HR and Corporate services
Corporate services
Those in HR roles are often the first to spot that a leader or a team might be struggling or in need of a tweak. In my experience, they’ll often see it long before leaders or team members realise it themselves.
I’m not just another coach: I’m a therapist and a mediator too. That’s why I work with top-level HR leaders. They’re savvy enough to know that the success of the company they work for can depend on them getting their people the right support at the right time. With my blend of coaching, therapy, and mediation skills, I’m uniquely qualified to provide the right support to the people that their companies want to invest in, to continue to escalate growth and success.
It’s my therapy training that raises my services above those offered by most coaches. Most successful leaders have huge workloads, and are under a lot of pressure, which will always affect them emotionally. My unique blend of coaching, therapy, and mediation skills allows me to succinctly guide leaders through a huge variety of practical and emotional issues, helping them to learn how to better manage their emotional selves, as well as how to better support, guide and grow their teams.
I work directly with individual leaders and teams; and with whole boards and c-suite teams too, to facilitate company culture changes using top-down ethos. I also offer workshops, in-house training, mediation, talks, and internal coach supervision. In sensitive 1:2:1 situations, I can begin by coaching a client, whilst assessing whether the subtle, discreet introduction of some therapeutic practices might be useful to their development too.
“Mari brings value across all areas of our firm, there isn’t something I have discussed with her that she couldn’t help with or advise on. She helps leaders move forward if they are stuck in their personal lives, careers, or both. She understands them and where there could be blockers from something else in their life. The emotional side has been huge where we have seen people really struggling for a number of different reasons, work and personal life to go on and achieve promotion within the firm.”
Leaders & Senior Executives
FINDING YOUR BALANCE
Most of my clients are Business leaders and senior executives – people who are highly ambitious and want to succeed, yet don’t want to sacrifice other areas of their lives (but this might be happening). I meet a lot of leaders who, sometimes beneath a veneer of calm success, are struggling, and feel they’re failing to balance their commitments.
As an HR leader, you may notice people losing balance in one or more areas before they’re aware of it themselves. When they do realise it, they may feel they can’t admit it to anyone, for fear of being perceived as weak. Given the opportunity, I can empower those people to become the best leaders they can be; to boost their performance and their fulfillment, and to find their creativity and innovation. As I say in my book, It Begins with You: leaders are people first, and leaders second.
Everyone is different, and that’s why my approach will differ from one leader client to the next. However, though the solutions may be different in each case, similar issues do come up repeatedly, such as:
Fear of failure
Imposter Syndrome
Burnout
A lack of self-confidence or self-worth
Stress, and feelings of isolation
Problems with switching off or relaxing
Issues with delegation, micro-management, or feeling out of control
Poor communication, conflict management and decision making
HOW I WORK
I work with each leader as an individual. I identify their issues, and then, with them, create a bespoke plan to clear those issues and enable them to access their inner strengths, resources and capabilities.
I favour a holistic approach, giving my clients practical skills as well as coaching and therapy where appropriate – a methodology that’s proved highly successful. The work itself is deeply empathetic, yet solution-orientated - providing leaders with strong foundations for their leadership, that allow them to carry on developing themselves long after their work with me has ended. Most of my clients continue their professional development, because they value the high levels of positive change they see in themselves.
We all carry emotional baggage from our pasts, and we each need to clear our baggage to truly reach our full potential. Through my work, I aim to not only rid my clients of emotional baggage, but also to transform their unconscious minds into superpowers that work for them - leading each client to a place of focus and congruency, and leaving them focused, productive, happy, and able to resolve challenges as they arise. The changes are fast, permanent, and expansive. My clients don’t have to learn or remember new processes - they become better leaders naturally, and are able to build on their foundations to continually improve.
SOLUTIONS FOR THE WORKPLACE
TOP-DOWN ETHOS: WORKING WITH THE C-SUITE/ BOARD
Changes are most effective when they come from the very top. However, through my work with many HR leaders, I’ve learned how difficult it can sometimes be to change the behaviour or mindset of a board member – or indeed, those of a whole board.
If you feel that your board are limiting the positive impact you can create, then let’s talk. By boosting your board’s decision-making and communication skills, and giving them the support necessary to attain healthy mindsets, they can reach their peak performance – and that can be modelled all the way down through your organisation.
I offer an in-depth bespoke service to identify any issues that are preventing your board from working cohesively, and any areas of their performance which need to be honed. Using my mediation experience, I can sit-in on meetings to identify problem areas, including any possible conflict, or lack-of-communication issues. I can also provide 1:2:1’s, boosting each individual’s performance using my coaching and therapy experience, as well as additional training and support before bringing all the board members together as a group.
As you may have seen, the cascade effect is incredibly powerful - and when change comes right from the top, it makes an HR leader’s job much easier. If you’d like me to help you trigger change from the top, do get in touch.
Working with the C-suite / board
PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
As an HR leader, you’ll know that to really encourage the growth of your people, you need to offer real career training, and regular opportunities for personal development.
My skills and experience allow me to offer a wide variety of training programmes to fulfil your organisation’s needs - full days, longer programmes that involve training over consecutive months, and more between - and I’ll be happy to work with you to create something bespoke. I also offer Talks.
Frequent training topics have included:
Internal mentor training
Communication and conflict management
Personal development
Talks:
How your brain holds you back from moving forwards
Alternative leadership: what it is, and why it’s important
Communication and conflict
Bespoke talks
If you're interested in developing your people’s skills and mindsets, get in touch.
Training/ workshops/ Talks
Internal coach supervison
WHY SUPERVISON FOR YOUR COACHES IS NECESSARY
Many organisations are now making the investment of training their own people in coaching. It’s a great step forward for those businesses, and for the people who work for them. Sadly, however, many organisations think that the initial training is all they’ll ever need to do.
If your business employs internal coaches, it’s vital that they are offered external supervision - to protect their own mental health, give them a wider objective view of how to better support and guide your staff, and to allow them to continue to build their skill-set beyond their initial training. A coaching supervisor will bring a non-biased view to the cases shared, and can offer extra learning and guidance in how to work with coachees, as well as ensuring that a coach’s practice remains ‘clean’.
What do I mean by ‘clean’?
Unless coaching to a particular goal, coaching should be unbiased. But when coaches are only supervised by others from within the same company, the supervisory advice they give can become coloured by that company’s culture - this can happen unconsciously, even when coaches are making a conscious effort to stay ‘clean’. It’s so important that coaches and coachees both know they are working in a way that’s right for the coachee, and not just complying with their company’s culture.
I can not only provide external coaching supervision, but also contribute an unbiased opinion on how your internal coaches are growing their own practices, and offer further knowledge, skills and resources for them to continue to build their own growth. I can also recommend further training where necessary, look out for the mental welfare of your coaches, and even help them to judge when a coachee might need therapy, a GP referral, or other external services.
I can provide supervision for individual coaches, for coaches as a group, or a mix of both.
Why Me?
My approach is unique, person first, leader second. I bring a mix of leadership coaching, therapy and mediation. I also have years of teaching, parenting and relationship work as well as my own experience as a parent of five. I will help you gain balance across your whole life and give you skills that apply in all areas of your life.
I don't just help you cope with stress, I help you resolve the reasons why you are stressed so you don't have to cope anymore.
I don't help you gradually move towards success, I help you understand why you weren't successful in the first place. This means you stop repeating the same mistakes.
I’m direct and honest, whilst being empathetic and approachable. You may be working at a high level where others fear to challenge you. I do not. I bring a fresh outside perspective to your life.
Working from a highly honed intuition, I have a track record of getting to the root of the problem quickly and therefore we find resolutions fast.
I offer you deep change from within whilst also providing mental and practical tools you can apply instantly. This means you keep on growing for the rest of your life.
I work as flexibly as I can with you around your schedule. We can walk and talk and I've even held sessions when my client was on their rowing machine. I'll work with you to find a solution.
Clients
Some Kind Words About Me
“Mari has helped me during my career transition. She went straight to the point, found the core of the problem and showed me the way. All done with kind and loving words that made me feel safe to go forward. I highly recommend her!”
“The personal and business benefits that I gained from working with Mari were truly exceptional - quite unlike any other coaches that I have worked with previously.
Her extraordinary talent for cutting straight through to the critical, underlying issues of a situation enabled me to make gains that I would not have thought possible in just a few short sessions of working with her. I thoroughly recommend her.”