Recommendations

Healthy Pet Store – Deborah Burrows, MD

Healthy Pet Store employed Alison for a series of workshops for our managers and supervisors in Retail, Operations and Logistics. These topics included leadership, managing, coaching and communicating to engage. Alison was extremely flexible when arranging and running the workshops as she was aware of the needs of the business and our rotas. She devised a series which suited the operations of the retail business. Alison was a perfect match to Healthy Pet Store, also, due to her brilliant retail experience at John Lewis and our synergies between the aspirations of Healthy Pet Store being as colleague-focused as John Lewis. The managers who went through the training gained a great deal of new skills that we use in our day to day interactions. Many of our managers and supervisors are promoted within the business and don’t often arrive with these skills so having Alison there to teach them is invaluable. On a personal level, I also learnt a lot about the coaching method and how it is used even in established businesses, such as John Lewis. It was also good to know that owners of businesses don’t need to have the answer for everything. It was so refreshing to meet Alison and she is a breath of fresh air for business owners with growth and change challenges.

Jo Watson
Freelance Health & Social Care Consultant

Alison was recommended to me by a colleague and, having worked with her twice, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her to others. Her support as I transitioned from a lengthy career in full-time employment to freelancing was invaluable. She created a safe supportive space in which to nudge me forward, challenge my thinking and normalise my anxieties. Her positive energy and encouragement made the biggest difference to me, and I’m hugely grateful for her skill and professionalism.

Lauren Eames – Demand Planning Manager at Childs Farm Ltd.

Over the past 2 years since starting a new role at a different company, Alison has supported me in adapting to an SME in a professional but friendly & approachable way. She knew me better than I knew myself! Always providing useful hints and tips, as well as advice to put into practice before our next coaching session, Alison’s wealth of FMCG experience has helped me to manage my working relationships and how to deal with tough situations. I would thoroughly recommend.

Jason Oliver – Director at Global Ceramic Tiling Ltd

We were introduced to Alison after a recommendation by another local business. We knew we wanted to go on a journey of finding our company’s Purpose, Vision & Values, to improve our culture, but had no idea where to start. After meeting Alison for the first time, we knew very early on that she would be able to help us. Alison quickly understood what we were trying to achieve as a business. She knew how to deliver the training required, to help our team on the journey, and how to guide us managers. Alison and her team are professional but also friendly and down to earth, offering practical advice. We would have no hesitation in recommending Alison Craig Coaching to any business looking to start a similar process.

Carys England – Centre Manager at Arena Business Centres

I worked with Alison doing 1 to 1 coaching sessions at the time of my promotion to Centre Manager. These sessions helped me during my transition as we were able to work through relevant topics every time we met. It was also useful being coached by someone outside of my workplace. I really enjoyed working with Alison as she was super easy to talk to, challenged my thinking and gave me the confidence I needed stepping into my new role. Overall it was a very positive and valuable experience.

Debbie White – Centre Manager at Arena Business Centres

Thank you for all of your help Alison! Each session has always been clear and focused on the topics set out to achieve. Offering a new perspective has really helped and I am now enjoying putting the guidance into practice.

Jaqui Maggs – Clinical Lead, Prospect Hospice

I have had the pleasure of attending a Management and Leadership programme over the last 10 months facilitated by Alison and also receiving some coaching sessions.

Alison is an inspiring facilitator, clear and engaging and extremely knowledgeable in her field.  As a result of attending the programme I have developed significantly as a leader, and now feel equipped with a tool box of strategies to develop individuals, lead teams and tackle challenging situations.  She is an amazing coach! This was my first experience of coaching and I found it so helpful for my personal development.  I only had four sessions but my progress was immense!  Alison is extremely skilful in challenging your thinking and supporting your development and self-awareness.  I would strongly recommend Alison’s style of honesty, careful questioning, and practical solutions to anyone keen to move forward.  Her energy and enthusiasm are contagious and she is genuine, caring, kind and motivating by nature.

Gemma Salvidge – Data/ Information Manager and Data Protection Lead, Prospect Hospice

Great course and Alison is a brilliant trainer, lots of useful skills learnt and tools covered. Thank you!

Rich Webley – Managing Director Dragonfish

Alison Craig Coaching has been a trusted partner of dragonfish for some time. Alison and her team are outstanding at all things leadership development... We use them for our own development on facilitation skills through to 121 coaching at all levels, and we recommend them to our clients too. Their leadership development programmes are engaging, thoughtful, very practical and grounded in plenty of commercial experience. I’ve really enjoyed working with Alison this year and hope that we can partner on more projects in future.

Samantha Bedford – HR Director Lawton Communications Group

I have worked with Alison Craig Coaching Limited for more than 3 years.

Sue Toward – Lecturer

I had the pleasure and privilege of working with Alison over several months in 2015. My sessions with her were my first experience of ‘being coached’ and they provided a welcome opportunity to review work and life goals.

Alison has a tremendous way of putting you at your ease and of rapidly building trust and rapport. She is very perceptive and strikes a really good balance between listening, reflecting back and challenging. Alison is also able to assimilate and process lots of complex information and then identify themes and patterns for further exploration. She always prepared thoroughly for our meetings and had total recall on previous discussions!

As a result of Alison’s input I have much greater clarity and confidence about my priorities, direction and underpinning values. She is a highly effective coach and I warmly recommend her.

Steve Blackwell – Regional Learning & Development Manager at Barclays Bank Plc

Alison is a truly outstanding coach and facilitator. She is able to build relationships quickly at all levels. A transformational coach, she brings a unique blend of content expertise with best in class skills. Alison was a joy to work with and I would recommend her to anyone looking for a first class, credible professional, operating at the top of her game.

Tom Mitchell – Operations Manager at John Lewis

Alison was a great support with my personal development towards the next level of management in my organisation. At our first meeting I outlined my skills gaps, and what I wanted to achieve. Alison used insightful questions, which helped me to identify opportunities to develop and evidence those skills. She was able to coach me to formulate a personal development plan, which we met regularly to review. I found my time with Alison extremely valuable and would often use her as a sound board for other ideas. Alison has so much energy and enthusiasm and is a pleasure to work with! I would highly recommend her to anyone who is seeking a coach who can offer independent, impartial advice regarding career or personal development.

Robert Garnish – Development Manager, Retail Director at John Lewis

Over the past 18 months in my time as Branch Manager at John Lewis, Alison has provided significant support as a coach and mentor for several members of my management team, as well as working with me in an advisory capacity. Her insight, ability to spot talent and a clear intuitive sense of what might be driving a particular behaviour has been invaluable. I would wholeheartedly recommend Alison as a coach.

Kirsty Baker – Area Director at Barclays Bank Plc

Alison takes a holistic approach to develop her understanding of the person with whom she is working.  Alison is a naturally talented coach with an impressive range of coaching skills. Utilising active listening and discussion, she guides the individual through a process of self-analysis, identifying current development needs and future goals.  Alison is particularly adept at grasping the cultural complexities of different organisations and draws on her own experience and qualifications to coach at a transformational level.   Over the last year Alison’s coaching has facilitated my development to the point where I am now successfully operating at a far more senior level within my organisation.

Principle Garden Designer at Debbie Carroll Garden Designs

Having worked with Alison in many different roles she has been an inspiring Manager and colleague. She is insightful in her coaching style and manages to get to the nub of areas needing development and unravels the solutions to take the steps needed to move people forward.

Claire Dunkason – Branch Manager at John Lewis

I have had the fortune of knowing Alison for over 10 years and working directly with her for 6 years. Throughout that time Alison was always 100% committed to our team, actively contributing to its success. She always works hard to empower collaborative working with development at her core. I believe Alison’s greatest strength is her ability as a coach. She is passionate about supporting anyone she coaches to be the very best they can be. She is creative in her approach, supporting people to see where possibilities lie and help them see more clearly. Her reputation and credibility in John Lewis is built on her capability to coach individuals and teams, through developing leadership with an outcome focus. This regularly supports delivery of results both in the everyday commercial nature of our business, developing underperformance or through individuals’ career ambitions in achieving their potential. Her natural whilst effective style enables her to work with those more senior or junior to herself. Indeed status is irrelevant to Alison as her strength is being able to adapt her style to the individual. Fluent in many theories, Alison has a unique ability to individualise her content bringing powerful impact to the individual or team. Alison has been my No.1 recommendation for people in need of a coach in John Lewis for many years. This recommendation comes from my admiration of her support to me personally and so many other colleagues past and present.

Tom Chapman
Director at full-service content marketing agency Headstream

“I have worked with Alison for the past 9 months on life goals and career performance. I can honestly say as a result of Alison challenging my thinking I now have a clear purpose as to what I want to achieve by a certain time in the future, at the same time with Alison’s help I have transformed my attitude, enabling me to focus on my intended career path. As a coach Alison has been encouraging, insightful, enthusiastic, fun and most importantly honest. I have no hesitation in recommending her services”

Jay Wood – Guest Relations Manager at Land Securities
Alison is extremely committed to coaching & works tirelessly to achieve a very high standard of work. Alison is highly regarded by her colleagues & is constantly in demand for advice & training by all levels of management. Alison is highly self-motivated & an extremely professional individual. Alison can record huge amounts of information at meetings, which will then help her to produce & communicate highly detailed information back to colleagues, clients & individuals. Alison is excellent at communicating to all levels of management, & has a professional but warm manner which all can relate to. Alison has a wealth of experience in working in retail but can use her skills in any business.

Jo White – Head of Five by Five

I’ve had the absolute pleasure of working with Alison over the last 12 months and in that time she has delivered training courses for my management team as well as providing professional coaching for me individually. As a result of the training we recognise how powerful a coaching approach can be and are using it to increase performance across our teams and drive greater margins. On a personal level the coaching Alison has provided is immeasurable. I am in total awe of her ability to coach in a way that has such a big and positive impact on my thinking. I cannot recommend her services highly enough.

James Matthewman – Department Manager at John Lewis

Alison is an inspirational coach and mentor. Through our regular one-to-ones she enabled me to understand and fulfil my potential as she has with countless others. Always kind in her approach, Alison can be both motivational and challenging, never allowing you to doubt yourself or your ability. Alison also introduced me to MBTI, and her clear, patient approach has massively improved my self-awareness and allowed me to utilise my strengths in my day-to-day role. I would strongly recommend Alison as a mentor and coach. I owe her so much.

Suzanne Bailey – Consultant at Kaisen Consulting

Alison is the most fantastic and inspiring personal coach that I have worked with. I have recommended her to numerous other managers for one to one coaching and she has always lived up to the high expectations I have set!
For me a coaching experience with Alison feels like a genuine two way interchange of energies and learning. She always asks me the right questions to prompt my own self-realisation, motivation and change. She is kind and caring, whilst still honest and challenging in her feedback. Whilst clearly having a high level of understanding of coaching, development and counselling theory, Alison is primarily about application and reality, and she has solid knowledge and insight in the business world.

Alison has the natural talents and inner qualities needed to be an outstanding coach. She has emotional intelligence and the ability to take a broad focus as well as focus on important details. She is naturally perceptive, intuitive, curious and inquiring. She connects with others quickly and has a talent for helping people, and cultivating abilities and talent.  What sets Alison apart for me is that she cares deeply about people, has incredibly high personal standards and ambitions, and has a high level of self-knowledge. She not only talks the talk but walks the walk, being committed to continuous development and learning both of herself and in her areas of expertise.   Overall Alison is a wonderfully interesting, strong and warm person who has an amazing zest for life, and living it to the full. She is an absolute professional and she delivers results.

Richard Middleton – Head of Volunteering at Cancer Research UK

Having worked with Alison when she was a Department Manager and also as part of her Learning & Development team, I’ve always found her to be inspiring, professional & also good fun to work with. Her vision & strategy for her area of the business was always clear, stretching and great results followed. She challenged me to think differently, gave constructive feedback within a supportive environment which I’m still grateful for today.

More recently I’ve seen Alison fundraising for The Alzheimer’s Society which she took on with determination and passion, her evening event was packed with over 400 supporters and was a superb night – raising over £8,000!

Peter Turner – Sailing Skipper at Rainbow Sailing

I was Managing Director Tyrrell and Green and John Lewis Southampton for 10 years. In that time Alison worked for me as my Staff Trainer and Development manager. She played a pivotal role in helping to prepare 600 staff to move our business to become the key retailer in the brand new West Quay Shopping centre in Southampton. She is intelligent, articulate and highly practical with the ability to motivate and emotionally engage people at all levels in the business from shopfloor staff to senior management.

Outstandingly loyal but frank and not afraid to express her views freely but tactfully, I came to value her advice and opinions on a wide range of subjects. As a member of my senior management team, she planned the training of the management team and their staff to equip them to deal with a level of business that more than doubled within the first few weeks of the relocation. In addition she helped the management team with training plans to expand their staff from 600 to 1200.   She is a detailed and intricate planner and can see the potential in trying new ideas. She helped me in pioneering a new way to increase the “self -belief”, initiative, negotiating skills and confidence in our management team by a series of challenging tasks set within a very limited budget, tight timescales and in some cases overseas travel.

A year after our relocation, with our business exceeding expectations, we took over the management of another, smaller John Lewis business some 20 miles away. To secure this business it was necessary to make approx. 40 posts redundant and Alison helped prepare the plans for the revised structure of this business and made a valuable input to the best way to introduce the redundancy arrangements to give maximum support to all those affected.

In our role of supporting the local community, Alison guided us through helping two local schools with management issues and set up schemes for our staff to assist with developing reading skills in young children in local schools.
Her professional interests are wide and she has an open and enquiring mind. She is an asset at senior management level and she provides speedy and appropriate recommendations to deal with intricate and complicated issues. Energetic, conscientious, determined and flexible in her outlook, her ability to handle a heavy workload, her quick humour and ebullient spirit made her a popular member of my business. Her presence in a team greatly enhances its chances of success. I would choose to have her with me if I was ever faced with a complicated management or organisational challenge in the future.

Daniel Godfroy – Department Manager at Waitrose

I have now reported directly to 34 different line managers during my time with the John Lewis Partnership, one of whom was Alison. Although I have a huge respect for several of those managers, there are none that I hold in higher regard than Alison.  Having worked for Alison in different roles, across several years I found her approach to be inspiring. Alison always expected the team to achieve the highest possible standards but, importantly, she was able to gain the commitment and will, of others to do this.  Throughout, even the busiest periods Alison always maintained an excellent level of communication, was always approachable and always willing to listen to the opinions of her team.

Since my direct working relationship with Alison came to end, when I changed jobs, I have been privileged to remain in contact with her and have not been in the least bit surprised by the effort she has put in to her charitable work.  Ever enthusiastic and energetic in her approach, Alison utilised her outstanding organisational skills to the full when hosting a charity event at Southampton Football Club, in aid of Alzheimer’s research, care and awareness.

Dr Peter White BSc PhD MSCP MAACP (Adv) SFHEA
University Lecturer

“I have been working with Alison over a period of several months (four sessions) in order to help me realise some of my life and career goals. Alison is a joy to work with, she is insightful, easy to talk to and has an uncanny knack at being able to separate the wheat from the chaff. She was very quickly able to help me pinpoint areas that I needed to think about so that I was actually able to focus on those elements. Alison also helped me to consider options that I had not really thought of, but having those ‘fresh eyes’ looking at things from a new perspective has been incredibly useful. Since working with Alison, new opportunities have opened up and this is in no small part due to her input. I would highly recommend Alison and her coaching style.”

Jade Rolph
Corporate Partnerships Manager at Alzheimer’s Research UK

“Alison coached me when I moved into a new role within my existing company. She was a great listener who quickly grasped the team structure, personalities and issues. She really helped me to reflect on my decisions and abilities, as well as those of my colleagues. This is something I didn’t find time for in the office and coaching gave me the space to do this. Working with Alison made me more confident in my new role and gave me a greater understanding of the relationships in my team. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Alison as a coach.”

Symone William
Freelance Consultant at Simi Mindful Leadership

Freelance Consultant at Simi Mindful Leadership

It has been a wonderful experience working with Alison. I looked forward to our communications as she is very encouraging and focused on my journey; able to track my milestones and give as well as allow me to find greater insight. Clearly experienced, Alison has an open, honest and warm persona that easily builds and maintains personable rapport with her clients. I would certainly recommend Alison’s services!

Francesca Green
Centre Manager at Arena Business Centres

We instructed Alison to design and facilitate a Customer Service Programme for the team at Arena Business Centres. Alison completely understood what we were trying to achieve and created a personalised programmefocused on the ‘Arena way’. She has given us plenty to think about going forward and interacted well with the team, ensuring that everyone took something from the day. We look forward to working with her again!