+44(0)20 7859 4558
Balance Matters is a bespoke leadership development and executive coaching consultancy. We help leaders and their organizations build greater trust and connection for faster and exceptional results.
A successful flight path in this age of innovation and perpetual change is the ability and agility to change course if necessary, to develop powerful leadership practices that encourage resilience, flexibility, and adaptability, whilst remaining optimistic and consistent in message and presence.
Leaders are under increasing scrutiny from every angle. All of the time.
We understand this. We have had rigorous training with world class thought leaders on leadership presence, resilience, organizational change and innovation, emotional intelligence and neuroscience.
We craft programmes that quickly encourage fresh thinking and new ways of being.
Examples are:
She was one of the first in Europe to train with Newfield Network and to qualify to teach and coach in the field of leadership embodiment. She is equally one of a handful of qualified coaches and facilitators in the UK trained to design and run ‘Riding the Creative Rollercoaster’ programmes helping organizations in the innovation space. She has also studied ‘Artful Knowing’ in organizations which includes, storytelling, music, art and improvisation.
She is a seeker, constantly exploring the best ideas and frameworks for her clients’ needs.
Michele is well versed in the arts from her earlier studies as a linguist, and she is comfortable with science and the latest neuroscientific discoveries having studied anatomy and physiology. She notices patterns and looks at wider contexts seeking data to feed back to her clients; this can boost their self-awareness.
Clients are UK and international, Fortune 50 and FTSE companies as well as ground breaking start up organizations. Balance Matters works with senior level clients and their teams across many sectors, with clients in: life sciences, medical devices, professional services, retail, technology, financial services and venture capital, media/PR, NGOs, charity and education, and across various functions.
| People | we go beyond expectations |
| Professionalism | earning your trust through adding value with rigour - efficiently and respectfully |
| Playfulness | learning is easier if we use our adventurous spirit, creativity and humour |
| Pragmatism | what we do together has to align to your personal and business objectives and time available |
| Passion | enthusiasm is contagious, energy increases, sparks fly, ideas flow |
| Peace | integrity provides inner calm allowing space for reflection and cultivating awareness |
| Practice | discipline generates a sense of freedom |
| Pioneering spirit | courageously exploring the boundaries of learning and growth for you |
| Places | nature, a sense of belonging, home, common ground, paths and patterns |
| Who | What | When |
| Thomas Heatherwick | Ingenuity, Transformation and Surprise | talk |
| Roche Martin and HBR | Emotional intelligence summit | 2 day Conference |
| Roche Martin and HBR | Mindfulness course with Dr Allan Wallace | 1 Day Seminar |
| Jon Kabat Zinn | Mindfulness | talk |
| David Brooks | The Road to Character | talk |
| Dalai Lama | Talk at o2 | |
| Intelligence Squared Robert Caro | The Art of Political Power | talk |
| Brene Brown | Vulnerability, courage and worthiness | 2 day workshop |
| Nowhere Group | Riding the Creative Rollercoaster | 9 month course |
| David Whyte | Seven Elements of Conversational Leadership | Seminar |
| RSA Poetry | Institute of Education | talk |
| RSA | Does Your Mind Mean Business | talk |
| Association for Coaching | Innovation and the Journey to Coaching Mastery | 3 webinars |
| Association for Coaching | The Eye of Coaching with Juliette Lee | seminar |
| Nancy Glynn | Mindfulness for 21st century coaches day | Day seminar |
| RSA | Working &Living Mindfully in a Dynamic World – course | 8 evenings |
| Action learning group | Somatic Group | Day – quarterly |
| The School of Life | Business Wise | Day conference |
| The School of Life | Creativity and imagination and art – Will Gompertz | talk |
| RSA London Mindfulness | Practice and techniques | Monthly event |
| Linda Aspey | The shadow in coaching | ICF London chapter |
| Walter Isaacson | Be afraid, be very afraid: the robots are coming and they will destroy our livelihoods | talk Intelligence Squared |
| Amy Cuddy | Presence – bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges Non verbal behaviour | London Business Forum and Kings Place |
| Matthew Cohen | Qi Gong intensive | Somatic practice |
| RSA | Mindfulness course | 8 Week course |
As a leader it is imperative to create a relationship with your personal power. How you relate to yourself is a vital barometer for how you relate to others.
Today’s complex world, sophisticated marketplace, technological advances and existential questions put you at your learning edge.
Edges can be precarious and exciting. How you keep your balance is key to your success and your organization’s sustainability. That’s why balance matters.
The relentless pace, constant scrutiny of your every expression and move by your team, Board, stakeholders, and media alike means exercising extreme vigilance, discipline, and self-care to maintain that balance.
Balance Matters supports you at your edge of learning, the ‘not knowing’. We do this, through our understanding of how neurobiology operates under pressure, when success can bring added intensity. How do you build your muscle to hold this intensity?
It is the subtle internal shifts, daily leadership practices, increasing your self-awareness and accessing your strengths, aligning your head, heart and gut for integrity and impact.
From our work with leaders we know that it is the alignment of your values, moods, beliefs, speech and actions with your purpose and goals that provides you with meaning and fulfilment. This leads to far greater leadership presence. And results.
Knowing yourself fully frees you to operate naturally and enjoy the leadership adventure.
It starts with you and ends with you, igniting in others a desire to follow.
For leaders wishing to learn practices and techniques to deepen their understanding of leadership presence, influence and resilience.
London - Click here for more details.
Berkshire - Click here for more details.
For leaders who have completed Flourishing under Pressure and wish to explore their leadership vision, voice and presence further.
London - Click here for more details.
Berkshire - Click here for more details.
Programme for leadership teams to access their individual and collective intelligence for greater and faster communication and innovation.
Click here for more details.
Please contact us to discuss your leadership needs.
A module focussing on leadership presence for more skilful influencing and communicating.
Peacocks stand out, turn heads, protect others by signalling danger by their warning calls, what is more, every year they replace their long tail feathers anew – this takes energy and an incredible determination to survive. Their beauty and their display is like a CEO presenting to the analysts on a good day– splendid, upbeat, proud and standing tall.
Leaders who dare to show themselves inspire trust and win the hearts and minds of their teams and organizations with ease. Presence is this quality of being seen...
Trust - Our way of being can be understood more clearly by studying three aspects - how language is used, the moods we live in and the way our bodies move. If all are aligned we can generate trust and build credibility.
These three aspects you can cultivate through leadership practices.
You can build trust, maintain it and restore it if trust is broken. Yet so much trust is built from how we present ourselves. Research suggests one tenth of a second is all it takes for us to assess someone’s trustworthiness*
How do you build trust? How do you know when trust is missing?
*Princeton university research quoted in ‘Winning Minds: the secret language of leadership’
'Only when we have their attention can we hope to win their hearts and minds'
Eric Schmidt
Engage - As the fabric of our work becomes more complex the more we invent sophisticated ways of engaging people. Engagement is full commitment. Something bigger than box ticking is calling us forth today. Underlying our understanding of engagement is whether our workplace can make us happy and our work is fulfilling in both meaning and purpose. How do you gain full commitment?
'Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2015 report describes engaged employees as people who work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.'
Influence - ‘Language, moods, and body are all coherent. A shift in one domain can produce shifts in the other two, and so this creates multiple entry points into shifting a person’s way of being which determines the results they create’.
Newfield Network, ontological coaching.
'How we sit and stand can change the way we think and speak'
Wendy Palmer
How do you know your audience is interested in what you have to say?
How do you connect to people in your organization and through that connection powerfully influence?
Each root of leadership can be an individual programme or mixed and matched to suit your objectives or as an element of a longer programme. Please contact us to discuss further.
With this root of leadership we explore more deeply what you care about through clarifying your values and your leadership intention. Knowing these generates a forward momentum and aligned with a dedicated focus and engaging vision, you can be unstoppable.
The v-shape of flying geese is well-known, flying in formation makes aerodynamic sense, they know where good conditions are for their survival and return year after year, they do not waiver from their purpose.
Purpose - committed leaders who know what they want understand their priorities and know where they are going
When I (Michele) ask leaders about their purpose, often they say I want to make a difference in the world. They know what they are doing and why they are doing it. This takes self-awareness and a deep commitment to what they care about – your purpose becomes compelling, there is a ‘force of nature’, a gravitational pull that calls the best forth in you and your teams.
‘Great leaders have a higher purpose. This purpose energizes them and those around them. It means they speak with conviction, like a force of nature.
Simon Lancaster, Winning Minds
Intent - we clarify your leadership intention by aligning it to your core values, beliefs and abilities
Focus - we help cultivate vigilance and rigour so you can build leadership practices that enable you to focus on what is important: – through deliberate delegation and prioritization.
Vision - you can hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it, see it and you bring it alive for yourself and others.
'The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.'
Pablo Picasso
Each root of leadership can be an individual programme or mixed and matched to suit your objectives or as an element of a longer programme. Please contact us to discuss further.
With the Power root of leadership you will gain a deeper understanding of your power and how to use it to positive outcome.
Not only do eagles represent power, freedom and perspective, they are also incredibly patient, remaining still for hours at a time, when ready they take action with incredible swiftness and precision.
Power - leaders who know who they are, having developed a clear identity, can quickly build trust in relationships through conversations that influence.
Decide - when we feel empowered we can take decisions with ease. We can start conversations with ease. We can take care of our own and our organization’s future with ease.
‘Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.'
Peter Drucker
Act - we help you practise taking consistent actions towards your goals. Your way of being refers to how you perceive the world. It determines the actions you consider taking, which ultimately determine the results you create.
‘The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.'
Amelia Earhart
Drive - ‘If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.'
B C Forbes
Leaders who can craft powerful questions that harness the collective intelligence of their teams are able to drive their organizations forward relentlessly and passionately. Spending real time crafting powerful questions is imperative to exceptional leadership.
How do you build your identity in your organization? What actions do you take?
What is your relationship to power? Personal power? Social power?
How do you experience power?
How do you connect to your ambition so that it benefits all?
Each root of leadership can be an individual programme or mixed and matched to suit your objectives or as an element of a longer programme. Please contact us to discuss further.
Together we delve into politics in organizations and how you can develop a political self by observing, planning and navigating the maze of games played at work. Focussing on how you can make a contribution that influences for the greater good.
Observe - looking at what is actually happening and with objectivity gain new perspectives, raising your self and others’ awareness, which gives you greater choice and power.
Plan - we look at strategies for thriving in new landscapes.
Navigate - once you recognize what is happening and can see the politics for what they are you can learn to navigate, develop a voice, call it, and make healthy choices for the sake of you and your team.
'The bower bird has developed an exquisitely complex way of attracting a mate, he builds a bower with obsessive dedication - if in the countryside this will consist of different coloured berries, leaves, twigs, all arranged in separate categories, if an urban bower bird he uses metal rings, broken glass pieces, anything shiny of the same colour... The thing is he has to leave the bower to find his decorations. This is dangerous as other competitive males come and move objects out of place. So, he has to expend energy in replacing them in the exact same place. Nature’s way of saying ‘watch your back’.'
What is the level of trust in your organization?
What are the risks of playing politics in your organization? What are the risks of not playing?
What has been the major learning or insight about politics in your career?
Many clients have said they want to get on with the business in hand and not be distracted by games and politics which they view as time wasting, toxic and manipulative and benefiting only a few. In trust-based cultures games being played are minimal, in fear-based organizations they multiply.
Having a sense of joint purpose, aligned to values and integrity creates flow and ease within organizations and can quickly eradicate game playing.
You learn that it may take time to cultivate an identity that is respected within the organization through having one choice conversation at a time. Intellectually understanding the power of timely conversations doesn’t mean that you know how to have the conversation – often you may need to involve the body in this learning.
What is the timing for a powerful exchange?
How do I experience conflict?
How do I blend with my detractors? How do I seek out avid fans?
‘Moving our organizations from games to purpose is the real work of leadership……
Emotional intelligence reduces game playing and increases authentic human interaction.'
Philip Read and Mauricio Goldstein - Games at Work
Each root of leadership can be an individual programme or mixed and matched to suit your objectives or as an element of a longer programme. Please contact us to discuss further.
Leaders who hold and create space for spontaneity and creativity – this is where innovation can happen in hidden unexpected places. In this module we use all manner of creative means to access your own and/or your team’s abilities to produce the new, the inspiring for improved results.
This is not about poetry per se it is about the spaces and places where creativity meets innovation - a prerequisite today for competitive advantage.
Reflect - how do we stand still long enough for the new to emerge?
Create - blending artful knowing and scientific rigour to solve the dilemmas in our organizations and our world.
'Creative thinking (which is rooted in intellectual, theoretical brain-work) is not the same as artful knowing (which is rooted in visceral experience and the active embodied response of the “body intellectual”)'
Dr Chris Seeley – Ashridge report on Artful Organization
Inspire - when we are inspired we transcend the day to day and some inner electric current is sparked to spur us on to deliver extraordinary things.
'The poet must be able to end a thought so masterfully that a rich space of suggestions unfolds in the imagination of his audience.'
Fujiwara Teika
Birds of paradise are known to be the most spectacular birds of our natural world, evolved over years to display superb plumage and sophisticated dances to attract a mate. New traits introduced over generations for competitive advantage become more common over time to make the species more and more successful. Expect the unexpected when you watch a bird of paradise in action. It inspires through its creativity. In every sense.
Which senses do you engage at work?
Looking at market needs what are you inspired to create?
What problem are you working on that might benefit from a pause?
How can you transform irritation into inspiration?
For a leader
May you have the grace and wisdom
To act kindly, learning
To distinguish between what is
Personal and what is not.
May you be hospitable to criticism.
May you act not from arrogance but out of service.
May you work on yourself,
Building up and refining the ways of your mind.
May those who work for you know
You see and respect them.
May you learn to cultivate the art of presence
In order to engage with those who meet you.
When someone fails or disappoints you,
May the graciousness with which you engage
Be their stairway to renewal and refinement.
May you treasure the gifts of the mind
Through reading and creative thinking
So that you continue as a servant of the frontier
Where the new will draw its enrichment from the old,
And you never become a functionary.
May you know the wisdom of deep listening,
The healing of wholesome words,
The encouragement of the appreciative gaze,
The decorum of held dignity,
The springtime edge of the bleak question.
May you have a mind that loves frontiers
So that you can evoke the bright fields
That lie beyond the view of the regular eye.
May you have good friends
To mirror your blind spots.
May leadership be for you
A true adventure of growth.
©John O’Donohue
Each root of leadership can be an individual programme or mixed and matched to suit your objectives or as an element of a longer programme. Please contact us to discuss further.
Balance Matters Executive Coaching works closely with a select number of partners at the highest levels within global business and the broader community.
We can provide a highly creative and very individual service based on an appropriate match of style, personality and process between client and coach. Coaching in organizations by definition has to be specifically linked to the overarching business strategy and system for sustainable performance.
The results we obtain as individuals/teams in our personal or professional lives depend on the conversations we are able to have, and these then define our achievements and the type of person we are. Our identity and that of our teams and organizations is generated through the kinds of conversations we have or do not have.
Language and the spoken word alone are not sufficient to sustain change and master leadership. In the coaching relationship we explore how moods, emotions and the body all influence how we interact with the world (or not).
For true and sustainable transformation to occur, your primary concern is not only to change your actions and behaviours but also to shift how you are observing and interpreting situations, people and organizational challenges. It becomes not just a question of what you are doing but one of how you are being in your lives and in your organizations.
Balance Matters approach to coaching produces conversations that transform performance by including both skill building and wisdom building—since it takes both to produce bold, effective and meaningful actions to address the complexities and challenges in our world today.
Some of our work focuses on the body and its power to impact on how we feel and act as individuals, but also on its power to have a significant impact on others.
It is well known that others are reading our bodies all the time, as they are now called ‘microexpressions’ about who we are, and whether that is aligned with what we are saying. In fact, proven scientific data shows that both effective communication and trust building is influenced more by the body than the words being used. If there is a gap between the two – what we are saying and who we are being – Then dissonance can result and our message is perceived as being less credible and our presence diminished.
Please contact us to discuss your leadership needs.
An opportunity, using Positive Psychology, strengths and values based action plans to focus on next steps – can be a one off or as part of an ongoing coaching programme
Please contact us to discuss your leadership needs.
These can be bespoke leadership programmes for senior teams or Boards incorporating the latest in neuroscience, leadership development, somatic intelligence and mindfulness in dialogue and action.
Flourishing under pressure - Click here for more details.
Blossoming under pressure - Click here for more details.
Please contact us to discuss your leadership needs.
Over the years we have provided experiential action learning programmes created together with your input and aligned to your objectives. Do contact us to see what would be timely for you right now.
Please contact us to discuss your leadership needs.
Refuelling is a retainer annual package that can be designed for ad hoc check ins, relevant resource updates, laser coaching, resilience practices, and well-being check- ups. This is a unique offer for those who have already experienced a Balance Matters programme.
For clients who are moving at speed and there are times when you have 30 minutes or less. Sample scenarios:
Please contact us to discuss your leadership needs.
Reading is not just about acquiring information, it is about knowing or not knowing things, it is learning and from the new knowledge taking effective action – read the book or articles on 3 levels :
What questions do you want answered by reading this book/watching this TED talk?
Formulate the questions before you read/see it.
What actions or conversations can happen as a result of reading the report/watching the talk?
What new thoughts occur to you?
A Woman’s Place is in the Boardroom:
The Roadmap by Peninah Thomson and Jacey Graham with Tom Lloyd.
Mindfulness:
A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world by Mark Williams and Danny Penman
Accenture
Allergan
Astellas
AstraZeneca
Bayer
Abingworth
BBC
Ciba Vision
Galpagos Conservation Trust
GE Healthcare
IPPF
Ipsen
Lane Crawford
London Youth
Nelsons
Novartis
Poet in the City
Pfizer
Sported
The Economist
Takeda
UCB
Various Biotech
VSO
Wilderness Foundation
WPP
“An imaginative, challenging, supportive Coach that delivers visible results by building confidence and providing clarity to those she is coaching – a true “hand on your back”
Global HR Director
“The Balance Matters coaching program has enabled me to unlock my potential, effectively manage my work life balance, and has brought a calmness and focus to my work.
You are a superstar, you have a gift for helping people and I consider myself lucky to have met you when I did.”
COO, Biotech
“I relocated overseas in my early 40s and found the adjustment overwhelming. Michele was instrumental in helping me build a leadership framework which led to me adapting well to the cultural challenge and new business environment, ultimately helping me regain perspective and balance”
Global Director, Retail
“You were very adaptive and had an example for everything. You asked all the right questions from my perspective”
Executive Director, Financial Services
“I found it invaluable to have a new perspective on my working life. I am sure that many of the things I discovered will stay with me and become an integral part of the way I work/operate. I am extremely grateful for the experience.”
Director, TV
“You are a real inspirer and rock – all mixed together.”
CEO, Charity
“Working with Michele has uncovered a personal world that looks & feels quite different to me – a world with options & opportunities for further exploration, armed with some new learnings & tools vital for the journey”
VP Pharma
“I found the experience of coaching refreshing, enabling, thought provoking, at times very challenging. Some months after the coaching, I am even more aware than at the time of the benefit it has provided for my leadership. It was much needed and has been much appreciated.
Your patience, inventiveness, variety of method and material (flexibility), challenge and unexpectedness, decisiveness. The last particularly sticks in my mind.”
Senior leader, Education
“What I appreciated in the coaching programme”
1. listening
2. diagnosis
3. explanation
4. challenge
5. review
AND your careful reflections and notes have been inspiring, not only in their quality, but even more so in the empathy and generosity – thank you very, very much”
MD, Pharma
“You allow things to naturally to develop and your facilitation is very organic and non intrusive – you do not get involved emotionally and keep unbiased/objective - therefore keeping reactions to you at a minimum and therefore the focus of the group is on the group”
Director, Financial services
“We have had another very positive email from our Chairman thanking us all and everyone seems to agree it was the best Awayday ever!”
CEO Conservation Charity
“Within the programme the walk was good, allowed one to focus on an issue without other distractions.
What works well is that you seem to be able to create that environment for free flow of ideas and passions. Not sure how you do it but people want to open up and show their passion.
I see your role as very much a physiotherapist for the brain and our behaviours. I thank you for providing that.”
Director, Pharma
“Thank you again for all your help! You have a wonderful ability to draw out exactly what is needed and you 'get' the issues/the personality. A real talent.”
CEO, Recruitment
“The energy, safeness and the humour were highlights of the course”
Director TV
“The best course I have attended in a 32 year career”
Director, Charity
“All of it was valuable, your openness and commitment to our getting it was wonderful.
I think if I consciously make the point to centre myself more regularly it will also "bring a better me into the world"
Executive Coach
“My confidence has soared. I feel I can deal with anything life throws at me.
Michele held the space with such tenderness and faith that all self-consciousness fell away and I was able to open myself to absorbing everything that was going on without self censure or resistance. Very liberating.
I am now able to take the initiative and to speak out in an authentic and grounded way rather than shrink when faced with opposition. All things are possible and I am no longer afraid.”
Director TV, Internal Executive Coach
Balance Matters
Henry Wood House
2 Riding House Street
London
W1A 7FA
+44 (0)20 7859 4558
+44 (0)7980 556014
michele@balancematters.com
