Trans4me – Executive coaching and career development

FAURE & ASSOCIATES

personal empowerment, business transformation

“What makes new behaviors possible is not simply trying to act differently. New behaviors that last come from new ways of seeing, from new awarenesses and sensibilities.”
~ Peter Senge

OUR PHILOSOPHY

“I am, then, not at all a wise person myself, nor have I any wise invention, the offspring born of my own soul; but those who associate with me, although at first some of them seem very ignorant, yet, as our acquaintance advances, all of them to whom the god is gracious make wonderful progress, not only in their own opinion, but in that of others as well. And it is clear that they do this, not because they have ever learned anything from me, but because they have found in themselves many fair things and have brought them forth. But the delivery is due to the god and me.”

Socrates – from Plato, Theaetetus

In this quote, Socrates describes how he, like a midwife of the soul, assists in the bringing forth of “offsprings of the mind”. Providing no new knowledge as such but proceeding through carefully crafted questions, Socrates helps deliver the “many fair things” that inhabit our minds, dormant until the insightful question reveals them to our awareness, triggering new understanding and enabling us to act with renewed focus and energy, to “make wonderful progress”.

This passage illustrates our approach to our work: we believe, like Socrates, that each of us has a fundamental wealth of knowledge as well as innate energy and desire to grow and realise the best possible future for ourselves in all aspects of our lives. We sometimes get stuck in our pursuits, caught up in mental attitudes that perpetuate old patterns and withhold the emergence of breakthrough insights. Our work is essentially to create the conditions for the emergence of new, actionable insights that will ultimately result in transformation of the person, the team, the organisation.

SERVICES

EXECUTIVE COACHING

Executive coaching is a thought-provoking journey of partnership with a client to enhance their personal and professional impact. In most cases, the aim is to first create greater clarity about priorities and goals, then initiate meaningful behavioural and attitudinal change and finally ensure sustainable empowerment to continue the journey autonomously.

Professionals and executive leaders will often seek coaching when a gap has appeared between their current experience of life and work and their expectations (e.g. a drop in performance or motivation, a challenging new situation, a need to reappraise fundamental perspectives or habits, an exciting opportunity to be pursued, a need to acquire new skills and behaviours).

The coach operates as a discovery and learning partner to help explore and surface issues and opportunities. Mental models and assumptions are reviewed, strategies are devised to address and modify them where required. As the relationship evolves, the coach focuses more on the establishment of sustained practices and achievement of goals as progress options are considered and results reviewed.

TEAM COACHING

Executives today are increasing working collaboratively, either in ad-hoc groups that exist temporarily to perform specific tasks, or in more permanent teams. These executive teams are navigating uncertain and turbulent contexts and the strategic decisions they make can generate long term organisational impacts.

To chart a course they rely on their collective experience and intelligence and in doing so must avoid two extremes: first, groupthink, where a team has developed entrenched practices to quickly agree a course of action; second, in-fighting, where confrontation and challenge run so rampant that only superficial agreements are ever reached.

A team coach helps create a space to encourage constructive inquiry, support creative exploration, expose counter-productive dynamics, and generally contribute to a safe yet challenging context where high quality decisions can emerge.

EXECUTION MANAGEMENT

One of the undervalued facets of leadership is the ability to lead execution towards the delivery of strategic initiatives. Leading execution effectively requires the ability to design and implement systems and processes to:

Create a clear, shared vision of goals and objectives, and how the goals and objectives of a specific team relate to the broader objectives of the organisation.
Prioritise activities to match the available capacity and focus of teams or organisations at any one time. Organisations often add to their lists of initiatives without removing work that has decreased in priority, creating distraction at best and frustration at worst.
Monitor progress and make it visible to everyone: this enables individuals to harness their own energies and motivation towards the work.

Modern work management methods (e.g. Agile) and motivation theory demonstrate that executives who consistently enable their teams to explicitly make progress on meaningful work not only deliver: they also create workplaces where meaning and well-being through work is at the centre.

CAREER DEVELOPMENT

As the world of work has become more volatile and uncertain in recent decades, the career ladder has evolved into the career lattice and kaleidoscope. Career coaching is increasingly relevant to help professionals determine a career path best aligned with their professional and personal aspirations. In its essence, career coaching provides both information and a vis-à-vis to facilitate career decision-making.

Typically, the coaching process uncovers values, skills, interests, natural talents and drivers, and makes them available to scrutiny, evaluation and leverage. This review is summarised in the form of a value proposition, which then underpins the way an individual understands and presents their professional goals.

Creating a broader range of career possibilities for individuals to explore where they are most likely to thrive is a valued outcome of career coaching. Another is preparing productive, focused networking conversations and interviews. Ultimately, the most important benefit may be that it reminds individuals that their success is transferable to different roles and organisations.

Meet the team

the people supporting you

François Faure

Francois works with leaders and their teams to create learning and innovation opportunities. His favourite space is the crossroads where logic and rigour meet empathy and personal transformation, enabling clients to explore their context, connect with their stakeholders, then execute on their initiatives with clarity, focus and momentum.

François brings to his practice a variety of perspectives and experience from his own diverse professional background: executive leadership roles; consulting roles in strategy and leadership development; implementation of large, complex transformation projects; coaching and mentoring, from emerging young leaders to seasoned executives; even pastoral care from his early days as a minister.

Clients appreciate François’ ability to create clarity from complex situations and facilitate the emergence of innovative solutions.

QUALIFICATIONS
François’ formal education reflects the dual nature of his interests:

Master of Engineering in Robotics (University of Technology of Compiègne)

Master of Management in Human Resources & Coaching (Macquarie University)

Penelope Faure

Penelope’s expertise lies in combining her academic training in organisational psychology with a holistic approach to individual well being and performance. She works to enable sustainable learning, supporting clients as they learn and embed effective behaviours into their everyday leadership and management practices.

In both the commercial and NGO sectors, Penelope’s 20+ year career spans human capital and talent development, strategic planning and business growth. She draws upon this diverse experience to coach across a wide range of industries and organisations in Australia, Europe and Asia.

Clients appreciate Penelope’s warm and generous style, her capacity to pose questions that open up new directions and her insights.

QUALIFICATIONS

Doctor of Organisational Psychology, Macquarie University

Master of Philosophy, Macquarie University

Bachelor of Arts (Psychology), Sydney University

Bachelor of Humanities (Forms of Communication), Griffith University