Making Teams Work
Making Teams Work provides training consultancy services through several people. Here's a bit more about us all.
Jonathan Rees
Jonathan worked in the IT sector for over 20 years in leadership and management positions in several national and international companies prior to migrating into training, facilitating & consultancy in soft-skills in 2010. In 2017 he narrowed his focus to Blue-Light Services.
“I believe that you should have access to tools to enable you to thrive and succeed. To enjoy rather than endure your work. So I provide totally customised training & facilitation to enable that to happen: for individuals and teams regardless of their role or seniority; drawing on the latest research and thinking.”
Jonathan is renowned for building high-performing teams & individuals, facilitating their learning through interactive and engaging workshops tailored in-the-moment to best serve the objectives of participants.
Approach
Jonathan has a dynamic and practical approach that enables him to build rapport quickly with the individuals and teams he works with. As a 'facilitrainer' his objective is to consistently serve the needs of participants in workshops of all types - building on existing knowledge and skills and flexing content to provide new ideas & techniques that are immediately applicable.
His strength lies in an ability to embrace, simplify and bring order to complexity – transforming it into easy manageable steps to ensure desired outcomes are always achieved.
As a coach he adopts a robust and relentless approach; preferring to be seen as challenging rather than just supportive. He has a reputation for cutting to the heart of a matter and enabling clients to generate multiple options to the challenges they face; then challenging them to follow through on the action plans that they develop. He will offer solutions only when clients cannot find their own; but always on an invitational basis.
Qualifications & Experience
- BSc, Electrical & Electronic Engineering
- NLP Master Practitioner
- ILM Level 5 Certificate in Coaching & Mentoring
- Diploma in Coaching for Performance (NCFE)
- Diploma in Life Coaching (NCFE)
- Keirsey Certified Professional
- Visiting Fellow and Lecturer at the School of Engineering, University of Bristol
- 10 years experience as a soft-skills specialist providing tailored Training, Facilitation and Coaching at all levels to blue-chip and small-medium organisations, universities and schools.
- 20 years experience in internal and external IT in major international companies with world-wide development teams and business partners.
- Ran the London Marathon in 2:51 once (!)
Penny Banham, Associate.
A former Detective Chief Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police Service, Penny is a highly experienced policing professional, recognised as an advocate for gender equality in the workplace. In 2015, the London press headline read “Top female detective and gender equality campaigner to become head of Camden police”.
Former vice chair for the Police Superintendents Association (E district), Penny fully understands the conflicting demands and pressures of operating at a senior level within blue light services and the impact it has upon colleagues and the wider working environment.
Penny has a proven track record of performance delivery and quality strategic engagement at ministerial and chief executive levels across the public, private and third sector. The 2017 Ofsted inspection of Camden children's services graded leadership, management & governance as outstanding.
Penny has hosted three gender events in London, focused on health and wellbeing in the workplace, including personal and team resilience. Each event raised significant sums for women's charities. Her reputation of championing diversity is renowned amongst partner law enforcement agencies and in 2016 she co–hosted the International Womens Day event at the US Embassy.
Approach
Penny is an established public speaker and facilitator of events. Her policing background in CID, senior leadership, operational command and the L&D arena makes her an ideal co-facilitator with Jonathan.
Penny is adept at speaking to different audiences, ranging from public meetings, new recruits, and senior officer promotion workshops. She relishes meeting new people especially having the opportunity to support former colleagues in the blue-light services.
Experience & Skills
- Former Police Detective Chief Superintendent
- Trained assessor for senior selection (College of Policing)
- Senior Leadership Programme (College of Policing)
- Leading Powerful Partnerships (College of Policing)
- Realising Potential Programme (College of Policing)
- Trained coach & mentor (Police Superintendents Association)
- Trained board member for police misconduct hearings (Essex Chambers)
- Senior Investigating Officer (MPS)
Leadership Associations
- Former member of Association of Senior Women Officers (MPS),
- Awarded the British Association of Women Police special recognition award in 2015,
- Former vice chair of E District – Police Superintendents Association,
- Lead Design Consultant on a major Leadership and Management toolkit for National Policing - launched Sept 2019.
Phil Tovey, Associate.
Phil has been involved in building capability and capacity in individuals, teams and organisations for over 15yrs and has a unique take on which methods effectively drive change; owing mainly to being at the sharp end of modern warfare but informed and evolved through academic networks, action and field research and product innovation.
In an unashamedly philosophical way, Phil addresses these tensions head on; helping individuals and organisations understand how they experience complex concepts such as duty, servitude, control and power, or anxiety, confidence and responsibility. Phil is also a highly-skilled and sought-after VR Coach, running Fire & Flux Coaching.
Approach
Phil's approach is methodical, inquisitive, patient and warm. Uniquely, he integrates innovations in Virtual Reality (VR) and Existential philosophy into all his work; whether in groups or 1:1 VR coaching.
VR extends the realm of the possible, yet fundamentals principles of 'our-existence' still remains. Existentialism is a philosophical theory of existence and provides a robust framework for approaching the challenges of contemporary life. Thus, in working with Phil, you experience the world in brought-into being.
When coupled with VR, the 'human agent' (you) experiences a constructed-world. By using VR, you immediately exercise choice; you have to, else your world does not get constructed. It could, of course, stay empty. And it will, if you don't chose to act. You need to literally place objects (such as rocks, bridges, diamonds etc.) into your Virtual space. They represent something. Now, you can clearly see and explore challenges, conflict, strategy, options, future-states, problems and approaches in a safe, but immersive and engaging experience.
Working with VR doesn't take away the human skill and rapport needed in a coach. Phil uses his existentialism to non-judgementally and descriptively challenge assumptions, explore your worldview and examine areas of tension- VR makes this easier, as you are both sharing in the construction of your world, not just a comfy discussion. Metaphor works very powerfully and has immediately impact.
Qualifications & Experience
- CMI Level 7 Certificate in Strategic Leadership & Management
- ILM Level 7 Certificate in Executive Coaching & Mentoring
- BTEC Level 4 Award in Internal Quality Assurance
- Lead Design Consultant on a Major Public Services Transformational Programme in Cultural Change and Ethic through Leadership Development
- Former Royal Marine Commando, Specialist Operations. Deployed on operations globally in capacity and capability building.
- Currently serving Royal Marine Reserve Section Commander
- Member, Chartered Management Institute
- Member, British Academy of Management
- Member, British Society of Phenomenology
- International Taekwondo Federation 2nd Degree Black Belt (International Athlete, competing in across the world at the highest levels)
