TESTIMONIALS
"At the heart of Pickfords' success, lies a culture we are incredibly proud of, and the recognition that the performance of every employee impacts on our ability to hit our business goals. Supporting managers in gaining the skills and mindset required to guide each member of their team to excel in all of their personal objectives is critical to our continued success, and the realisation of our visions and mission statements. we have searched long and hard to find a company capable of adapting their training and coaching style to suit each and every one of our individual managers' personalities, with training materials 100% relevant to our industry, and a delivery method that bridges the gap between theory and real life. Lainy Russell of Flourish ticks all those boxes. After and in-depth, full day's consultative training session with all of our senior leaders, she created a bespoke Pickfords training course which has been delivered to all of our managers as the first stage of an ongoing support plan. The feedback has been 100% positive and I have no doubt that we have found the right partner to support our managers in keeping on schedule to achieve our business goals".
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Mark Taylor
Managing Director
Pickfords Move Management
"To be a successful manager requires a very complex set of skills. Understanding and being able to use this skill set effectively can make the difference between an under confident manager struggling with people issues and one that leads a highly motivated team with enthusiasm and confidence. At Pickfords we are committed to supporting all of our managers to achieve the latter, and Flourish is the company we have chosen to enable us to reach this goal. It was very clear, very soon, that we had made the right choice. Our managers have responded with huge enthusiasm to Lainy's training, they are learning skills and soaking up knowledge that they are keen to take back and use with their teams. The rapport Lainy has built creates an environment in which they feel safe to challenge their current thinking and experiment with different approaches to ongoing challenges they are facing. Because Lainy has designed her training material to encompass Pickfords values, goals and processes, managers are able to link the relevance of their learning to the impact of their team targets. Lainy is very skilled at giving additional information and techniques addressing specific questions raised by the team; they are looking forward to the continued support".
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Zeena Ozturk
Group Head of HR
Pickfords Move Management
“As the Head of Finance and part of the senior leadership team, I would really recommend partnering with Flourish. Not only have our senior leaders' training sessions and follow-up coaching sessions been truly developmental, but in terms of the cost to the organisation, this is a really economical way to add capacity to the leadership team.”
Elaine French - Head of Finance
"Lainy combines her knowledge and understanding of leadership with her considerable facilitation skills.
She is adept at identifying ways to help teams find and own solutions. Lainy inspires trust, and always demonstrates the highest levels of professionalism and integrity."
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Ali Foss
CEO
“Joining Flourish as a partner has been an enormous help to me as the Head of HR, having an unbiased person to discuss issues with is invaluable. Lainy engages with staff on a range of often quite complex and sensitive situations, coaching and mentoring them with her human dynamic approach, we always have great feedback from staff and Lainy achieves such positive results.”
Emma Rich
Head of HR
"Lainy led a workshop at RSSL consisting of a group of consultants who had previously worked at middle and senior management level in the pharmaceutical industry. This was the first time that this disparate group was expected to work together on a common task. Lainy did a tremendous job in orienting the group to a common purpose and demonstrated excellent leadership in embracing the often different views to give a successful outcome to the task. What struck me most about Lainy's leadership was her ability to influence the movement of the group from a relatively sceptical viewpoint to one of enthusiastic teamwork. A very memorable experience".
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Rob Hughes - QA/GMP training and Qualified Person Pharmaceuticals
“We went to see a psychologist with our son a couple of years ago as we were desperate for help, it cost a fortune! Things were escalating and although she listened and gave us some basic advice, we only got real results through empathy, connection, listening, using emotion coaching and looking for reasons behind behaviour. I wish we had met Lainy sooner, an hour with her would have been way more useful and I am so grateful for all the advice and help I have received from her since”.
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Anon to protect child identity
Berkshire
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“As Lainy is able to train, coach and mentor on such a wide variety of issues, it gives us extreme flexibility in the support we can offer our staff . Her understanding and use of human dynamics, explaining why people relate and communicate with one another the way they do, has informed how we lead, manage and teach. As a Principal, I find her support both transformative and highly motivating; it certainly adds a very valuable dimension to the leadership team.”
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Donna Marie Janson
CEO & Principal
"When our action plan wasn't working, she (Lainy) probed into the reasons why and quickly changed focus and got the team on side working on a new plan. We addressed the elephant in the room (behaviour management) and this took over as our major focus. This only happened as we began getting to know each other and the team and Lainy built up a trusting and supportive relationship, I don't think this would have come out at the beginning. As one of our team commented, "she not only talks the talk, she walks the walk", as she went undercover as an LSA to observe some issues that then supported staff training and coaching."
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D. Cuffe
Head of Department
"When I first met Lainy I had no idea that I was about to embark on a life changing journey,
or even that I needed to. Now looking back I am so thankful for her guidance, it truly has changed the way I think, feel and interact with others. Despite having a deep regard for people's feelings and viewing myself as quite easy going, I've had my fair share of work and personal frustrations and challenges. I often found myself it situations where no matter how many time I tried to explain my point to someone, they just wouldn't listen. The unique key to Lainy's success in enabling me to grow as a person, was in her level of intuition. She never worked from a script, she listened to my real life challenges and guided me to a better way of resolving them by enabling me to understand why my current approach wasn't working"
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Read full case study here
Life Coaching Client
J.J South Wales
"Lainy presented at RSSL tutor workshop and delivered some eye opening insights in how different people learn. And most importantly the differences in preparing to teach or preparing to provide learning."
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Adrian Chowdhary
QP Trainer Pharmaceuticals
I engaged with Lainy to help me review my career options. The process has been revelatory - it has really opened up my thinking and my understanding about myself, what drives me and how I interact with people. Lainy knew instinctively what to ask me and what I needed to focus on to become aware of my strengths and how I could look at careers differently. Within the first three sessions I have discovered so much about myself that my options have opened up like never before.
Career Coaching Client
L Knowles, senior manager in the third sector
"Working with Lainy was a positive and transformative experience;
She is very skilled at asking the right questions in exactly the right way to make me pause, reflect and ultimately move forward. She has a wonderful warmth in her approach and instilled me with self-belief while also challenging me. She is very thorough in her lines of enquiry and forced me to think in ways I had not considered, this was done in such a respectful and positive way, that it was always a safe space. She really got to know me; my hopes, desires, personality, as well as my strengths and weaknesses and as such I gained insight into my actions and motivations. She is brilliant at helping you to cut through the fog in your mind and move forward.
Lainy worked with many of my colleagues – all of us very different and at very different
stages of our careers and lives, and without exception every one of us had a transformative experience where she facilitated positive change. I highly recommend her for both training and coaching."
Donna-Marie Janson
Previous Role - Senior Leader
As a result of two previous failed attempts to seek help from professionals, I had no real expectations from that first meeting online. In fact, I remember thinking to myself ‘if an expensive counsellor I met face to face, every week for over 8 months couldn’t help me, a life coach I was meeting online for the first time didn’t stand much of a chance’. Thankfully, I couldn’t have been more wrong"!!!
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I came away from the very first session feeling different, we gelled, I felt I’d met the person capable of guiding me to a happier place. Any misconceptions I had about not being able to get the connection over zoom had gone, it was there.
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Lainy has shown me the door to a life I’d almost given up hope on.
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Read full case study here
Luke J - Managing Director of a
Network Services Company
"Lainy coached me for 2 years. Over this time, I genuinely found the experience
to be very positive;
Lainy was exceptional at getting to know me as a person and, therefore, understanding how I work best and where I might need to develop as a leader. Her questions challenged me to think and consider new approaches, making me realise some things about myself that maybe I hadn’t considered before. Having a coach that cares about my development from a personal perspective is really important to me; Lainy takes the lead from you and works from there, so you feel comfortable in celebrating the positive and working through areas to improve. A very positive experience with you at the centre of it."
Clare Last
Manager in the Sport & Leisure Industry
CASE STUDY
May 2022
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“When I met Lainy I wasn’t in a great place, I’d made a habit out of working ridiculously long hours, which I wasn’t enjoying, my relationships with people in and out of work were often difficult and stressful, my health was suffering as I had no time to eat healthily or do any exercise and I was generally struggling to survive mentally".
As a result of two previous failed attempts to seek help from professionals, I had no real expectations from that first meeting online. In fact, I remember thinking to myself ‘if an expensive counsellor I met face to face, every week for over 8 months couldn’t help me, a life coach I was meeting online for the first time didn’t stand much of a chance’. Thankfully, I couldn’t have been more wrong"!!!
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I came away from the very first session feeling different, we gelled, I felt I’d met the person capable of guiding me to a happier place. Any misconceptions I had about not being able to get the connection over zoom had gone, it was there.
On reflection I realise that previously it’d felt like I was being watched while I struggled to get things off my chest, my counsellor encouraged me to speak but offered very little in return. I just assumed that was how everyone felt and somehow it would get easier over time and I’d start to see results, but that never happened. I now know why, I need what Lainy offers; when I’m speaking, she listens to the detail and then explains reasons for why I feel and behave in certain ways, it feels equal, like we’re standing side by side working through things together. She has a unique way of taking you outside of yourself so that you can look back in constructively. Her knowledge of the human brain and ability to relate it to behaviours and feelings has made working on myself quite fascinating. Things I previously found frustrating and hopeless are now becoming interesting, because I have learned that the changes I want in my life are under my control. It’s not easy and it takes a lot of soul searching and consistent work but the results are incredible.
Lainy has shown me the door to a life I’d almost given up hope on.
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Each week after my session I receive summary notes, they include the important points we discussed, encouragements, reminders of the progress however small, and the strategies to practice before the next session. I often try out new strategies on people in work and am noticing a big difference in how they respond to me, it’s so satisfying when you put something into practice and get the result you wanted. She also sends me links to relevant information I would never know existed.
Lainy seems to have a sixth sense that knows exactly where to go to uncover the core of an issue. When I’ve tried to avoid going there, she guides me in a way that feels safe, I always feel as if she is on the journey with me and when I get overwhelmed, she’ll break it down into manageable chunks. During the process of working through each part I frequently get ‘penny drop’ moments where something suddenly dawns on me and everything seems that bit clearer, I feel my head unscramble a little bit. I love that feeling, it reconfirms to me that, bit by bit, I’m heading in the right direction.
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My biggest learning from working with Lainy is that my subconscious feelings, thoughts and behaviours are sabotaging my life. With her help I am managing to unearth what they are and why they’re there. The hardest work is changing them because our subconscious seems to take control. However, I’m finding with a lot of practice it is possible over time to change automatic negative and harmful thoughts to much healthier and positive ones. I am currently at the stage of receiving lots of evidence in my life that my new thinking and behaviours are working, some are now starting to become automatic which is beyond satisfying, some I am still having to work on very consciously and some I am still in the process of discovering. The key is that I have found the person capable of uncovering them and I absolutely know the process works.
Everything Lainy does is bespoke, nothing follows a script or ‘system’, it is all based around my personality, my challenges and my goals.
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The flexibility in the initial engagement process and payment method was like a breath of fresh air too. Rather than having to pick up the phone and have that initial daunting conversation not knowing how to start, I had multiple options. I could have started the communication via text or email if I’d wanted to but I chose to have a free chat, and I didn’t feel pressured. The chat wasn’t intended to be a coaching session, it was just to see whether we gelled and I felt a connection. It was a nice equal way to start our relationship and despite not being a chargeable session I was more enlightened and hopeful after that chat than I have ever felt before. The pricing structure works for me too, I pay for a block of hours upfront and they are deducted as I use them. Something I hated from my previous counsellor was the strict 1 hour ending, it felt so impersonal and uncaring. Lainy’s sessions are sometimes well over an hour and other times I just need a bit of encouragement or support between sessions, when this happens, I can use the ‘check-in chats’ that are 15-30 mins. Obviously she needs to confirm she is free if I contact her at a time we haven’t planned but I know she is there and will make time for me when she can.
I wish I could have started this journey earlier, but I am just thankful to be on it now. I’m excited about the progress, in huge contrast to previous experiences I now find myself really looking forward to my weekly sessions.
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I would advise anyone who feels like they’re going around in circles struggling with the same issues in their head or are fed up with their working or personal life to contact Lainy, she makes that first chat so easy.
She has an incredible way of helping you make sense of things and then supporting you through the changes to get where you want to be. Anyone prepared to work on themselves is guaranteed a life changing experience.”
Luke J – Managing Director of Network Services Company
CASE STUDY
June 2020
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When I first met Lainy at 48 I had no idea that I was about to embark on a life changing journey, or even that I needed to. Now looking back at 56, I am so thankful for her guidance, it truly has changed the way I think, feel and interact with others.
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Despite having a deep regard for people’s feelings and viewing myself as quite easy going, I’ve had my fair share of work and personal frustrations and challenges. I often found myself in situations where no matter how many times I tried to explain my point to someone, they just wouldn’t listen.
The unique key to Lainy’s success in enabling me to grow as a person, was in her level of intuition. She never worked from a script, she listened to my real life challenges and guided me to a better way of resolving them by enabling me to understand why my current approach wasn’t working.
I had so many light bulb moments, it was shocking to realise how big a part
I played in creating conflict I didn’t want.
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Learning how triggers can completely sabotage a conversation was hugely enlightening. Once I better understood my own triggers and how they made me feel and react, I appreciated the importance of avoiding triggering others, and recognising when I had.
I’ve always considered myself as a good listener but some gentle questioning from Lainy soon made me realise that what I often did wasn’t listening, it was patiently waiting for the other person to finish talking so that I could repeat my point again. When I went into repeat mode it was because I truly believed that if something had worked for me, it was the universal answer that would work for anyone, if only they listened. I didn’t fully appreciate that other people experience things completely differently to me, the degree to which that is true and the importance of understanding it was another huge lightbulb moment to me.
What surprises me the most is how drastically different people respond to me when I take into consideration all I have learned before opening my mouth! I don’t get it right every time of course, but when I do lapse back into old habits the result soon reminds me I’ve done it. The difference is, as soon as I hit conflict now I look at myself to understand why it happened before allowing myself to become irritated with the other person.
Lainy helped me understand that I was capable of growth, and that the power and
choice to change was 100% mine.
She then facilitated that growth through calm, non-judgemental, thought provoking questioning of the situations I discussed with her that were troubling me. Without ever feeling challenged or criticised Lainy could ask me a question that instantly enabled me to view a situation from a completely different perspective.
Not every part of the change process was easy, but for anybody who truly wants to grow as a person and is prepared to work on themselves in order to discover and change unhelpful habits, the payback is off the scale. I am happier and more content now than I have ever been in my life.
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J.J - Life Coaching Client
South Wales