My Services
Team coaching for senior teams at transition points
Most senior teams can run business as usual. The test comes when the ground moves: a sale is on the horizon, a merger has to be made to work, a new chief executive arrives, or leadership passes from one generation to the next. At those moments the team’s habits are exposed. Decisions slow, honest conversation moves to the corridors, and the gap between what is said in the room and what is said afterwards widens.
That is the work I do: senior leadership team coaching through the turning points that decide what the organisation becomes next.
Research backs this up. In Senior Leadership Teams: What It Takes to Make Them Great, Ruth Wageman and colleagues identify team coaching as a key enabler of effective senior teams. In practice, it helps teams shift the patterns that drive performance (and the ones that quietly undermine it).
The moments I’m brought in for
Preparing for a sale or investment.
A team that leads well together, keeps its clients and its best people, and tells a growth story that holds up under questioning is worth more to a buyer, and better to be part of on the way there.
Making a merger work.
Two or more legacy cultures becoming one leadership team, with all the assumptions, loyalties and unfinished business that brings.
A new chief executive or senior leader.
Forming the team around a new chapter, rather than leaving it to run on the last one’s patterns.
Succession and leadership change.
Turning the page deliberately, so the incoming team is not governed by the outgoing team’s habits.
A first real leadership team.
A group of capable department heads becoming a unit that leads the whole organisation, not five functions that meet monthly.
A change of strategy or direction.
The plan has changed but the objectives, habits and pecking order were built for the old one, and every meeting quietly runs on yesterday’s logic until someone resets the table.
How it works
I start with a diagnostic, not a workshop. Usually that means a one-to-one conversation with every member of the team, synthesised into an honest picture of the patterns shaping how the group functions. That synthesis goes to the team, not into a drawer. It becomes the starting point for the work.
From there we agree a committed programme of team sessions, paced to what the business needs rather than fixed to the calendar, with each session building on the commitments made at the last. The commitments are ones the team makes, not ones it is handed.
Where it adds value, I integrate psychometrics. I’m accredited in the full Hogan suite (HPI, HDS and MVPI) and in Insights Discovery. Used well, these tools are not the answer; they are a catalyst for more honest conversation and better decisions.
Typical areas of focus include:
Surfacing patterns: what you repeat under pressure, and what it costs you
Clarifying purpose and the work that only this team can do
Improving the quality of dialogue, debate and decision-making
Building the muscle for constructive conflict
Strengthening trust, appreciation and team-level accountability
Working explicitly with power dynamics and avoidance
Translating this into practical changes in meetings, decisions and day-to-day leadership
What makes this different
My approach is Gestalt-informed and complexity-aware. That means we focus less on fixing individuals, and more on shifting the conditions and patterns through which performance emerges.
Diagnostics and psychometrics (Hogan and Insights)
Where it adds value, I integrate diagnostic data into the work. I offer the full suite of Hogan psychometrics (HPI, HDS and MVPI) and Insights Discovery reports. These tools can accelerate self-awareness, surface risks under pressure, and help teams make better use of their differences.
Used well, psychometrics are not the answer. They are a catalyst for deeper, more honest conversations and better decisions.