A time and space to think

Michele Edis worked her way up from PA to senior management in the City, but took a sudden change of direction after finding she was not seeing her two children enough. Now she is managing director of an executive coaching business and a passionate advocate of working mums.

Michele started working in the City when she left school. After working in various PA jobs she moved to JP Morgan and by 1999 was at mid-senior level, working in procurement. She transferred to a small consulting organisation which specialised in procurement and rapidly became the most senior woman there.

Three years after she started, she gave birth to her first child. She only took four months off and went back full time. She says having such a short time off helped in some ways since she could easily slot back in. Her biggest challenge was balancing a very time-intensive, client-facing job with a baby. She was just about getting into her stride when her second child was born and things became “a lot more challenging”.

She had double pneumonia after the birth and realised that “doing 20-hour days when you are pregnant is not good for you or your family”.

She says: “I was sitting in a church in Temple with a friend reflecting on a conversation I had just had with my husband. My husband had said I should be proud of my achievements. I had climbed the career ladder, but as I said to my friend the only problem was the ladder was up against the wrong wall. I was so focused on the next step in my career in terms of earning more income that I didn't have time to think what I really wanted. Using simple coaching techniques, my friend [a coach who is now her colleague] helped me to hone what that was practically. It was being able to do bathtime twice a week. It was a kind of eureka moment.”

She found out more about her friend's coaching business, Eureka Learning, and eventually decided to work with him. “I took it back to the start and looked at the brand and how we could differentiate it from the rest of the market. There were a lot of one-man band coaches. Eureka Learning is about the company rather than one individual. The executive coaching market was also very focused on senior executives and missed the huge pool of talent below. We are interested in succession planning,” she says.

Recess
Eureka Learning offers individuals and teams what it calls recesses – periods of one, three or five days when they can step off their day to day life and spend time in a peaceful setting and receive a coaching service which is tailored especially to their needs. Clients get one to one coaching or team coaching and thinking time. This might consist of spa treatment, a long walk in the countryside or whatever else the client may decide would provide them with the mental space they need to think about their values, their short-term goals and their long-term goals.

“Some people imagine their goals are to do with climbing the career ladder and they may find through coaching that they are actually happy where they are,” says Michele, adding that work life balance issues come up a lot in these sessions. She says that in team work there can often be “lightbulb moments” when managers or colleagues realise that offering a little bit of flexibility would make a big difference to staff. It's part of an education process, she says, which she is passionate about promoting.

Eureka offers post recess support, which might consist of one to one coaching or a half-day course or seminar. This offers practical learning techniques, such as active listening.

Eureka's clients range from small start-ups to high street banks. Most of their clients are female. Michele thinks this may be because women, especially working mums, have less time to reflect on what they want from their career and often find that things like having children cause them to question their motivation and values.

Eureka is looking to develop in the Middle East, particularly Qatar, which is moving from an oil-based economy to a knowledge-based one. “There is a lot of interest there in coaching and in the development of women,” says Michele. “Women are a huge untapped talent pool. Organisations are slowly realising that if they can offer flexible working there are a lot of talented individuals they could retain or recruit who could add value to their company.”