Taking businesses to the top

1.What do you do as an organisational development consultant?

I begin any organisational intervention with robust conversations with corporate team leaders, where I get to ascertain the desired outcomes of an intervention. An intervention is typically structured to address the development of leadership, the enhancement of culture and the implementation of strategy, as well as improved financial performance.

2.Give us a brief background into your career?

I was always deeply interested in the obscure and the abstract, and spent a number of years studying and researching in Jerusalem. After many years and a personal crisis, I returned to Johannesburg where I wanted to apply this wisdom to leadership and business, and I found that coaching provided me the ideal modality to do so.

3.How do you conduct personal development and leadership?

It is impossible to develop our leadership without developing ourselves personally. As such I work with individuals, businesses and corporate teams in coaching intervention. The team coaching intervention combines informal learning, interactive coaching, and the opportunity to both listen to, and talk to our colleagues about the hidden contexts that dominate and influence our lives, leadership and businesses.

4.What do you aim to do?

My ultimate aim is to empower, inspire and enlighten people. We are living very complex lives and as a result suffer unnecessarily. Coaching provides people with a space and methodology to reclaim their lost personal power, gain clarity, find their inspiration and raise their level of self-awareness.

5.What does your typical day entail?

Typically I spend a couple of hours a day with various teams in different companies. We work on a whole bunch of operational, strategic, performance and leadership issues.

6.How would you define good leadership?

Great leadership is the ability to move people to move the world to create a brighter future.

7.Tell us about some of the companies you coach and the programmes you hold?

I work with many of South Africa’s blue chip (top) companies as well as small entrepreneurial businesses. My most popular program is called “Create your Future”. In the program I coach, teach and facilitate the 11 stages of creating your most inspirational future. The beauty and power of this process is that it’s totally tailor-made to the unique circumstances of the individuals, team and business that I am working with.

8. What is the best and worst thing about your job?

The best thing is that I get to work with inspirational people doing inspirational things. And I get to be my own boss.

9.What is the biggest misconception about your job or industry?

People have two big misconceptions. Number one – that coaching is airy-fairy and doesn’t provide real return on investment (ROI). And secondly that coaching is remedial. Which couldn’t be further from the truth. In sports, every single professional sportsman or Olympic athlete has a coach. In the entertainment world every professional singer, dancer, actor and entertainer has a coach. If you’re a professional and you’re serious about your success you’ll have a coach.

10.What have you learnt about being in the industry?

As in any industry – you need to stay on top of your game. In my industry it includes travelling abroad and staying abreast with the international best practice.

11.What advice do you have for people wanting to get into the industry?

Like everything, to build a successful career will take time, patience and perseverance.

12.What has been the highlight of your career in coaching so far?

I have international clients and I get to take my clients on international coaching retreats.

13.Tell us about your book?

Lead like a Wizard is a little book with a very powerful message. Deep inside us we each have a wizard. This wizard holds our creativity. This creativity must be accessed to create our most inspirational future. To do this we must learn the secrets of manifestation and transformation.

14.Advice to entrepreneurs, companies in advancing and making it big.

To make it big. You need to know the answer to some fundamental questions: Who are you? What do you want? Where are you going? What are you brilliant at? And ultimately – what game are you playing? Once you have discovered your game, play it. Stick to it. Play only your game. And eventually somebody will pass you the ball.