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A message from David Storrs

As we all start to get over the shock of recent weeks and start to look forward, I thought it would help to share where we are in HPC and the direction we are moving.

Our highest priority is to support our colleagues as they seek ways to support their family and friends who are particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 and the impact of isolation. And our thoughts and support are with all of you, our clients and partners, as you deal with the same practical and emotional challenges.

Along with this we are taking every step possible to help the national effort to minimise the spread of the virus. We are strictly applying the guidance from government on recommended protocols.

Our headquarters in Belfast is working with reduced staff with everybody else working remotely. Our facilitators, coaches and client team are available to you, so please contact them in the same way that you normally would.

We are a resilient bunch at HPC and we have a fantastic team of committed professionals with the skill-set that is required in times of need to support and guide our clients. That time is now.

Many of you will know us for the high-quality blended learning experiences we provide. We were pioneers in blended learning and we have been using virtual delivery in many of our bespoke programmes for several years now. So, we are very comfortable and confident in our ability to switch to “full virtual” delivery.

This week several clients have instructed us to move to “full virtual” delivery for forthcoming programmes. Over the next few weeks, it is highly likely we will be switching to virtual delivery for all of our workshops.

We will also be supporting our clients with tools to manage remotely, manage virtual meetings effectively and develop greater resilience. If you wish to speak with either me or Kevin about enabling your programmes virtually, please contact us.*

All our 1:1 Coaching Sessions have been switched to on-line. We can provide immediate coaching support to Leaders to help them rise to the immediate and impending challenges they face.

HPC has been built by a community of passionate people – our team and our clients – and it’s so important to remember that a community is a social unit and not a gathering. We remain unified with you even in our distance and we are available to work with you through this unprecedented challenge.

We are also part of a wider community and we will continue to follow government guidelines and do everything we can to extend care, consideration and kindness, so all can remain as safe and healthy as possible.

Remember that we are all only an email, phone call or video call away from each other. We know we will get through this and we are committed to supporting you get through it too. Take care of yourselves and your loved ones.

David

‘Purpose is an ever-evolving process that touches everyone’, HPC’s John Hill explores the meaning of purpose, and how having purpose challenges and empowers people and teams within organisations.

In our work with leaders, organisations and teams, generally speaking, we are not long into the conversation or the work before the theme of purpose raises its head. If it is a coaching engagement with a team or an individual, we aim to discover and unlock the purpose of the coaching so that we have an agreed outcome to strive towards. If it’s a programme of leadership development, it helps to focus the work if we know what outcome the work is there to serve.

This is the ‘Why’, that Simon Sinek alludes to in his theory of the Golden Circle’, that sets organisations apart from those who know just what they do and how they do it. It presents a challenge and a calling to every decision, every strategy, every behaviour and every practice within the organisation and impels the organisation and its people to reflect on and question their rationale for each strategy and initiative.

It is important to point out here that there are almost always, multiple purposes at work within organisations and teams. For some it is the performance of their department against an agreed KPI, for others it is may be preparing for a major political shift, and for others it may be that there are compelling purposes both inside and outside the organisation. In a recent piece of work we did with a senior leadership team, it was a case of helping them find resonance between two strongly compelling and equally valid purposes – that of providing exceptional charitable services to their clients and that of  helping the organisation to meet commercial goals, both of which, at times, in terms of values, seemed at odds with each other.

It is helpful for leaders and people in organisations to think of their purpose as a living, breathing, evolving thing which is always present and which constantly has to be responded to and interacted with. Katzenbach and Smith, in their seminal book ‘The Wisdom of Teams’, posit that ‘better teams often treat purpose like an offspring in constant need of their care and attention.

This makes perfect sense in a world, to quote Thomas Freidman, that is ‘changing at warp speed and directly or indirectly touching a lot more people on the planet at once”. Our purposes will have to evolve to meet the demands and needs of that world. These are demands, needs and desires that are becoming different and distinct from those of ten, twenty, thirty or forty years ago. For example, we find that millennials and Gen Z’ers are looking for different things out of life and work than their predecessors. Tellingly, a recent survey by Deloitte revealed that 63% of millennial workers believed that improving lives was more important than generating profit – a quantum shift indeed.

It is no longer enough to encapsulate a purpose in a well worded catch phrase, frame it and mount in on the wall behind reception – it may be out of date before the paint has had time to fade around it. Instead, purpose needs to be made real. There is a danger of empty rhetoric and lofty principles that bear no relationship to the culture and everyday experience of those who live in the organisation. There is also a risk that, in framing purpose as a fixed idea, a constitutional principle, it loses relevance to the dynamics of a rapidly changing global environment.

One very helpful model which I have used both with leaders and teams to help them consider their purpose, is that of the Purpose Diamond, devised by Ed Rowland of The Whole Partnership. In it he considers the ‘founding purpose’, which first brought the team or the organisation into being. A founding purpose of the organisation that may have been legitimate at the outset might not be appropriate now. Then there is what he calls the ‘espoused purpose’ – what everyone says the purpose is, or what they are supposed to say the purpose is. This can become merely a mantra and bear no real relationship to the ‘at work’ purpose – what the team or the organisation are really focused on in this present moment. Then there is the true purpose, towards which the focus of the team and the leadership have to consistently direct their attention. “Why are we really here? To do what? And in service of whom?’ That answer should both resonate with those in the team and organisation and those who are the beneficiaries of its activities.

We might have heard the oft quoted mantra that 65% of the jobs our kids will be doing are not even in existence today! Whether or not this is true, and it may not be, one thing we can be sure of is that the world of 10 years’ time, will be significantly different and affected by trends that we may not even be aware of today. Taking into account the environmental challenges facing our planet, the social upheavals we are living through and the technological innovations being ushered in by the 4^th Industrial Revolution, the central purposes of our lives, teams and organisations will not serve us well if they remain like proverbial insects trapped in ideological amber.

As leaders in organisations and for those of us who work with leaders and organisations, the question is, how do we create and craft working environments where, in the words of Barry Oshry, ‘the system is responsible for its own fate. This is a huge step away from (leaders) being responsible for the system’s fate”. Or to quote Peter Hawkins, Professor of Leadership at Henley Business School, ‘What does our world need right now that we, as a team or an organisation can uniquely step up to?” The aforementioned Edward Rowland addresses this when he addresses the issue of authenticity. He observes that, in order to be real, purpose needs to be inherent rather than constructed and needs to be discovered rather than invented through ideas and words. It can be discovered both within us, between us, in our connections and relationships and around us in the world we inhabit.

In our work with leaders and teams as facilitators, we will often bring an empty chair into the room and ask those present to imagine it occupied by one of their key stakeholders or even to sit in it and speak from the perspective of one their key stakeholders (even more effective!). it could be a customer, a board member, someone who reports to them, an investor, or even perhaps a grandchild. It is important to hear loud and clear what that stakeholder asking us to step up, to engage with, to be courageous about, both today and in the future? That is one way in which to connect with our purpose.

So, it’s not just the question of why we are doing what we are doing, but why are we doing it now and what is it serving? The challenge remains to keep our purpose alive, evolving, responsive and always meaningful. It Is not a one-off exercise, but a constantly evolving process that engages and touches not only everyone in the organisation but also those who are affected by the organisation.

John Hill is a Facilitator and Executive Coach at HPC.

In a world of technological advances, Justin Kinnear explores how AI might impact L&D.

Technology as a negative force

Humans have a long history of suspicion toward new technologies. When Henry Ford introduced his new moving assembly line concept in 1913, reducing the time taken to build a car from 12 hours to 2 hours and 30 minutes, many were unsure what this new way of working might mean. While Ford’s innovation in production did mean cheaper cars for more people, it changed the nature of work at Ford and other factories forever after.

Technological advances may bring benefits for millions, but there is almost always a latent fear about the unintended consequences of what’s new. Today, organisations are already looking for ways to use AI to advance our work and lives. Amazon’s robots run its warehouses, Japanese insurance claims are handled by IBM’s Watson AI solution, and Stanford University Hospital’s “pill-picking robots” dispense medicines 10 times faster than a human can. So, where might AI make a positive impact in the field of learning and development?

Learning is more than consuming

The inevitable assumption is that AI will somehow replace the traditional instructor. Previously promising technology solutions in the classroom have often offered little more than news ways of delivering information, or news ways to access and consume that information. AI can help to tailor what is presented, where it is presented and how it can be accessed, but that won’t radically change the learning experience. Beyond information delivery, great learning should provide relevance for learners, and a deeper human connection through stories and lived experiences. The human contribution to learning may be enhanced by AI but unique human capabilities of relating, finding meaning and relevance, and bringing learning to life through stories, mean human input is likely to remain critically important.

A mountain of sensory data – but what does it mean?

L&D has tried to get to the heart of what makes an effective learning experience using various evaluation approaches. What if AI could discern when we learn and when we don’t learn, and thus guide us to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t? AI coupled with 5G technology will capture and aggregate data on a scale never seen before. Just imagine what we could do with data on what happens when a learner returns to their workplace, who they spend their time with, what they spend their time on, which order they tackled activities etc. However, the current state of AI is closer to machine learning than true AI where a system can think and interpret as we humans can. The capacity for systems to self-teach, to interpret and to derive meaning within a context – these are all capabilities that remain theoretical goals at this time.

We never saw the potential, but it was there all along

As L&D professionals, we should consider the possibilities that technology may create in our industry. New technologies are rarely perfect at the start, but as they evolve and we gradually get used to them, we eventually see the value in the technology as it reveals new possibilities and makes us more capable than we ever imagined. Patience coupled with the imagination to utilise technology in new and interesting ways will be essential for us to make progress.

 “There is an inevitable assumption that AI’s role will be to replace the role of the instructor, but as we have seen with e-learning and more recently MOOCs, technology can’t entirely replace the value generated by a skilled and knowledgeable instructor.

AI’s greatest impact on learning may be in the evaluation and transfer of learning.”

Justin Kinnear is Head of Research at HPC

Justin is a highly experienced facilitator and coach who advises HPC’s clients on their most pressing development issues.  As well as his extensive research and facilitation experience, he was formerly Head of L&D at IBM and Britvic.

If Learning and Development is to deliver on the agenda of the C-Suite, it needs to ensure that it is supporting the development of new behaviours and new capabilities. But 20 years on from the coining of the phrase eLearning, do digital tools have a role to play in this?

HPC’s Kevin Hannigan and Fergal O’Connor explore the part digital tools can play in a participant’s learning journey, ahead of their IITD breakfast event “Using Digital Tools as Enablers of Learning”

Through partnering with Irish, UK and Global clients, hpc have been leveraging digital tools to enhance the development experience for learners and deliver real impact for their organisations.

As an HPC facilitator, Fergal has witnessed the power of integrating digital tools into client learning journeys and has observed that “digital has shifted from being a distribution or curation tool to becoming a pivotal part of the learning experience. Used correctly, it can enhance knowledge transfer and behavioural change because of the multiple touchpoints it provides.”

“Through the appropriate use of digital tools, everything that happens in the learning journey – pre, during or post the face to face sessions – is aligned to ensure that the solution results in demonstrable and sustainable performance improvement”, he adds.

From a design and evaluation perspective, Kevin Hannigan says:

“At HPC, we start with the results that the client is looking to achieve. We begin by understanding the business rationale for any solution and work from there to identify the key behaviours that will deliver on our clients’ goals. We have always worked this way, but it is complex to deliver a truly integrated and blended solution in an analogue world. Using digital tools enables us to provide a seamless experience for learners and to provide meaningful data to our clients. Along with our distinct approach to evaluation, it provides clients with a clear view on how participants are shifting their behaviour and delivering results in their day to day work.”

 

Fergal recognises that “there is a human factor attached to the way we introduce digital into our solutions; it fosters a real sense of engagement among the participants. As well as giving them personal ownership of activity and learning; the sharing, networking and challenging aspect of using a digital platform is real and inspiring.”

Through the use of digital tools, HPC’s clients have experienced the major role they have in enabling the learning journey; and welcome how digital can address the learning transfer challenges that they regularly face as L&D professionals.

Kevin Hannigan is Head of Talent Consulting and Fergal O’Connor is a Facilitator and Executive Coach at HPC.

hpc’s Tom Armstrong’s shares his perspectives of the EMCC 25th Annual Coaching, Mentoring and Supervision Conference 2019

The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) recently held its 25th Annual Conference in Dublin. hpc’s Executive Coach, Tom Armstrong attended the three-day event alongside international coaches and mentors from as far away as New Zealand, Canada and Bahrain. With a keynote each day and a choice of over 40 sessions, there was enough variety to satisfy all appetites.

We asked Tom to share his views from the conference; here are his personal insights and highlights:

Magician Keith Barry kick-started the conference with an entertaining session including some good tips around increasing our persuasive powers through non-verbal communications. With my head still spinning from Keith’s mental hijinks, I headed for the session entitled ‘Feedback – take it like a champ, give it like a pro!’ led by Squadron Leader Carolyn Pezaro and Flight Lieutenant Andy Armstrong.

Feedback

This was an interesting session with focus on the ‘sometimes forgotten’ feedback receiver as well as the giver. Our New Zealand colleagues reminded us that despite their ‘tough’ operational focus, Airforce personnel are just as sensitive to tough feedback as the rest of the population. While most of us externally espouse a ‘growth mindset’, receiving and giving critical feedback can be uncomfortable and trigger negative emotional responses. And it’s hard to receive critical feedback when you are in a somewhat stressed state. To help the giver and receiver manage emotions through tough feedback conversations they brought us through their 4 step process (apparently engineers love processes) or ‘Empathy Standard Operating Procedure’:

1. Naming the emotion (even guessing it)

2. Validating the emotion

3. Allowing some time and space

4. Tackling the feedback together

Here’s what it looks like: “so you’re upset?”; “who wouldn’t feel upset after receiving critical feedback”; “how about I make us a cup of tea”; “what are your thoughts on how we go forward, let’s get this sorted”. This approach is simple and works well for them. It’s where pilot training has moved towards coaching culture, with emphasis on empathy and moving forward together.

Coaching Culture and Leadership

The keynote on Day Two entitled “Myths and legends of embedding a coaching and mentoring culture” was headed up by Professor David Clutterbuck, Rosarii Mannion and Paula King. A key output was the proposition that rather than embedding a coaching culture as a stand-alone project or goal, we might view it as part of a wider approach of the organisation to reach its goals in the light of its own realities. It’s a component of its strategy and not an end in itself.

In an exploration of leadership, as opposed to leaders, our attention was drawn to the commonalities between coaching and leadership…the 3 Cs…which turned into the 4 Cs:

1. Compassion – understanding and alleviating the pain of others

2. Curiosity – how are others making sense of the world

3. Courage – facing taboo topics

4. Connectedness – with each other and with the world

When I reflect on my time in leadership in industry, in a very practical sense, I wholly subscribe to the idea of achieving positive results while embodying the 4 Cs. As an Executive Coach the 4 Cs are essential components within and beyond the coach / client relationship…tools of the trade.

Reflection and Reflexivity

Dr Jacqueline McCartney led the session “Reflection and reflexivity – what’s the difference”. I was drawn to this session as I didn’t know the answer! Essentially, reflexivity is beyond the comfort of knowing…rather than things being “as they are”. It’s about being within a system and seeing things “as we are”. Reflexivity is beyond observation and reflection of self and system, it’s about bringing a range of perspectives to our actual experiences, knowing what is influencing us while we are affecting it, and distilling the reality of experience. It’s when professional development becomes personal development…a cycle incorporating new understanding and new practice.

Jacqueline led us through a simple paired exercise (one doing and one observing) of making a square out of a rectangular piece of paper. “Nothing much going on here”, I thought…until we broke the exercise down. Did I jump in? Did I have a plan? Did I stand back and assess matters? Was I wondering what my observer was thinking? What assumptions and choices did I make? What influenced my choices?

This was a great example of a simple exercise that tells us a lot about ourselves; great learning for coaches and for clients.

The Digital Age
No conference is complete nowadays without exploration of the impact of the digital age. As coaches and mentors, it’s probably fair to say bias and perspective play a big role in how we perceive the world of digital. The takeaways from this session weren’t that coaches would be replaced by robots but rather that the nature of coaching interventions will change and that certain types of coaching (for example career coaching) may actually benefit from the introduction of more technology.

This brings with it the possibility of making coaching available to a wider audience in the future…a welcome prospect. However, the belief remains that as complexity grows, the need for wisdom and human contact increases rather than decreases. We were reminded that individuals need to be seen and to be heard; that the need for connection is human.

The obvious conclusion is that the only certainty is change and that human growth is possible through embracing new possibilities whilst learning from experience.

Game, Set and Match

As a keen tennis player and an Executive Coach, I was excited to hear from ‘Mr Inner Game’ himself, Tim Gallwey, a former tennis coach. During his keynote on “Learning from Experiences”, using nothing more than a tennis ball and an engaging delivery style, Tim brought us back to the basics of learning from experience. Rather than trying to repeat something that has worked well or correct something that hasn’t, Tim extolled the virtues of paying attention to what is happening and learning by awareness and doing.

He recounted his early tennis coaching days when he had to deal with the uncomfortable truth that less telling and less instructing (apparently ‘doing’ less) led to better results. He realised that his role was to empower his clients to learn from their own experience. He highlighted the importance of making the environment safe for the client and eliminating the stress of judgement from the coach…or whomever. I think
both coaches and their clients can identify with this.

To close the conference, Tim left us with a beautiful line; “Enrol in the school of life as a learner rather than a knower”.

Whether as a master coach or a human being, Tim left us with food for thought, smiles on our faces and hope in our hearts.

Tom Armstrong is a key member of hpc’s Accredited Executive Coaching Team. Coupled with his coaching expertise, his commercial focus extends to over 25 years in senior executive roles across multiple industry sectors.

A recent hpc, IITD and TLS collaboration to deliver Consulting Skills to L&D Professionals

“The new realities where organisations operate in highly dynamic external environments and have to be strategically flexible and agile, places significant responsibilities on the L&D function and L&D professionals.”

A strong opening statement to a piece of research conducted by Edinburgh Napier Business School on behalf of the Irish Institute of Training and Development (IITD). The research, which is aimed at informing some of the activities of the IITD, has shed light on the ever-changing context of the L&D professional. It examines the current challenges and future opportunities that need addressed to shift the power and position of this crucial organisational role.

As well as the changing world of L&D in organisations, the research explores the ‘hot issues’ for the L&D function and the key competencies required to enhance L&D effectiveness. Great emphasis was placed on the ‘alignment of L&D with business strategy and agility’ and how enhancing the skills of L&D professionals is vital in seeking to future proof this alignment.

As a result of some of the findings, the IITD and the Trainers’ Learning Skillnet collaborated with hpc to design and deliver a programme to address some of the developmental gaps in the world of L&D professionals. Its aim is to provide a platform from which to align new skills with strategic business needs.

Josh Blake of the Trainers’ Learning Skillnet, which provides funding for the programme explains,

“The IITD has responded to the needs of the L&D community with a powerful programme, designed in partnership with hpc: Internal Consulting Skills for L&D Professionals. We are halfway through our second programme and a third starts in October 2019.”

“The research that was commissioned emphasises the importance of aligning the L&D function with business strategy. To support this, there needs to be a greater focus on enhancing the agility of L&D professionals to influence corporate structure and people development. This will allow them to meet the changing needs of the business,” he adds.

Due to the ever-changing external environment and competitive landscape that organisations operate in today, the L&D function is expected to possess the dynamic capabilities to respond both strategically and quickly.

As Professor Thomas Garavan of Edinburgh Napier Business School further explains in the report,

“This suggests two important challenges for L&D professionals. First, they are increasingly expected to play a major role in helping organisations to be competitive in highly dynamic environments and to develop a workforce that can adapt quickly to change. Second, they are required to invest significant time and effort in their own development to ensure that they are one step ahead of the employees that they are required to develop.”

These important challenges have been recognised by the IITD and have contributed to hpc’s design and delivery of the Internal Consulting Skills Programme.

Josh Blake adds, “The programme is structured around the key competencies that L&D professionals need to enhance effectiveness. Their existing wealth of professional knowledge needs to be coupled with the skills that enable them to become strategic partners and agents of change. The programme equips them to better engage with and influence the mindsets of directors to better understand and invest in people development.”

As well as a need for greater engagement between L&D and the business, another ‘hot issue’ exists that requires greater emphasis on the development of the skills of L&D professionals. This is the main driver of the Internal Consulting Skills Programme facilitated by hpc’s Yvonne Farrell who comments:

“We talk about consulting skills encouraging stakeholders to think ‘outside the box’ but I believe that L&D consulting skills need to help stakeholders fundamentally understand ‘what’s inside the box?’.”

A wider interview with Yvonne Farrell and her insights into the changing world of L&D can be read here.

As one interviewee of the research study commented:
“I think that the most important aspect of our effectiveness over the next five years will be our ability to articulate how we will help the business and at the same time be concerned with the needs of employees. It’s important that L&D specialists understand their own development needs and are continuously focused on developing their strategic capabilities.”

The Internal Consulting Skills Programme offers the L&D community the support to further their personal developmental needs to drive and add value to the business. The third programme in October is now open for enrolment at the Trainers’ Learning Skillnet website.

HPC’s Yvonne Farrell shares some of her Insights into the changing world of L&D

Yvonne is passionate about her work and contribution to developments and strategic drivers within the L&D sector. Her heart has always been in HR and L&D, leading major internal change programmes.

Prior to joining HPC Yvonne’s career spanned a variety of roles including Talent and Performance Manager, Leadership & Development Manager and Head of People and Organisational Capability. Now an associate of hpc, she brings fresh and strategic thinking to the design, development and delivery of corporate talent management strategies to clients in a wide range of industry sectors.

As well as working with individuals and larger L&D teams on bespoke HPC programmes, her most recent collaboration has been with the IITD on the design and delivery of a programme to develop the consulting skills of internal L&D practitioners. By partnering effectively with their business and acting as an internal consultant, they can truly align the outputs of their talent management strategy with the goals of the business.

So, we asked Yvonne her views on how L&D professionals can change the way they engage and align their thinking internally and the positive impact this can make on the business.

Why do L&D professionals need to change the way they engage with the business?

Gone are the days of annual training course ‘menus’, devised by L&D and used by the business to manage and often ‘correct’ poor performance. These corrective measures have been overtaken by an environment today where the role of L&D is to enable employees to develop their skills and encourage mindset change; so that they can embrace and respond to the changing ways of working as well as driving competitive advantage for their businesses. L&D should be an enabler of change in organisations.

Within uncertain and evolving times, it is essential that L&D is all about alignment and engagement. By being more proactively linked to stakeholders that drive the business strategy, L&D professionals can ensure that they are delivering the same business outcomes as the leaders in the business. Equally important is working with the employees to understand their needs and evolve new ways of learning, particularly in a world where L&D opportunities are an important aspect of recruitment and retention.

Why are consulting skills critical to the L&D Professional of the future?

There is no doubt in L&D’s ability as a profession; however, a shift in thinking and approach will increase its wider credibility. L&D professionals need to demonstrate a deep and cross-functional understanding of the business to confidently approach business leaders with bold solutions to challenging business problems. They need an ability to ask questions rather than being prescriptive or reactive and not linking the L&D intervention to the business strategy.

We talk about consulting skills encouraging stakeholders to think ‘outside the box’ but I believe that L&D consulting skills need to help stakeholders fundamentally understand ‘what is inside the box?’. Businesses often push for L&D to change ‘something’ but as L&D internal consultants, we should challenge the current status quo ‘inside the box’ so that stakeholders and L&D professionals work together to understand current realities and future change.

What skills are needed to be an effective L&D consulting professional?

Many skills need to come into play: self-awareness, emotional intelligence and self-belief. Building trusting relationships, openly communicating and networking across the business is key.

To align with the business there clearly has to be a healthy level of interaction, connection and conversation with business leaders and employees around needs and expectations. A strong consulting mindset will constantly grow new knowledge about the business to shape meaningful and relevant L&D interventions.

Having the credibility, confidence and courage to challenge the norm and champion new learning journeys will give L&D the power and purpose to become agents and facilitators of change, with the ability to capture, demonstrate and communicate their added value.

How will the L&D professional measure success?

Initially during the diagnostic stage, it is about the level of buy in and engagement you are getting from the stakeholder – are they open to challenge, questions about their strategy and how L&D can support them? Or are they pushing back, expecting a single ‘intervention’ and then blaming the L&D professional when it doesn’t work or if changes aren’t evident.

If support and collaboration exist to identify a problem, issue or development need and positive change can be experienced and measured, then success will follow in the value add that is evident across the business. It is in those scenarios that L&D will have a serious place at the decision-making table.

In a world of personal busyness, family focus and client commitments, HPC’s Deirdre Foley believes that a positive and active mindset is key to her restoring balance and achieving performance.

Deirdre’s work as an HPC facilitator and coach is focused extensively at senior leadership level across the tech, utilities and finance sectors. Prior to joining hpc, she worked at a senior level in international IT sales, before pursuing professional training in executive coaching at UCD. She holds an MSc and professional diplomas in Business and Executive Coaching and Coaching Psychology as well as a host of other professional body accreditations. At present, she is studying for a Team Coaching qualification with Ashridge Management School.

Most clients and colleagues will be aware of Deirdre’s tenacious nature, aspirational attitude and positive outlook. They may know that she is a triathlete competing from Sprint to Ironman distance events at home and abroad and is dedicated to regular training whenever and wherever she can. She enjoys personal fitness, a sense of achievement and challenging herself at any opportunity.

Coupled with the behavioural change work she does for HPC, Deirdre sees a strong link between such personal activity and positive corporate performance; in terms of building resilience, facing challenges and reaching new heights.

“Life outside work and taking time for yourself is extremely important. For me, it’s all about family commitments and challenging myself physically. I can connect the way that challenges and achievement in sport give me the energy to push myself at work. They naturally balance each other and provide an energy that comes through in my everyday client work,” she says.

Anyone who encounters Deirdre will be familiar with her engaging energy and positive outlook. They will recognise this ‘strong link’ in the way she works. But Deirdre is also in a fantastic position as an Executive Coach and Facilitator to constantly spot these links in other people.

“I regularly get drawn into conversations while coaching individuals or facilitating a group about the pressures of work and people’s individual abilities to cope and push their own boundaries. I often see people who have balance, wellness and personal focus in their lives, being more effective in their corporate roles as a result of this ability to switch off from work.”

“We all know that “work-life balance” is something we should take seriously. It’s high on people’s agendas but time is often an issue. Looking after yourself, enjoying what matters to you and taking the time to prioritise these things are extremely important from a personal perspective as well as contributing towards better performance at work,” she adds.

Many organisations view “work-life balance” as an important component of their workplace culture, going as far as integrating the concept into their formal policies. They do this because they see real value in fostering healthy and well-rounded employees.

Deirdre observes that “when we find and sustain a healthy work-life balance, we develop a greater control over our focus and ability to concentrate on the task at hand and raise the bar of our ability. We all encounter new challenges that we need to overcome and just as we are feeling comfortable with one achievement, another scenario comes along to test us. As a result, we’re continually flexing and balancing to move ourselves forward.”

“For me, there is a strong relationship between regular physical activity and emotional well-being. The stronger your emotional well-being the stronger your ability to build resilience and inner strength to cope with what ‘life throws at you’.”

But while sport may be Deirdre’s forte, the same logic can be applied to other personal interests that strike the same balance. Other hobbies or activities to retreat to on a regular basis can ease the mounting pressure people feel from work. Individual “me time” pursuits can provide relaxation and time to recharge, while team or group activities provide social psychological benefits.

Whether it’s cooking, art, music, dancing, yoga or any other personal interest; everything has a place in people’s individual worlds and all contribute to personal health and wellbeing, which transfers over to the workplace.

The value of hobbies on professional lives goes beyond just personal health. Employers value healthy employees for the sake of productivity, but they also value well-rounded employees that offer diverse perspectives, creativity and personal connections.

Deirdre knows too well the pressures of the corporate world, through previous roles at sales director level in IT for a number of national and multinational organisations.“It’s about finding the time to get joy from the simple things in life,” Deirdre reiterates.

“Time is scarce and while I can make time to train on my own, quite often involving my family brings even more enjoyment. As soon as it was safe for them, my children were strapped safely onto the back of my bike and involved in my training and are now getting to the age where they can outperform me at park runs, swimming and soon biking too! The outdoor environment is part and parcel of their lives too and it is an extremely rewarding way to spend time together.”

Deirdre’s strength lies in her positive spirit; that is at the heart of her work as a coach and facilitator. Her motivation for what she does is driven by her energy to engage with people and deliver the best results for the clients she works with.

“Creating a lasting impact is central to my work. I am constantly using the power of positivity to do the best job to develop people to be more mentally and physically resilient leaders and become more aware and conscious of their behaviours and impacts on others,” she says.

Throughout this work Deirdre has encountered many stories of how people have or are trying to implement their own personal balance in whatever way works for them and she believes strongly that “personal development drives professional development.”

“Switching off from work and giving your personal life equal measures of attention is vital; so, find the time to spark an interest, ignite a passion or discover a new path.”

HPC’s ‘Facilitator Focus’ series is a celebration of our client-facing team of coaches and facilitators – to share their insights, motivations and where they find joy that inspires their work. As the series progresses, we will introduce you to other members of our team who drive our client work at HPC.

Bob Lee’s expertise lies in how and why the world’s best employers use great workplace cultures to drive competitive advantage. Utilising his knowledge and harnessing it as a facilitator for HPC adds great strength and impact to our client relationships. In light of this accolade, we wanted to focus on the work that has helped Bob achieve this recognition.

At the heart of Bob’s knowledge lies the subject of trust; a complex area that is easy to get wrong and sometimes very hard to get right. To many it is a behaviour, a belief, a feeling or an attitude, but for people who know more that most, it represents a complex neural process that binds relationships together.

This year marks the 9th annual ‘Trust Across America Top Thought Leaders in Trust’ to celebrate those whose work helps foster organisational trust, a key driver of long-term success. The honour has been extended to global professionals from a broad functional base including integrity and trust, leadership, culture, employee engagement, sales and customer service.

Prior to joining HPC, Bob founded the Great Place to Work Institute in UK and Ireland and held senior leadership positions with the Institute from 2002 to 2017, including four years as chair of its Worldwide Advisory Board. He continues to support global multinational clients in his role as a senior consultant with Great Place to Work USA.

“I am a business performance specialist. I show clients how the world’s best companies use workplace culture to achieve their market-leading business results, and I help them to do the same”, says Bob.

“My work with some of the world’s best-run businesses led me to a simple question: why and how do some managers build high-achieving teams of highly-engaged individuals, while so many others struggle to inspire their people to achieve even average performance and results?”

His analysis of the Great Place to Work Institute’s database of two million employees in 80 countries revealed a surprisingly simple truth: the best managers do the same things as all other managers – but they do them more thoughtfully, more sincerely, and more consistently than everyone else.

His quest to understand what separates great managers from the rest and what one factor dictates great team results points quite simply towards: how much the manager and their employees trust each other.

He is the author of Amazon #1 Best-seller ‘Trust Rules: How the World’s Best Managers Create Great Places to Work’, based on this extensive research and published in May 2017. It is a manager’s guide to the actions and attitudes that have the greatest impact on trust in workplace relationships and through that, on organisational performance.

“Culture drives performance, and managers drive culture. So, the key to creating a high-performance culture is to create high-trust relationships, particularly between managers and their teams. Building high-trust is mostly about getting the basics right – keeping promises, really listening, living with integrity.

It’s not complicated – most of us have been doing it effortlessly since birth…my role is to help people unleash that natural expertise”, he says.

The message of Trust Rules is both simple and inspiring. Simple, because small margins drive big results – the world’s best companies achieve their superior results because of only minor differences in how they manage their people. And inspiring because the rules show that every manager can be a great manager if they just choose the right attitude and consistently back it up with the right behaviour.

So, trust is a big deal to Bob. He has experienced it, encouraged it and helps it evolve through the work he delivers for clients. The recognition from ‘Trust Across America’ is testament to this work when they openly say that;

“Each year for the past nine years, hundreds of hours are spent reviewing potential honourees, and compiling a list of global professionals who ‘walk their talk.’”

A well-deserved achievement for Bob whose work in this area is inspirational in outlook and practical in approach.

HPC has created a culture in which creative and innovative minds meet; where our people add their own unique value to our team and create a profound and positive impact on the clients they work with.

Due to the continued growth of our business, we are delighted to introduce you to the new faces of our ever-expanding team. Across all business functions, we have made a number of new appointments who are all having an impact on the work we do at HPC.

Facilitator & Coaching Team

Every member of our facilitator and coaching team shares our ethos of delivering insightful, adaptable and progressive solutions in partnership with our clients. Paramount to their role is a client centric mindset, an ability to engage effectively in different industry sectors and a deep understanding of how ever-changing business needs impact how HPC can add value at a strategic level.

We’re delighted to welcome Barry O’Sullivan back to HPC. Previously a member of our core Executive Coaching Team, Barry returns with a strong focus on individual coaching as well as adding further value to the area of team coaching.

Bob Lee joins our Design and Facilitation Team with many years of experience in the corporate world of executive leadership as well as being the founder of ‘Great Place to Work’ Ireland.

Chris Rogerson joins HPC as a facilitator and executive coach. He brings a wealth of knowledge of L&D internally from the corporate side of business as well as delivering external consultative solutions in a wide range of industries.

John Hill’s experience lies at the heart of business development, entrepreneurship and CEO level roles. His natural transition into coaching and facilitation for the last 10 years adds value to his role within leadership development at HPC.

Barry, Bob, Chris and John join our wider team who all have unquestionable experience, wisdom and insights into the corporate world. Every member of our highly experienced design, delivery and coaching team has a strong operational business background that creates a cultural fit with our clients. Combining this with their natural instinct and ability to create positive behavioural change for people and organisations, is an extremely powerful proposition.

Brand, Marketing & Internal Projects

Katrina Dowling joins HPC and takes the lead on brand and marketing. Her knowledge from the brand agency world will stand us in good stead as we plan for new developments and strategic changes in the near future.

Jayne Mulhall supports many of the important internal projects that are of practical and strategic importance to HPC – from marketing and digital media to our approach to evaluation and communicating key findings to clients.

Client Focus

A core focus of our customer’s experience rests with our internal team of project and administrative coordinators. Programme planning, general logistics and relationship building are at the heart of our internal team,
plus much more.

Melissa Murray joins our Client Project Coordinator Team, the operational engine in HPC that surrounds the delivery of client programmes. They pride themselves on their commitment to the flawless execution of programmes and deliverables, as well as feedback and evaluation.

Laura Ead provides administrative support to client facing teams to ensure the delivery of an engaging client experience. Her attention to detail and focus on quality control are vital to her role of coordinating all the programme materials that accompany our facilitative work.

People are at the heart of what we do at HPC and every new appointment made adds more depth and experience to the existing strength of our team. Whatever your interaction with HPC, our new team members will look forward to engaging with you.