Clients

Testimonials

“Hilary has been great in helping me on a number of occasions, providing invaluable coaching and transforming my leadership capability and my management team. She is very good at asking the difficult questions, always provides a unique insight into the situation and at the same time is fun to work with. I have over the years found her support invaluable!”

“Getting good people to believe that they could be better is always a struggle. Getting those people to understand how much better they could work with each other is even tougher. Working with Hilary over the last 8 years has taught me that there is no substitute for a good (and tough) executive coach if you want to improve the performance of your people. Grounded in solid science, she gets people to believe that things really can change in how they work and, especially, how they work with each other. The end result is more efficient, more self-aware and much more motivated key people.”

“…She combines a sharp intellect with strong professional ethics, an eye for detail with an ability to step back from current-day details and develop engaging, innovative future scenarios. While professional knowledge is important, I found Hilary's disposition no less impactful. She has great people skills, excellent cultural sensitivity and a truly impressive sense of humour…”

“Hilary really sorted me out, got me to see things a lot more clearly, and ultimately helped me to “climb the ladder” more effectively, and with greater confidence. She was engagingly challenging, but always in a supportive manner; expertly probing and making me find the answers and solutions to the improvements I was looking for myself.”

“Hilary has been a great career coach for me, and a breath of fresh air. She has a creative and thoughtful style and excels at asking the hard questions and challenging assumptions, pushing for more robust outcomes. Hilary is well informed and pragmatic in her approach, whilst also drawing on a variety of disciplines and frameworks to inform her coaching. She is very good at developing trust and working with people to get the best out of them by demonstrating her engagement with all the issues, big and small, and can be relied upon to expand the range of possibilities most people set themselves.”

“John is fully present when we are in a coaching session - his energy and expression, body language is directed at what I am saying. He summarizes major points and articulates them back to me in a measured and accurate way which gives me the feeling that he is not only listening but that he processes and sorts what I am saying. This really resonates with me - he understands what I am talking about and the challenges I have. His body language and facial expression are all part of this communication.”

“I find John’s manner and energy re-assuring, it inspires confidence and trust. I felt very comfortable at our first coaching meeting …The way John outlined and reinforced what the coaching relationship entails and that I make the choices around what is discussed and “done” was particularly helpful at putting me at my ease. I was able to trust John in the first session and in previous coaching relationships this trust would take a while to establish itself."

“I feel John listened intently to me and was sensitive to my situations. John was very patient and let me derive my own conclusions organically through posing questions to me that related to my career and what I want.”

“…I don't think there were any moments in our coaching when we were not talking about the right things and focusing on me and my issues.”

Our Approach

First steps are to get to know the clients’ needs and ensure there is a fit, that the “chemistry” is right. We agree the mandate and approach with the client, be that company or individual. With all services, and in particular one to one coaching, “chemistry” and ensuring a fit with our style and approach is important. We both have a choice. We believe in equality in this choice. You will need to want to work with us and vice versa. This rapport and trust is critical to a successful outcome.

The coaching process focuses on both the "inner game” and the "outer game”. The inner game means – how we think and what we believe and what we feel [ consciously and unconsciously ] and we need to know the inner game in order to play the best outer game. By setting goals we establish what it is you want and set about reducing the gap between what you want and what you currently have. The gap can become our “sand box” in which we ”play”. It is safe, it is confidential, it is our place where we can try things and use them if they work, or discard them if they don’t. We always focus on your agenda. The coaching conversation is always in context, with purpose, sometimes difficult and never just a "cosy, cup of coffee.”

Hilary J Dobson managing partner

Her style and approach is relational where results arise from the dynamic between herself and her clients. The relationship is best viewed as a “third party” which creates a sense of dynamism and continuous change. Every relationship is unique and results for the individual coaching are different with every encounter; coaching is a living, human process. There is a high degree of professional intimacy between Hilary and her clients and the experience a deeply personal and emotionally rich one.

Hilary pays absolute attention to her client and what is happening, reflecting back her own experience to the client in order that they discover things about themselves, rather like a mirror. The coaching is always in harness to the agreed agenda, outcomes and goals so that the coaching conversation is an incisive and a pertinent reflection of the client's unconscious strategies. Her belief is that the coaching helps to create new choices as the executive becomes conscious of what they are actually doing. An action plan is created transitioning the client from "unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence.”

John McCormick partner

John is a listener. He is also a teller of tales and a master of metaphor. He regales war stories that are funny, appropriate but always serve a purpose. They are incisive and delivered for impact, but only to help you get to where you want to go. His style and approach is full of humour to engage his client in learning how to deal with their own emotions and those of important and powerful others. Action oriented and structured in his approach to coaching, he is focused on raising consistency of performance within an individual, a team and an organisation. He believes that a brief precise chat “on the side of the pitch” can be as important as hours on the “practice ground.”

For John, sports and sports psychology are driving passions. John holds a strong ethical belief that it is not only important how you “play the game”, but to win fairly. It is equally important to know which games to play and to be able cope with the pressures of success and failure. John believes that there is a price to pay for both. Sometimes it is best to exit and so it is important to have a well thought out exit strategy. Genuine and multi faceted, John cares very much that his clients succeed, and do so on their own terms. Clients enjoy winning more often, but, when they lose, they have a better understanding as to why. This offers more control and balance for our clients in their busy and complex lives.

Our Services

• 1 to 1 coaching
• pairs coaching – 2 coaches on 1 coachee
• mentoring
• team coaching
• strategic meeting and offsite facilitation
• leadership development
• talent and high performing management development
• leadership evaluation – Chairman, Board, CEO and CEO direct reports
• C Suite business consulting
• C Suite crisis management – regulatory, investors, staff, media, communication

The Benefits

• higher performing individuals, executive teams and Boards
• sense of calm, increased confidence, more energy and motivation
• increased self awareness with an enhanced toolkit
• better relationship management skills
• understanding conflict management and negotiation skills
• business achieves goals more consistently
• participants become the “authors of their own lives”
• individuals take back control