and what caused me so much frustration. Interestingly (and I hadn’t expected this) it also highlighted for me what worked well. I felt much better able to think clearly about my future plans.
Part of the success of the process was the fact that I had a neutral person (someone I felt I could trust implicitly) and a neutral place to discuss these issues. The big surprise for me was learning to appreciate much of what was good about my existing working life – this gave me a much better perspective to make decisions about my future career.
I learnt that modest changes in my behaviour could have a significant impact on my effectiveness with colleagues, so my sense of satisfaction in my work increased as a result. I have carried these lessons over to other aspects of my life as well. I felt I learned a lot about myself, the impact I made on people and how to have the impact I wanted. I was given strategies to deal with situations more constructively. I came away from sessions keen to go and practice my new skills and got pleasure from seeing them work.
The process gave me the courage to make the decision to leave work and renew my studies – plus it made the process of leaving more manageable. It helped me to plan my departure and to move on.
Claire – Client Director,
offshore financial service industry
I was in a phase of my career where I saw some coaching needs. Being in banking, where most of the managers end up in their position because they are good at their specific jobs (rather than good at managing) I hardly ever received any honest or constructive feedback. My anticipation was to have honest dialogue with a professional coach and to get more insight about myself, especially with regard to my interactions with my team members, peers and management.
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Many of the topics we addressed were eye openers to me. They helped to create more awareness about my actions, my participation in meetings, the direction I wanted to give to discussions and the outcome of them.
My interaction with people has changed a lot. I have less meetings, give clearer direction and step back more to let others do the work or talking (empowering and trusting my team).
Coaching is not about sitting back and relaxing and I would only advise it to people who are ready to work and put in the effort. That’s the only way to get a result out of it.
Sven – Managing Director,
global banking group
We had longstanding inter-personal conflicts within our Executive Team that were damaging both the wellbeing of the individuals and the performance of the business. Although we had been working on the issues for a long time, with various professionals, we were not getting to the roots of the issues or finding solutions...
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Paul worked with each of the individuals involved in the conflict to help us understand our own behaviours and how they might be either fuelling the conflict or amplifying the negative effects of the conflict. He then helped us identify potentially more positive behaviours, implement them and review their effectiveness. In doing this, Paul also equipped each of us with general-purpose communications habits that have proven effective in a wide range of routine and exceptional management situations.
PEC's intervention helped individuals in my team learn to examine and change their behaviours. This allowed the team to adapt dynamically to very challenging and unpredictable periods in our business. In essence, Paul taught us as individuals and as a team that we could actively evolve our individual and team behaviours so that we were keeping up with our environment, rather than becoming ill-adapted and ultimately extinct.
What changed was that we viewed non-functioning relationships, poor managers and persistent disagreements as things that we had the skills to repair. I believe that this ultimately led to significant commercial advantage to the Company and benefit to the individuals.
John – Managing Director,
aerospace sector
