We kick stuff to see if it works
We have spent decades auditioning and trialling different ways to help our clients achieve genuinely transformative growth – growth that helps them achieve high levels of personal authenticity and professional performance. We have concluded that we’re done with competency-based learning and development that we believe is designed to create identikit leaders and coaches – we believe they simply don’t work. We think that they quash people’s strengths and offer only a hollow sense of confidence – we believe in competence not competencies! So, whether we are developing coaches or groups of leaders we work using researched approaches that are proven to develop a person’s uniqueness and individual strengths.
We care deeply both about what we do and who we do it for, so are committed to delivering meaningful and impactful results for all the clients we work with, both the individuals and their organisations.
We’ve each been coaching for over 15 years – it’s both what we do and who we are. We practice it, study it, teach it, supervise it, research it and publish in it. Our approach is strongly relational and dialogic and over the years this has achieved some extraordinary results. We fundamentally believe that personal change is emergent and flows from awareness rather than coercion, persuasion or instruction. It is a paradoxical change that occurs when individuals are helped to become more of who they are rather than more of who they’re not. We coach individuals, leaders, teams and groups and when we ask our clients to describe in three words how they find their coaching experience with us, these are the sorts of things they say:
Stimulating, moving, transformational, educational, calming, engaging, insightful
Wise, empathetic, knowledgeable, present, empowering
Confident, informed, liberated, assured, actualised
We have seen how transformational coaching can be to individuals, teams and organisations and so it matters to us very much that coaches are professional, competent and impactful. We love the idea of bringing on new generations of coaches into our field and so we offer training programmes that include Manager as Coach, Internal Coach & Mentor, Group Mentoring and Coaching and Mentoring ILM Level 3,5,7. We tailor many of our Internal programmes to the culture and needs of our clients and also run Open Programmes for those wanting to learn alongside coaches from other sectors and organisations. Our development philosophy is also deeply relational and dialogic and so we focus on helping individuals develop their authentic practice and presence as a coach. Individuals who have been through our programmes describe the experience as:
Deep, powerful, stimulating, comprehensive, fantastic learning
Engaging, challenging, insightful, supportive, involving, experiential
The most important and impactful programme I’ve attended; I have learned who I am as a coach and the importance of that
You can download the brochure here:
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Coaching and mentoring are by their nature quite solitary roles (aside from your coachee or mentee of course). It can be difficult to know for sure what you did well, what other choices you might have made and where your ethics and boundaries may feature and be challenged. As a coach your most vital learning arises in the moment and is processed later. However, sometimes it can be difficult to fully explore these learning opportunities and choices on your own and this is where Supervision comes in. We provide individual and group supervision that is, you guessed it, deeply relational and dialogic! Which means it is focussed on not just being educational and supportive but also inspirational and transformational. A lot of our own most important learning has been encountered in Supervision and so it is important to us to offer our trainees and fellow coaches the same personal learning – either as one-off or at regular intervals. Those who have immersed themselves in Supervision have described it as:
Holding, knowing, empathetic, enlightening
Challenging & supportive, creating space and time to think, energising, provocative
Powerful & profound, enlightening, transformative
ALD group-coaching is probably unlike any other form of leadership development you’ve undertaken. First, it’s ‘a process’ and not a training course – you don’t train authenticity into people, you draw it out, you help people find it. Second, the content comes from the participants and not the group-coach or prepared materials – no PowerPoint and no workbooks. Third, it’s personal. While it’s safe and fun, there’s nowhere to hide – because it’s not about theory it’s about you. Finally, It’s the only ‘proven’ approach to authentic leadership development on the market. Many seasoned leaders who have participated report it as being the most important and impactful development programme they’ve experienced during their whole career. Routinely, they comment along the lines of:
Unlike anything I’ve ever done, intense but safe, a life-event
Makes you think deeply about your past self, your present self and your future self
Astonishing, deep, enduring
You can download the brochure here:
DOWNLOADOur approach to ALD requires leaders to think differently and to help facilitate this we run the programme far away from the usual meeting room, Board room or training room environments in comfortable, unusual and informal venues.
We Support Coaches
Coaching can be: incredible, rewarding, inspirational, fulfilling … but also challenging and lonely!
Whilst we work in partnership with our clients, coaching is essentially a solitary skill. So, it is almost inevitable that we sometimes slip into routine or stuck ways of working. We can be left to sit alone with our self-doubt or to ponder the ethical and practical choices and challenges we meet. The 3D Coach Development Group aims to fill this void. We meet for 2 hours quarterly to explore themes relating to both our ways-of-doing and our ways-of-being as a coach. We work with the group to provide some input, some structure, some fun and a large amount of openness and support. We also create plenty of space for live emergent topics, practice and group supervision.
This is an opportunity to learn from other coaches in the group and to explore further your own individual way of being and doing as a coach.
You can also download the brochure here:
We Innovate in Coaching
We’ve also been researching coaching for over 6 years, generating a lot of the published work above. Our particular research interest is group-coaching and Authentic Leadership Development. You won’t be surprised to hear by now, that this is a deeply dialogic and relational approach to leadership development that sets it apart from most other approaches to leadership development. We’ve worked with many groups of senior managers using this approach including leaders from Sellafield and the NHS – both demanding, technical and highly regulated environments to lead within. It can be difficult in such environments to find your authentic leadership self, which is exactly what this approach to ALD achieves. It turns the competency approach to leadership development on its head – because we believe that what makes leaders great, at any level, are their differences and not their similarities!
To hear what it’s like going through this unique and innovative approach to Authentic Leadership group-coaching please check out our video.
You can also download the brochure here:
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We Research
Rather than contribute to the background noise on coaching through tweeting or blogging we believe we make a better contribution to the field by producing more considered journal articles which we have been writing now for several years. Most are peer-reviewed and appear in Coaching journals published by the British Psychological Society and the International Society of Coaching Psychology.
They may not be as pithy as a blog or a tweet but they are far better quality-controlled and can be found at:
…and wE publish
In addition, our research into group-coaching Authentic Leadership Development has been published by Routledge in a 2018 book titled ‘An Evidence-Based Approach to Authentic Leadership Development’ and of course is available on Amazon.
COACHING, LIFE AND LATTE
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PURCHASE HERETony & Toni say Hello………
Hi, I’m Tony and with Toni run 3D Leadership. We knew once why we called it 3D, but I think that’s now lost in mists of time. One thing has always remained constant though and that is our love of all things coaching! My passion for the topic saw me undertake a Doctorate, the fruits of which you can see peppered among the pages above. I live on the Malvern Hills which, on sunny days, proves a great outdoor office for all the reading and writing that comes with doing a doctorate.
For those interested in the serious credentials they are:
Doctor of Coaching Psychology/Chartered Psychologist/Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society/ISCP Registered & Accredited Coaching Psychologist/Editorial Board Member of the Philosophy of Coaching Journal
Hi I’m Toni, the other half of 3D. My deepest interest professionally is coaching – be it coaching leaders, training and developing new coaches and welcoming them into this wonderful field or supervising existing coaches. I also work with leadership development using a Gestalt approach to tap into people’s innate knowledge: we all have virtually every skill we need, it’s just that we don’t always bring those skills into all the situations that we might. When I’m not coaching or developing myself, I can be found with my beloved chickens at home in Bedfordshire in the garden, or up a mountain in Scotland.
And my credentials?
Well currently the main ones are: MSc in Coaching Psychology/Gestalt Practitioner in Organisations (European Association of Gestalt Therapists)/Post Graduate Diploma in Relational Gestalt/Post Graduate Diploma in Supervision/Fellow CIPD.
How we work
Hopefully, our qualifications and experience demonstrate we are deadly serious about the business of coaching.
However, we believe people learn best when relaxed and engaged… not stressed and tense. This is reflected in our practice where we strive to create a safe, enjoyable environment. We encourage coachees, trainees and supervisees to bring their personalities and humour with them and we try to do the same…… as evidenced in the outtake pics below, taken from the original website photo shoot catching us mid water-fight!
Please get in touch
We’d love to discuss offering coaching or leadership support for you or your organisation, whatever stage you’re currently at.
3D Leadership Ltd
Granta Lodge, 71 Graham Road
Malvern WR14 2JS
info@3dleadership.co.uk
…the change that naturally occurs when you try to become more of what you are rather than more of what you’re not.