Articles

Executive Coaching, Leadership Coaching, Team Coaching, Karen Fugle, Coaching London, Executive Coaching London, Team Coaching London, Leadership Coaching London, LEGO Serious Play, LEGO Serious play London, Architect Coach, Coaching Architects, AEC Coach, Architecture coach, Business coach, Architect Coaching, Architecture Coaching, Sleeping Giant coaching, Sleeping Giant architect coaching

SleepingGiant’s Year in Reveiw

SleepingGiant’s Year in Reveiw

I find writing on a blank page particularly difficult: errr…what have I done this year? Anything notable? Blank. Luckily, I keep a notebook where I write my reflections every Friday. It takes me about ten minutes, and it finishes off my week. My notebook is only for this singular purpose, so I have no excuses for a blank mind right now - everything I have done for the past year sits in summary before me.

After a quick refresh, I’m pleased (and a bit surprised!\0 to say, that despite the challenges, it’s been a good year for me:

Highlights:

Speaking / Workshops

After my 2021 pre-Xmas report launch, I started the year with an @urbanistasnw January workshop to explore the research themes. I continued to host 'Women in Architecture' workshops throughout the year, with one taking place only a week ago!

The RIBA Future Leaders conference launched in March, and it was fantastic to be the 2021 Coach-host! I spoke over the three conferences dates on the themes: Learning to Lead', 'Leading Teams' and 'Leading Change'. My talks are many: 'Building your Powerbase', 'The Leaders Inner Game ', 'Mastering Stress', 'Engaging your Team', 'Team Time Management', 'Productive Conflict', 'Strategies for Leading Change', and 'High Stakes Conversations'. Phew! They stretched me, but I so enjoyed it. Some of these talks are new workshops for 2022 - stay tuned!

Visualisation specialists ArchiCGI interviewed me, and I joined Stephen Drew on the Architecture Social Podcast. I spoke about Time at the J.E.D.I. talk: "Gender Diversity versus pandemic, and hosted workshops with the British Institute of Interior Designers ('Building your Powerbase' or network) and Built By Us (Business Model Canvas), and numerous clients. They all seem like many moons ago!

Heading up a client Values workshop between lock-downs!

Courses

From April to July, fellow Coach Britta Siggelkow and I launched The Leadership Foundation Series for small-mid sized practices. Five monthly webinars with strategic themes for business leaders: 'The Architect as Leader', 'The Big Picture ', 'The Structure', 'The Engaged Team Leader', and 'The Leader's Inner Game'. Britta is now working on a follow-up leadership course based on our success.

Writing

I started a second year with WBECS (World Business and Executive Coach Summit) and kicked off by writing for a renowned world leader in Team Coaching, Peter Hawkins! I'll be periodically writing for speakers until mid-2022. I get excellent exposure to many leading professionals and authors in the coaching/mentoring sphere in this work.

Industry collaboration experts, RosoLex, released the report: Changing Behaviours in Construction: A complement to the Construction Playbook, and I am pleased to have contributed. I joined Kelachi Amadi-Echendu of ResoLex to talk at Digital Construction Week in November. We shared our "top five suggestions for improving project performance through collaborative behaviours" based on the report. 

Women in Architecture UK

My work with Women in Architecture UK saw us undertake a post-covid(!) survey in January and launch The Future of Women in Architecture Report findings and Call to Action in September. With 265 responses, we learnt, too late, not to have included so many "comment" boxes! The team is working on WIA's first mentoring program with our first cohort starting in January 2022.

The Women in Architecture Winter Social at the Herman Miller Showroom., Dec 2021

Clients

My clients are the best thing about my work. From the UK, Australia, the USA, my client coaching journeys are the ones I enjoy celebrating the most. Clients who found 'the next step', changed jobs, stepped up their business strategy, or stood in vulnerability as leaders; all deserve my respect and thanks. Thank you for choosing me to work with you!

Find out about my clients in 2021 HERE.

What’s the next BHAG?

I'm excited to say that my next BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) is to create a self-development and leadership journal for architects! If you'd like to know more, be a beta tester, or give feedback along the way, please email me. It will be quite a ride, and I will appreciate the support. I will periodically provide updates via my newsletter, so please sign up on the website home page.