Wellbeing Escapes Peter Stearn, Director, Wellbeing Escapes Ltd.
“We entered into a learning partnership with InterCHANGE and Philip Barnes in
July 2011. We felt there were gaps in our management skill sets and it would be
beneficial to speak to someone independent to identify and help bridge those
gaps. We purposely spread our sessions with Philip over a long period so we
could try to learn, apply and then assess how we were progressing.
More specifically we felt we lacked expertise and experience in the area of
finance. This in terms of how our financial and management information would
be assessed by lenders and potential investors with the aim of raising
investment capital and ultimately valuing our company.
We did address these areas to a certain degree and received some valuable
advice in terms of what performance indicators were important and where our
focus should be. In addition we spoke a lot about our operation and how we as
managers were allocating our time on a day to day basis. The purpose of this to
bring a focus and a degree of discipline to achieving the goals set out in our
formal business plan. Because our time and sessions were limited overall, we
actually were frustrated at one point because it seemed we spent time
discussing issues we knew existed and had experience addressing rather than
the other issues where we felt we needed more advice.
However we knew inretrospect that we ended up discussing these issues because they were barriersto us in moving the company forward. So in sense, he held a mirror up to us and
made us take a look at the obvious so we work on those things first. We think
Philip’s primary expertise is process management and gaining efficiencies.
An area where we gained insight we had not planned on, was in how our
customer might view our service and product.
He has many of the attributes thatare customers do and he gave us honest feedback in how he, and by association our customers, would view our company. This was ultimately valuable to us. In
the latter sessions we were actually drafting a long term business plan and he
critiqued this document for us and gave recommendations on what should be
included and why. This was probably the most valuable and productive process
we went through with Philip.
Parties that had a reason to read and review thebusiness plan were complimentary about the logic, content and overall clearoutline that had been developed for future planning of the business.
All that is good, but Philip left us with a clear message that you must execute
your plans and manage your business with ‘rigor’. That last message has stuck
with us.”
Facilitators: Catherine Hamilton and Marisa Angellilo
“As a new line manager I found the leadership development course for people managers invaluable. I have used many of the lessons, skills and suggestions shared by the trainers, over the last year. I really feel that the course gave me the confidence, as well as a tool box of skills, to manage my team in a fair and consistent way. I liked that it also encouraged different leadership styles, and allowed me to explore what leadership meant to me.”
Michelle O’Brien, Head of Operations, Mosaic
Once again, InterCHANGE People Development have supported and enriched our staff development programme with the delivery of two of our most popular programmes: Leadership Development for People Managers and Facilitation Skills.
We always receive fantastic feedback on Catherine Hamilton’s delivery, and we were delighted that Edward Kellow could join her in co-facilitating our Leadership training. Our delegates gave the LDPM programme an average of 9.3 out of 10.
“I would definitely recommend it to others. It was excellent”’.
Liz Cox, BITC Learning and Development Manager
InterCHANGE has been working with Business in the Community since April 2010 to design and deliver our in-house Leadership Development for Line Managers Programme.
The experience, insight and expertise of Karen and the InterCHANGE team, coupled with their flexibility, responsiveness and commitment to the success of our programme has
meant that we are able to provide a highly-tailored, relevant course to our managers which equips them with the skills, knowledge, self-awareness and confidence to lead
their teams effectively. Their supportive, partnership approach and passion for developing people and organisations has made working with Interchange a positive, inspiring experience.