Coaching

Coaching provides a safe and confidential space for people to discuss issues, gain clarity and develop strategies to overcome challenges and achieve goals. It is also a flexible and adaptable tool for organisations to ‘join the dots’ between strategy, policies and procedures, and individual performance and behaviours.  Coaching is useful to support people during times of change, help people manage interpersonal conflict, and as a follow up to formal training to embed new learning by making it relevant to an individual’s particular situation.

As a coach, Desiree helps her clients to discover their strengths, build their confidence and self-awareness, and find their own solutions and pathways by combining practical business and leadership experience and accredited training within the International Coaching Federation framework. She works with clients at all stages of their careers and in many different contexts including helping them:

• choose their career path and prepare for interviews;
• meet the expectations of their current role, make successful transitions to new roles, and become effective leaders;
• manage people and develop teams effectively;
• reconcile competing personal and professional priorities; and
• have difficult conversations and manage interpersonal conflict constructively.

Working with teams

High performing individuals do not necessarily create high performing teams. Key factors that influence team outcomes relate to the values, mindsets and behaviours of its members, the way the team is designed, and the processes it uses to make decisions and resolve conflict. Desiree works with teams to create a strong sense of shared purpose and improve collective performance by helping team members:

• clarify objectives, roles, responsibilities and priorities;
• recognise and leverage complementary strengths;
• design and implement processes to support good decision-making and constructive conflict management; and
• improve communication within the team and with external stakeholders.

Creating a motivating workplace

Desiree understands the challenges of creating a high performance workplace. People need an optimum balance between challenge and skill to perform at their best and are more likely to commit to a development plan when they have been involved in its creation. Talking about strengths and future opportunities is more motivating than focusing on weaknesses and the past, and managers who give their people opportunities to make the most of their talents have stronger relationships with their staff, higher production and lower turnover. Using coaching as a platform, Desiree supports employees and their managers to have productive and motivating performance and development discussions.   She also helps organisations at a strategic level to identify deficiencies in systems and processes that are compromising performance management outcomes.