Paul coaches heath care staff and senior staff who have made, or who are making, a transition in a working role or life role or who find themselves ‘stuck’. He works with individuals and small groups, in creating a safe space to help people to regulate their ‘nervous systems’ and their ‘state’ in order to talk about and explore immediate and pressing issues.
Paul has extensive experience and a deep understanding of the healthcare sector, having worked in the NHS from 1985 to 2018. To begin with, this was as a nurse in Intensive Care and then as Senior Resuscitation Officer. He then became Head of Training & Development and worked in Change Management and, for the last 10 years, was an Organisational Development Consultant and Coach with a focus on values and culture, individual and team effectiveness and leadership development, for which coaching has been an indispensable part.
He has worked with a wide range of people across the NHS including senior medical staff, senior nursing staff, allied health professionals and senior non-clinical staff. As a coach, Paul is currently working with Third Space in the support and development of the current cohort of coaching students and developing ongoing learning for graduates.
His approach as a coach enables people to observe themselves in the everyday, where their ‘issue’ arises, to reflect and to be more aware of the world they are creating and which is creating them. Paul supports people to explore the idea of ‘practice’, a key requirement to observe and reflect and to make change that lasts, in the mind and the body as a whole.
In his coaching work, Paul uses a range of tools to raise awareness and gain insight. For example, models of personality and development, language and narratives such as:
- Myers Briggs
- Enneagram assessment and practices
- communication and awareness narratives
- The structure of language
- Feedback and affirmation
- Assertions, requests, offers, promises and declarations
- Speech Acts assessments
- Rosenburg's Non-Violent Communication
- Body language
- Body work
- Presence & Power
- Wendy Palmer's centring practices & creating presence
- Polarity Management
- The work of various practitioners and thought leaders including Christine Caldwell, Barry Johnson and Fernando Flores
- Somatic exercises
- Stress reduction: mindfulness and meditation approaches
- EFT (emotional freedom technique)
By expertly drawing on a range of these tools and approaches, suited to the individual's needs, Paul helps people to address their development needs in parallel with their coaching issue by opening up wider possibilities of action.
Paul also supports people to develop their own coaching skills and he enables clients to build a trusting coaching partnership over time, to be prepared to risk looking in unexpected places for insight and learning, and to focus on their own development possibilities.