Support for investors.
Assessing leadership capability.
Whether you’re investing in a business or acquiring it, one of the key things you’re investing in the leadership team. They’re the ones who are going to deliver on your investment (or not) so it’s worth finding out whether they’re up to the job and what the risks are. In the mid-2000s I was heavily involved in management due diligence for private equity houses and am very experienced at assessing leadership capability.
Talk to me today about assessing leadership capability.
Developing leadership capability.
When you invest in a business you may have a leadership team with great potential but little experience, particularly in a scaling business. My work at Innovate UK has given me a good understanding of the leadership challenges of scale-ups. I’m experienced at tailoring support, either one-to-one or team, to suit the needs of a particular business.
Talk to me today about developing leadership capability.
Support for Advisers.
Support for Trusted Advisers
If you’re an accountant, lawyer or business consultant, who’s worked hard to reach trusted adviser status with your clients, you probably get involved in all kinds of issues beyond your technical specialism. You might look at succession planning, family dynamics or bringing new directors into the business. You might just be a listening ear. You want to be able to help. And then there comes a point where you’re out of your depth. Having a business psychologist in your back pocket, to whom you can safely refer people, means you’re providing extra support to your clients.
Talk to me today about how I could help you support your clients.
Support for turnaround professionals.
Turnaround is always about leadership. Prior to Covid I would have said that turnaround situations had involved a failure of leadership. These days, many excellent firms are just unlucky. But whatever the cause, it takes good leadership to put a business back on track. And it’s always emotionally charged. I believe there is a vital role for business psychologists to play in turnaround and I’m proud to be the first psychologist to become an associate a member of the Institute for Turnaround. I have advised turnaround firms on issues related to leadership and client engagement and designed to CPD sessions for IFT members.
Talk to me today about support for turnaround.
Preparing a business for sale.
If you’re a business adviser working with a business to prepare for sale, you know that the leadership team is going to be one of the key aspects under scrutiny. Leadership support in the run up to the sale could ensure that the team is as professional as they can be.
Talk to me today about preparing a business for sale.
Becoming an Employee Owned Trust.
Turning your business into an EOT is an increasingly popular option for business owners and is about much more than the transfer of shares. The transfer of control and responsibility takes care and preparation. I’ve worked with Chris Budd of the Eternal Business, something of a guru in this area, to develop leadership guidelines for this process.
Talk to me today about support for becoming an EOT.
“Caroline was my right hand woman at Cardinal for 5 years. She is insightful and analytical and understands what makes people successful in business.”
“Caroline brings insightful experience to the work with family business clients .“
“As a firm we’ve used Caroline’s services for years, so we’re aware of and confident of the quality of her work. I don’t hesitate to refer her to my clients when they have a need for some leadership assessment, they are looking at acquisitions and want to assess the people and cultural fit, or there’s a tricky leadership issue to sort out. Caroline is pragmatic and brings her expertise and experience to any situation in an understandable and useable way with thorough assessments and suitable recommendations.”
“Caroline provides tremendous insight into the psychology of business transformation and turnaround. I have found her leadership analysis based on the framework of the Primary Colours Model particularly helpful whenever I am introduced to lead a management team through a transformation challenge.”
You can lead a horse to water – A powerful psychological technique to encourage change
How do you persuade people to change? Maybe you have a colleague or a client who stubbornly refuses to do the one thing that everyone else can see would be in their best interests – the overloaded manager who won't delegate, the blundering leader who really needs coaching but sees it as a navel-gazing waste of time; the 60-something family ...
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Passing the baton – A succession planning guide
How do you hand on a business you’ve spent years nurturing? This is a challenge facing many business owners as they eventually accept that they cannot go on forever. This month I’ve teamed up with Peter Jenner, from William Battle Ltd, who specialises in business succession to compare his process-focused approach with my psychological perspective. Peter has a model which aims ...
“Maybe you should see a psychologist” – How do you bring up this sensitive subject? - "Maybe you should see a psychologist". Has anyone ever suggested this to you? If they did, would you see it as a positive suggestion or would you be affronted, as if they were implying that all was not right in your head? It's tricky, isn't it? A bit of a taboo subject. Recently, I've had a few conversations with people… ...
Need a NED? How to avoid the pitfalls when engaging a Non-Executive Director - A good non-exec director can do wonders for an SME, bringing experience and a different perspective, acting as a sounding board and challenging the exec team to ensure they focus on the right stuff: the important not the urgent, the long-term strategy, good corporate governance and so on. And yet companies don’t always seem to get non-exec appointments right. I want… ...Get in Touch
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