Longer lives and longer careers are occurring in a rapidly changing economic landscape, where old realities are giving way to quite different conditions and pressures. We’re now well into the knowledge economy, the digital age, the world of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity), of which COVID-19 is now a big part.

All this means that most of us will need to reinvent ourselves several times, with some of us doing so many times. Indeed, there is only a small chance of you never needing to redesign your life!

Periods of transition are often characterised by the ending of something. You finally face the fact that you aren’t happy at work. Your job no longer engages you. Or you lose it. Whatever the catalyst, you know your life as you’ve been living it doesn’t satisfy you. You can’t go back to how you felt before. For a while, you may even feel poised between the old and the new, between what’s finished and what isn’t yet real. So, you’ll need to make changes, some quite large. In this endeavour, be focused, be prepared and, above all, be persistent!

Periods of transition are often characterised by the ending of something. While it may be challenging, even daunting in the moment, so many end up reflecting on big shifts and wonder why they hadn’t made them sooner.”
Source: UGM

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what are clients looking for?

Criteria Our Clients Value

Here’s what clients value in UGM leadership programs

Behaviour-focused

UGM coaching clients are talented and ambitious people who find themselves in complex situations or at a career crossroads. UGM helps develop the mindsets and skills that will help them achieve their breakthrough goals.

Evidence-based

UGM clients aren’t interested in management fads or fashions. They want support that is evidence-based, grounded and reliable. As well as conducting our own research, UGM stays up to date with the latest insights in the field.

Fit-for-context

Everyone’s context has its own challenges. UGM career support takes into account each client’s unique circumstances with support services that are designed for them personally. Support is highly individualised for best outcomes.

Expert support

People appreciate working with qualified coaches and presenters who also have broad business and professional experience, including in executive positions in a wide range of sectors, pubic, corporate and not-for-profit.

Value for money

Our clients want support that is tailored and timely. They are focussed on achieving results and enjoy UGM’s practical approach to supporting success. Sessions reflect an agreed agenda, with ‘out of session’ tasks helping to speed results.

it works!

Don’t Just Take Our Word For It

The program is full of strategies that can be easily implemented to help identify and pursue goals.

Partner

Law Firm

Very punctual. Kept to the agenda that ensured we achieved a lot in such a short period of time. Great outcomes and a fabulous group of people. Thank you!

Partner

Accounting Firm

Very informative and given good insight on how mindset can be improved to think strategically. Good resource for developing executive leadership.

Application Development Manager

Public Sector Agency

Set of tools to align the team to the strategy of the organisation.

Solution Lead – Financials

Public Sector Agency

Empowering, thought-provoking, highly active and interactive. Motivates change and drive to apply tools in work and life.

Design Team Lead

Public Sector Agency

Challenges one to take a holistic approach, ideate, collaborate rapidly, question your assumptions and paradigms. Move from thought to action.

Executive Officer

Public Sector Agency

Reinvent your career

This program is right for you if:

You want to ramp up your career and go all out to land the kind of exciting, executive position you feel you’re ready for now.
You’re feeling a bit jaded and you’re looking for a chance to shift to a different kind of role, one where you’ll be able to use more of your strengths and interests.
You want to develop a portfolio career which might include board work, as well as some social contributions important to you.You want to follow that dream, write that book or start that business.
You want to reconfigure your life, so that it includes more flexibility and a different kind of balance in the way you spend your time.
You’ve just lost a job, perhaps as result of changes in your sector and you’d like to regroup and figure out ‘where to next’.

Program Benefits

A proven and popular program that draws on the latest thinking about how to design a life that reflects your values and uses your strengths.
An opportunity to step outside your usual routines for just a day to review and refresh your career direction.
A range of practical tools, tips and techniques that you can apply immediately to your personal context.
The support and stimulus of others who, like you, want to take time-out to reflect on how they can best use their values and goals to live the life they want. In one-on-one sessions this is your coach. In a group program these are like-minded colleagues.

Interactive mini-module modules

Understand what matters to you

Understand what matters most to you and what gives your life greatest meaning.

Review your assets and opportunities

Review your assets and opportunities realistically.

Learn and use techniques for breakthrough thinking

Practise using a sequence of powerful question frameworks that support breakthrough thinking.

Set motivating, achievable goals

Set goals that motivate and inspire you.

Craft a powerful personal action plan for you

Reflect all this in a personal, actionable plan for the next year.

Learn ways to overcome common obstacles

Learn how to manage common obstacles in the way of your success.

In Your Corner

Get UGM coaching support if:

You’d like to take the next step in your career, but you feel uncertain about when and how to make your move.
You want to put your best foot forward in an important interview, but you’re not sure exactly how to do this.
You feel challenged by a difficult work problem and you’d benefit from a second opinion or a fresh approach.
You’re transitioning into an important new role or maybe you’re under a lot of pressure to deliver results.
You want some expert support to see you through.
You’re at a cross roads.
You’d like to change direction and get some help to consider options.

Coaching Benefits

Get support from coaches who are qualified, confidential and highly experienced. We’re also supportive, encouraging and, above all, practical.
Remove any sense of being alone and isolated. We’re ‘in your corner’, committed to helping you be the best you can, whatever your circumstances.
Identify and tackle your challenges head on. We ask powerful questions, encourage you to think and help you explore options. We work with you to identify goals and map how to get there.
Give your approach depth and breadth, developed and refined over a series of three coaching sessions.

Mentoring Success Program (MSP)

These programs are suited for:

Organisations that would like to run a mentoring program but have never done so before.
Organisations that have run mentoring programs of their own in the past but would like to try UGM’s proven, evidence-based MSP.
Organisations looking to run a virtual mentoring program, allowing participants in different locations (including regional areas or remote locations) the opportunity to participate.
Organisations wanting to promote cross-organisational mentoring opportunities, with one or multiple programs running simultaneously.
Organisations committed to supporting accelerated development opportunities for particular groupings (e.g. women; people from a multi-cultural background; or early career, high potentials)

Program Benefits

Assure the success of your mentoring initiative by using a proven, evidence based approach for the implementation, management and evaluation of your mentoring program.
Draw on UGM’s considerable expertise with mentoring programs (and organisational health and performance fields more generally) and customise for your own context.
Provide expert support for mentees and mentors through the entire process, from initial recruitment through to final debrief once the mentoring program has been completed.
Learn how to develop a mentoring culture within your organisation that delivers benefits well beyond those directly involved in the program.

Program Focus

Expert advice on mentoring

Get expert advice on who to include in your mentoring program (mentors and mentees) and how to involve them early in the initiative.

Proven activities for mentees and mentors

Provide a robust, time-effective series of workshops for mentees and mentors that clarify roles and responsibilities, highlight skills for success and facilitate initial interactions between the mentoring pairs.

Ongoing support mechanism for MSP duration

Follow-up with a range of ongoing support mechanisms that embed learning, facilitate the mentoring experience and subtly monitor mentoring progress.

Robust evaluation during and after MSP

Evaluate your mentoring initiative to ensure that it is delivering the best outcomes and return on investment in your organisation’s context.

Wired For Influence

This module is suited to:

Individual team members who are wanting to have greater influence within their team and more widely.
Leader-managers who have the formal authority to make things happen but who would rather lean on influence to achieve their targets .
People looking for new opportunities who need to influence others to make that happen.
Anyone involved in the complex business of stakeholder management, particularly when the stakes are high and/or include multiple stakeholders seeking differing outcomes.

Module Benefits

Harness powerful insights about how your brain works to influence others more effectively.
Develop potent strategies that equip you to confidently counter workplace ‘blockers’ and also boost influencing more generally.
Influence with confidence and without ethical/moral concerns.
Identify key sources of personal influence at work that you’ll harness for success.
Bring and work on your current influencing challenges and by the end of the day you’ll have many fresh ideas that you will be able to immediately put into action.

Indicative mini-modules (interactive)

Understand how you brain is ‘wired for influence’

Understand how your brain is wired for influence from the latest neuroscience research.

Recognise than influencing is not manipulating

Differentiate between influencing and manipulating.

Identify how influencing play out in daily life

Reflect on the impact that influencing has on different components of your everyday work and what you can do differently to be more influential, including with groups.

Use powerful frameworks to influence effectively

Use a range of practical, step-by-step influencing frameworks and tools to enhance the way you influence in future.

Understand why ‘What’s In It for Me’ is critical

Understand how to address important ‘What’s In It For Me’ considerations when you’re looking to influence others.

Make an action plan for next steps

Plan ‘next steps’ to converting your learning into beneficial actions!

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Career Development briefings from the UGM archive

Why mentoring is making a strong comeback

How to unlock opportunities by being more visible

What impression do you want to create?

Why you need influence to get ahead at work

Make the most of the benefits that mindfulness research reveals

How stressed are you feeling right now?

WE HAVE Answers

Ask Us Anything About Career Development

If you’re at a career crossroads and looking to next steps in your career, it’s useful to start by describing the kind of future you want. Think about the different domains of your life, not just work. In relation to each domain, decide where you are now and where you’d like to be. What needs to change to close the gap between these two? Start by taking some small, ‘safe-to-fail’ steps, as experiments, if you like. This can be more helpful than taking big, radical leaps when you don’t have enough information.

There’s no doubt that having a sense of purpose and meaning gives you drive, motivation and satisfaction. Think over the last month. What did you do where you felt meaning and purpose? Was this activity personal or work-related? What adjustments, however small, could you make to your work this week in order to spend more time engaged in tasks and activities you find meaningful? Bear in mind that all jobs have some mundane elements. When you’ve clarified your thinking in this more of/less of way, make a time to meet with your manager to talk over how you might ‘sculpt’ your work to create more meaning in it. If this isn’t possible, you may need to look for a different role. Purpose and meaning contribute to your happiness and well-being.

Procrastination and distraction are common problems facing most of us at times! So you’re not alone. Innovative research on this issue shows that designing ‘nudges’ can be helpful. This is about creating a portfolio (i.e. not just one thing) of small adjustments to your environment that gently nudge you in a positive direction without too much effort. For instance, put yourself back in the same setting where you wrote that last well-received report. The same context will nudge previous useful behaviours. However, if you always work in the same place and struggle to get things done, try rearranging your workspace completely and see what happens.

Research suggests there are some common reasons why someone can feel a lack of confidence. A good place to start is to consider whether you have excessive expectations. Many people approach a task or an activity wanting to be perfect at once. They set the bar very high for themselves, such that it becomes daunting even to have a go. This unhelpful mindset often goes along with a style of self-talk that is severe and harsh. Start noticing how you talk to yourself. Imagine you are your own close friend and focus on giving supportive and encouraging comments only. Try this even for three days. This is a simple, evidence-based method for building a more confident attitude!

When you want to get better at goal setting, start by making sure the goals you choose really matter to you. You’ll always be more motivated to follow through on a goal you care deeply about. You should feel able to write down the benefits to you of achieving this goal. If you can’t do that, then the goal might not be right for you – or not right for you at this time. Write about your goal. Read it back. Does it excite you? This is step one!

Every organisation has networks and politics that function in positive and less positive ways! Start by mapping your ‘personal strategy.’ What do you want to achieve? What matters to you? What are your goals? Now think about all the stakeholders in your world and to what extent each one is supportive of you and your goals. The next step is to design an influence plan in relation to each key stakeholder where you can engage in constructive ways, based on reciprocity and mutual benefit. Remember people are more willing to help someone who has been helpful to them!

Don’t Wait

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I’m Ready