What our clients say about us ...
Ian Licence
Human Resources and Change Director, Serco.
"I have worked with Step System over a number of years and their work has always been an unqualified success. We regard Step System more as a partner than as a supplier. Our long standing relationship is based on mutual trust and respect."
Jane Akazi
HR Business partner, Serco.
"One of the aspects I enjoy most about my role is analysing and solving problems. However solving everyone’s problems is great, until you realise you are constantly solving the same problems, caused by the same people, time and time again. What a waste of valuable time! "Learn to say NO!" people would say to me, "focus on the urgent, not the important!", but the phone continued to ring and the in tray continued to grow, with all those problems I was going to solve...............
The answer? Coaching! It’s so simple!
Since being on the coaching course, I take a completely different approach that didn't come naturally before. It’s not about saying "NO" or avoiding being solutions-focused, it’s about asking the right questions. So when a manager rings me up asking me what he should do with his difficult to manage employee, instead of launching into how the manager "should" go about managing the situation, I ask coaching questions (I have them stuck on my wall) like, "what is your ideal outcome?", "what options do you have?", "what else could you do?".
The huge advantages of this approach are ownership - it is still their problem and accountability but they go away with a solution that they want to implement because it is their idea… and you know, 9 times out of 10 that the person already has the answer inside them, they just don’t know it, so getting them to talk through the situation and rehearse it using the GROWth model can be very liberating, and their answer will usually be far better than yours!
This has been one of the best investment of 2 days of my time - it has certainly enabled me to put my time to better use (and gain a lighter in tray - shhh!) which I’m putting to good use on those more "important" issues."
Teachers Pension Agency Proteus Environmental PR Openwave Serco Siemens Financial Services Limited Beefeater Restaurants Compass Group Microsoft Limited T.G.I. Friday's YO! Sushi Eye to Eye Development British Olympics Association