16/10/2025
View from (behind) the (h)edge
At the end of 2024, I packed up the things in my office, gave my coffee machine to a colleague, and left paid employment. This was expected it had been going to happen for months.
As a (small) part of a leadership team restructuring divisions of a company into separate corporate entities, ready for the core business to be sold, I knew my role as Group Head of HR & Development, would end.
To prepare for the next step of my life in September 2024, I embarked on a 6-month coaching/development course run by the transformative The Beyond Partnership team. The course was subtitled ‘Who are you, and who are you becoming?’
A key element of the course was to undertake a personal modelling project. The topic I chose to model was, ‘How people choose work by following their heart.’ I was and am very excited about this. Imagine doing a job which makes your heart sing (or imagine doing a job which does not make your heart sing)!
So 2025, has been a refreshing year of newness and discovery, but also a culmination of a conscious journey which I began in 2014/15.
Up until then I had been largely satisfied, occasionally excited, but rarely enthralled by being an HR person. Folks trusted me and there was nothing which I thought I could not deliver.
Change for me usually happens when I have been thinking about something for a while and a metaphor pop into my head. It usually presents itself as a clear choice I must make, like a ‘T’ junction in the road.
In 2014 , the metaphor was “Am I playing limbo with my life or playing high jump?” I understood this to mean, am I using my time justifying my existing surroundings, accepting what I am doing as how things will always be. Lowering my expectations to meet my current situation or turning my lights down so I can avoid seeing the things that I do not want to see.
Or am I playing high jump? Daring to look up, to explore new boundaries, to try new things (always knowing that failure can only happen when I stop trying). Reassuring myself, that the future has never been written. That I have the skills and resources to cope like other people to the surprises in the road of life, be they bumps, potholes or panoramic views and downhills.
This year I had two metaphor moments: “Am I a consumer or a citizen?” and “Words change worlds”.
These have really got me.
I think the first metaphor has emerged as my reaction to the rise of ‘neo-liberalism’ (the unfettered power of powerful/mega-rich individuals to do whatever they want), and its distortion of my basic truths (e.g. treat others as you would like to be treated). I know that a younger ‘me’ would have reacted with strong emotions against these injustices, but the current me understands that when you react to injustice, you have to avoid generating negative emotional energy as so doing risks fuelling the fire and obscuring the truth in an emotionally charged blame game (when emotions are too charged we tend to respond to the emotions rather than facts and shared truths).
So for me, being a citizen, a member of a community, is my personal and powerful way to interact with people and make life a better place. Words and conversations change worlds! That is why I am supporting the Association for Coaching (Ireland) actively seeking coaches to share and encourage people. I encourage you to connect with your communities.
