Case Study Testimonials
Shane Tickell – Executive Coaching Testimonial – 17th August 2009
"I know so much more about myself now than I did six months ago. When I entered this arrangement it was from a place of not being sure what I need at this stage; I know there are some things wrong and some things I want to get better and Executive Coaching works for me in so many ways I can't describe. I only know that the outcome and the end result are just amazing; it is like black magic.
For this particular series of sessions, what I've wanted to do is not just impact myself, but to positively impact those around me. Over the last month since the last session, there are so many positive things that I've done and that have come out of it; things I have been able to achieve, and there is no doubt that I was in no way capable of doing them six months ago. Those successful things have been that we've won some deals, we've negotiated some situations with difficult clients that we'd not been able to do before and I've been able to do a series of positive presentations to all of my staff and that's what I mean by impacting other people.
The successes I've had and the way I've been able to communicate in a much better fashion is due to the Coaching sessions with Robyn and due to the fact that we've discussed them here has had a very positive impact on the team. I've had people take action from the meetings that has been incredibly positive on the rest of the organisation and some of those actions have actually really surprised everybody, and it's been fantastic.
I have so far enjoyed and achieved far more than I wanted to coming into this series of Coaching sessions with Robyn and I've no doubt that I'll continue to do so. I feel a different person. I absolutely feel a different person from six months ago at a completely different level and not just a level I've achieved that is making me feel better than I did; here's a level I've achieved from which I'll never go back down. And there are so many aspects of not just my work, but my life which I feel far more in control about, far more relaxed about.
When situations get particularly challenging and they are particularly urgent I don't feel the stress normally associated with the urgency of trying to solve the situation. There are skills and thought processes that I've learned during these Coaching sessions that Robyn has helped me to find within myself, that she has given me advice on, that I've been able to take away and implement immediately.
It's very difficult, not knowing what the process is going to be like to trust it, but you have to trust the Coach and the process. I trust Robyn and I think we've had some amazing conversations.
You've just got to turn up, pay your money, trust and be honest and open and all the things we contracted for at the beginning of this Coaching series is what you've got to sign up to. I don't even think you need to be clear about your objectives and what you want out of the sessions. In fact, if you're too prescriptive then it can be more challenging.
I think I wanted to hurry the process. Robyn mentioned I was trying to do too much in a short space of time, and I liken it to if you were learning to drive and you've never driven a car before and you go on a five-day course and you come out and you take your test on the fifth day then you might pass your test. Would you have had the worldly experience in a five-day period to be a competent, newly qualified driver? I would suggest not. I have always questioned that condensed way of doing things. Whereas with this process, you need to sign up to a period of time and you need to let that time take place because those experiences need to come through, you need to feel them, you need to deal with them and I guess to be challenged by them.
The way to remove the nervousness of starting, is just to think, whatever it is, I'm going to be different at the end of this process. And it will only be positive, and I guarantee anybody who signs up to the terms and applies themselves and opens up to it, I guarantee that the outcome will be positive for them. It's priceless; it's not something you can put a value on, in monetary terms.
Coaching with Robyn has given me the confidence to go and ask some difficult questions. As a leader, it is somewhat challenging to open up to people and show your nervousness. If you're a leader you are expected to know where you're going all the time and people often expect you to know everything and to be confident all the time to do everything. I think that a good leader isn't frightened to question themselves and take account of opinion. And that's effectively what I've been able to do."
Shane Tickell, CEO, IMS MAXIMS
Tim Thomas-Peter – Executive Coaching Testimonial – 25th June 2009
"When I went into coaching, I really had no clue what to expect and more importantly, no clue as to what I might get from it. I wasn't really sure what the purpose of it all was. What I did know was that I was ready for it.
For me, what Coaching was before I talked to Robyn was more of a management fad; buzzwords that people throw around to make extra jobs to be the middleman. With hindsight, what Coaching is for me is nothing to do with building skills or expertise; I think I already have a lot of that. What it is for me is building an awareness of what makes me tick, what makes me take the decisions that I take, what makes me good at the things I'm good at and what makes me ineffective at the things I'm not very good at. It's also an awareness of the impact of what I'm doing and the way I do it has on other people, whether it is personally or whether it is at work. My aim with this was to improve my business, but it does float into all areas of my life.
If I said, what difference does it make to me after nine months, and certainly I am not finished yet, I am still work in progress, I'll put that in two ways: one is that I regularly have light bulb moments; that is, whether it is during a session or afterwards or while I'm doing something, I suddenly realise why something works that I have done for a long time, but I've no clue why or how I was doing it. The other thing that I have become aware of that was completely unconscious, was that the way I behave has changed. I didn't notice this, but other people commented. "You seem to be more enthusiastic lately" or "You seem to be clearer lately in what you want, in what you are doing". And I hadn't been aware that I was changing, so it's interesting that other people noticed that.
If that is too touchy-feely for some people, and it's not a reason to go and do coaching, the other thing I've noticed is a direct result on the business bottom line. I've improved my profits from this. The way that has happened for me (and it will be different for everyone I am sure) is that when I went to Business School and through various things I have read, one of the things I had been taught was that it is really difficult to get new customers, and it is really easy to lose them. It sounds logical and it sounds true, but actually if you think what that does to the way you operate it makes you go out with a completely different frame of mind, it makes you think "I've got to have a really big effort here to go find a new customer because it's so difficult." And you're stressing out all the time that you're going to lose the ones you've got. But if you turn that around and teach yourself to believe that it's really easy to get new customers, there are opportunities everywhere, you could fall on one at any stage of the day, it doesn't matter what you are doing. You can stop worrying about it and the way to keep customers is obviously just to do a lot of great things for them and they won't want to go anywhere else.
Now, that's not a massive change in anything except the way I've got my brain wired if you like, but it has resulted in more conversions of leads over the last few months than we have had in the last two years. And yes, there could be other factors, but I am absolutely convinced that Coaching with Robyn is a major part of it.
Finally, there are two other things I would like to say: if you think you're ready for Coaching, don't hesitate. Even if you're not sure why you are ready or what it might do for you. Jump in with both feet as that was exactly my situation. Approach it with an open mind. The fact is you have no idea what Coaching is going to do for you or what form it is going to take. So just let it happen and see what happens. Be open-minded.
Robyn has done a great job for me and I will continue to work with her and I will probably get some of my other staff to do the same thing once I have finished the process."
Tim Thomas-Peter, Managing Director, Triangle Software
Alan Jones – Executive Breakthrough Testimonial – 12th March 2009
"So, at the point where I first spoke to Robyn I'd had some experience of coaching but it had been in a context that hadn't really worked for me and I was rather sceptical about what value it might offer me now. Nevertheless, on one of those long drives home I spoke to Robyn from the car for about 45 minutes and she asked me some of those "brutal questions" that I'd been ignoring for a long time. She made me confront and answer those questions, made me examine why I was doing what I was doing when - as I was now beginning to understand - I wasn't truly fulfilled by it.
The result was that we agreed to have a session together. After 5 hours of pretty intensive work, I stumbled out of the room having made some important realisations about what I've been doing for years without proper planning, without proper thought and (most importantly, I think) without genuine engagement.
I'd gone from one role to another, believing they were what I was interested in and wanted to do, yet suddenly things started coming out that suggested otherwise: I realised I'd been working for companies whose values I'd never fully shared, doing things that I was good at, or I became good at, but that I wasn't fundamentally passionate about. I wouldn't say I came out of the session knowing exactly where I was going, but it allowed me to make some ground rules for myself, like: don't work for someone whose values I don't share or with whom I don't connect on a personal level. In fact, with the benefit of hindsight I can now say that I was already questioning whether I actually wanted to work for someone else at all.
A few other things have happened since then that were almost chance developments, but they've come together to give me the opportunity and the confidence to set up my own business, to sell via the Internet (something I've not done before) natural and organic products (something I didn't know very much about) into non-English-speaking markets, which is one thing I do know something about.
Robyn helped me to see clearly what I'd been doing that I shouldn't really have been doing. She got me thinking about some fundamental things that I really enjoyed, that I had to look back to my childhood and teenage years to find - things that had inspired me. I'd made a radical change of direction to study languages at University, so surely there must have been a powerful reason for that. I realised that it was because I had a deep, genuine and enduring fascination for the subject, and that this presented an opportunity to now use something that is a part of me, that's knitted into me. Here was an opportunity to carry my life forward in a fulfilling way rather than just going through the motions of taking a job in, let's say, technical sales and marketing or general management, just because that's what I've been doing for years.
I still feel very inspired by what happened in that five hour session and I'm very excited about what the future holds. I'm still looking now and then at job adverts to hedge my bets, but I'm being much more discerning and with each one I think "So, why am I applying for this job?" I can see there is often no match between what they want and what I am, so I'm actually applying for very few jobs indeed. The bulk of the effort now goes towards trying to build my own business, where I'm in charge of what's going to happen, where I'm deciding what's going to work and what isn't going to work for me. So, thank you Robyn."
Alan Jones, Director, Cheshire Green Ltd
Birgit Wilde – Individual Coaching Testimonial – 25th June 2009
"Robyn didn't propose a set agenda or pre-arranged format. She didn't whip out a 100-page manual either. She just went with the flow. No matter what came up in the conversation or what you'd 'throw' at her, Robyn knew how to turn it into something positive. Her vast experience, varied therapy skills and intuitive approaches very quickly made a huge difference to how I felt and soon enabled me to see where I wanted to be. Robyn has all the qualities you would expect from a good coach but her ability to get to the bottom of things is second to none. She is extremely easy to work with and her great sense of humour makes even some of the toughest sessions enjoyable. I would highly recommend Robyn, whether for personal or business motives."
Birgit Wilde, Business Development Manager, Sensei UKE
Birgit Wilde – Psychometric Profiling Testimonial – 28th October 2009
"The way Robyn chose to present the results was very different indeed from your stereotypical, computer-generated report where you can't help thinking that the only thing that gets changed is the [insert name here] field. Instead, I had a two hour session where Robyn explained in great detail the results of the questionnaires, their implications in general terms and what this would mean specifically for me. The quality and accuracy of the information interpreted was very impressive and the examples Robyn used were totally relevant to my situation. Having the results explained to me and receiving the feedback face-to-face was very valuable and really allowed me to put my personality profile into context. Being able to recognise und understand why I behave and had behaved - in certain ways in certain situations is an invaluable experience, which has also enabled me to shape parts of my new job role to play to my strengths."
Birgit Wilde, Business Development Manager, Sensei UKE
Shane Tickell – Inspirational Leadership Testimonial – 1st October 2009
Shane Tickell, CEO, IMS MAXIMS
Dr Susi Strang – Inspirational Trainer Testimonial – 15th September 2009
Dr Susi Strang, NLP Master Trainer, Dr Susi Strang & Associates
Sue Benson – Psychotherapy Testimonial – 30th April 2009
"I was desperate to change and at first was probably a little impatient with myself trying too hard to get 'it' right and to say the right things. Robyn as a Psychotherapist knew my reactions and over the sessions she challenged some of my thinking and helped me see things from a different perspective.
I have learnt so much about myself over this time and Robyn really is a brilliant Coach and Psychotherapist; she has guided me through the process and supported my journey to discover the real me."
Sue Benson, Midwife, NW General Hospital
Carol Sheard – External Coach Recommendation for NHS Leadership Academy – 21st July 2008
I can vouch for Robyn's personal integrity, enthusiasm and professional approach in all that she sets out to achieve. Her personal approach is such that her coaching style is entirely client centred and therefore completely adaptable to the environment, sector, hierarchy or profession.
Personally, I have found Robyn to be incredibly constructive, appropriately challenging with the energy and enthusiasm to inspire change from within myself.
Carol Sheard, Associate Director, East Lancs PCT
Steve Dwobeng – Individual Coaching Testimonial – 27th July 2008
Steve Dwobeng, HR Director