Like most people – I’m a mass of contradictions.

I’m a speaker and business woman,

author and playwright …

…and I’m founder CEO of 3C Performance Management Specialists – spoiler alert – we sort out challenges in managing and improving organisation performance.

And I’m a bit of a polymath with an MBA, a BSc Mathematics & Philosophy, and a Post-grad Diploma in Theatre Directing. And a Chartered CIPD member.

Publications…

My first business book – on Amazon and in print now!
Coming soon !
I created a prize winning stage adaptation of this wonderful book!

Speaking, Writing, Working – its all about performance

I speak about performance at work, how real people struggle to manage it, improve it, transform it. It might seem a dry, technical subject, but it’s the stuff of life – how we develop organisation performance is the story of how we create meaning and purpose at work.

I write about organisations: how individuals have developed, grown, and changed them; how people working together have sorted out where an organisation is heading and transformed what can be achieved: how they coped (or didn’t) with all the challenges along the way. These are engrossing stories from which we can all learn, as well as be entertained.

I write about organisation performance, how people have created meaning and purpose, how performance is transformed, what managers, and particularly HR leaders can do to engage people in the best stories of creativity and success.

I also write plays. The theatre has been central to my life – it gave me the confidence to speak and be heard from a young age, and the stories from my business world feed into the stories of human endeavour that drive the plays I write and the books I adapt.

INVITE ME to SPEAK

I have talked and run workshops at conferences large and small.

I share ideas, knowledge and experience about how real people have implemented new thinking, applied research in practice, and transformed performance in their organisations.

My talks are packed with stories and case studies from organisations and people I have worked with over the last twenty years. The feedback I get is a variation of ‘engaging, thought provoking and insightful’.

And of course, a lifetime of being a theatre-maker has given me great speaking and presenting skills.

READ my BOOKS about PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

I write to share what I have learned with others. I write to help the reader apply the ideas as well as understand them.

My white paper ‘The new purpose of performance management – how to turn strategy into action’ has been downloaded more than 2000 times, there are several thousand hard copies in circulation, and the book is now on its third re-print.

My first e-book – 5 Principles for Brilliantly Effective Performance Management has attracted attention from the HR profession around the world.

My major new book ‘The Performance Management Playbook’ is due out in January 2020.

PERFORM the PLAYS

My award-winning adaptation of ‘I am David’ has taken this classic novel about a young refugee boy walking across Europe to a whole new audience. It is written for young people to perform – and is both an imaginative adaptation of the story, and a timeless tale of child refugees seeking shelter, safety and love.

Work in progress includes an adaptation of Mrs Gaskill’s ‘North and South’ – a powerful story about how work can both create and destroy personal dignity and human relationships.

Also in progress is an original work – Funny Fish – set in an English paper mill during the riotous vodka fuelled night of its closing down party.

About Me

I did a Maths degree but spent most of my time putting on plays with the Drama Club. I went to Drama School for a year (and hated it) but spent 5 amazing years running a Theatre in Education company.

I took a short-term job working for an environmental paper company, then 15 years later I was the leading expert in paper and the environment, working with paper manufacturers and distributors all over the world to reduce their environmental impact. It was an extraordinary journey.

The world changed again, and I wanted to focus on impoving how work is managed. I’d seen a lot of management in action by this stage, as well as being responsible for managing my own compnay of 20+ people.

As managing director of 3C, my focus on managing performance and performance management has given me wonderful opportunities to work with organisations large and small, public and private, global and local. And it’s been filled with stories of people – because all human experience can be found in even the smallest of workplaces – power, greed, envy, lust, love, obsession, betrayal. As well as friendship, warmth, humour, adrenalin, excitement and passion.

So when people wonder what makes someone with a love of theatre want to work in the field of ‘performance appraisals’ (doesn’t that make you want to run away screaming!) – it’s because my work feeds so much of my creative life.

Creatively I started in a wonderful Youth Theatre in Rotherham, and now decades later, am responsible for a fantastic not-for-profit theatre in Wokingham, complete with a terrific Youth Theatre. For me, theatre is all about a good night out. I aim to write plays that engage and enthral audiences, and that people want to perform and produce. Over the years I have acted and directed, led the Youth Theatre, been the Artistic Director responsible for the creative programme, and am currently Chairman, where it feels like I’m responsible for everything – though of course supporting me are lots of brilliant people because theatre is a collaborative artform. What I have learned from theatre has fed what I do with organsiations. I don’t aim so much for work-life balance, rather aim for work-life collaboration!

And somewhere in all this, there are three (now grown-up) children and a husband – but that’s another story.