The principal services provided by Lime Tree Management Consulting (Hilary Maher) are:
Executive Coaching
Executive coaching is built entirely around your needs and, as such, is one of the most personalised forms of professional/leadership development that is available. Coaching is a way of getting very personalised support to help you to clarify goals and objectives, identify any problems, barriers or blockages to your ability to grow and perform well, and to look at ways of addressing these issues in the reality of your world.
It is also a really appropriate forum for looking at your own management style and personal psychology to see how they impact on others and to see if there is anything that you might be doing which is making work (or life) difficult for you. It can incorporate both self-assessment and feedback from people around you.
The focus in Executive Coaching is always on change, whether that be through focusing on problem-solving, on growth and transition, on support, or on performance (business development or your own performance in a current or anticipated role). It is, quite simply, about helping you to be the best that you can be.
Coaching is entirely confidential (i.e. strictly between coach and ‘coachee’) unless the coachee decides otherwise.
Hilary has worked with coaching clients in both the public and private sectors. In the public sector, she has worked with over 150 senior managers and clinicians in the health services and in government departments. In private companies, she has worked with many chief executives and managers in the financial services and technology sectors, as well as with a number of owners of small businesses and self-employed professionals (see CLIENTS page for more details).
Hilary’s degrees in psychology and in business administration, as well as her experience in management and organisational development, make her particularly suitable as an Executive Coach.
Professional Supervision
Increasingly, health and social care professionals are working with Supervisors to help them learn about to care for themselves and for their clients. Supervision is a ‘safe space’ to review work with complex and challenging caseloads, to look at how work affects us and how we can stay well at work, and to make sure that we are working ethically and effectively with clients. Good supervision should include a “restorative” element (support and reassurance when it is needed), a “formative” element (learning how to manage work better), and a “normative” element (ensuring our work is good and ethical from the perspective of professional practice).
Hilary is a qualified Supervisor for health and social care professionals and has worked with clients from many disciplines, including psychotherapists, nurses, physiotherapists, doctors, and others.
Facilitation of Teams, Group Meeting and Workshops
From time to time, groups and teams need the help of an external facilitator to help them in their work. Facilitators are brought in for many reasons: for example, to make it easier for all group members to participate fully in the work, or to enable the group to identify and address any ‘uncomfortable’ subjects that may be preventing them from working as effectively as they can.
The role of the facilitator is to make the work of the team or group easier. The group remains in control of the content and agenda, and the facilitator can help them to process this agenda through a mixture of clarifying, guiding, asking questions, providing support and feedback. Facilitators can also raise awareness of issues and behaviours which might be hindering the group, they help the group to stay focused, and they keep an eye on the time.
Facilitation can be used on a one-off basis or on a more regular basis with a particular group – it can make life easier either way.
Hilary has extensive knowledge and experience of group and team facilitation – if you would like to check out whether your group or meeting might benefit from facilitation, please contact Hilary for a preliminary discussion.
Strategy Development and Consulting
Hilary has worked with a number or organisations, large and small, to help them to develop strategies, both organisational strategies and HRM (human resource management) strategies. Whilst strategy development processes can be relatively standardised, Hilary will work with you to ensure that the process meets your needs and your budget (for example, sometimes a strategy is necessary in order to ensure compliance with governance standards, and sometimes it is more about a fundamental re-think of the organisation’s direction and business planning).
Hilary can also help you navigate the sometimes-difficult issues involved in stakeholder consultation and in trying to get buy-in for particular decisions.
Of course, the more integrated the strategy the better. So, whether you want help with individual elements of HRM or with the development of an overall coordinated business strategy, Hilary can work with you to ensure that there is as much cohesion as possible between the different elements of how the business/organisation is managed, and how people and other key resources within it are managed.