You can rehearse with anyone. You can be honest with almost nobody.
The board presentation. The restructure you have not announced. The role you are about to take, or the one you are no longer sure about. Confidential counsel for senior leaders, from someone with no stake in the answer.
"We're going through a restructure. It's a busy period."
To the chair, on Tuesday. Reasonable. Accurate. True.
"I have not slept properly since March and I am making decisions I do not trust."
Which you have said to nobody, because there is nobody it is safe to say it to.
"I've got a great team around me."
Also true. They report to you, which is the whole problem.
"Every person I could talk to has something riding on my answer."
Your peers compete with you. Your board appoints you. Your family needs you steady.
"I'll take some time once this is over."
You have said this about four consecutive things.
"I don't know what I'd do with the time if I took it."
This is the one most people recognise, and the one nobody volunteers.
I spent years saying things like the left-hand column.
I was diagnosed with chronic headaches, and the bank I worked for told me I could resign or be managed out on ill-health grounds. For years before that I had said all of the things in that first column, to people with every reason to believe me.
I hit rock bottom, and what got me back was counselling. Everything after that is paperwork: Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health, Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, Stevie Awards judge, and five years as the Institute of Directors' South West Ambassador for Wellbeing — the only one the IoD appointed in the country.
Leaders do not call because of the letters. They call because the right-hand column can be said out loud to me without it costing them anything.
Three reasons people arrive here
- 01 · For yourself
Confidential counsel
A standing arrangement with one person who has no stake in your board, your team or your reputation.
What it involves → - 02 · Checking me out
The evidence
Credentials, the people who have worked with me, and what they said when I was not in the room.
The record → - 03 · For the organisation
Resilience assessment
What poor wellbeing is costing you, in figures your finance director will accept and your board can act on.
Run the numbers →
Write two lines. That is the whole first step.
I answer everything myself, usually inside a day. The first conversation costs nothing and goes no further than the two of us.
Request a call