TESTIMONIALS

I have known Josie for some six years and have had nothing but positive experience

s with her. She coached me the first time we met and I was very impressed by her insight, her skill and her persistence. She has won several awards for her coaching. She has the very unusual ability to be able to complete a large number of coaching sessions in a day without tiring or fading.

On the personal side she is a very good mother of two great children and her people skills are outstanding. She is also extremely bright, quick on the uptake and worldly wise, and I have no doubt that she will be an asset to the program.

Since all the things I want to say about Josie are superlatives, I thought I should add some weakness to show that my view is balanced. The truth is that I can find nothing about her to criticize.

If anyone deserves to be called a Master Coach it is Josie Thomson, except she is very feminine. I have known her for many years and she has coached me on a number of occasions very successfully, and I am no push over. She is challenging, tough and persistent in the most gentle and caring way. I have grown much from working with her. Furthermore she really enjoys coaching people and devotes an inordinate amount of her time doing so without getting bored or stale. When coaches really genuinely enjoy coaching, they give of their very best and Josie does just that. I would trust her with my vulnerabilities any day.

I have attended three (3) presentations of Ms Thomson during which she espoused the value of “Coaching” to representatives from corporate organisations as well as interested individuals from the local communities. These presentations were to audiences ranging from forty (40) through to four hundred (400) attendees.

Josephine’s strength as a presenter of subject matter relating to “coaching” is as strong as it a weakness for the coaching fraternity. An engaging style that is inclusive for the audience by means of Josephine referencing audience members at regular intervals throughout her presentation is one of the numerous delivery techniques used. The many and varied benefits and applied philosophies of Coaching are communicated with a passion that cannot emanate from the almighty dollar.

What makes Josephine different from the many other presenters I have endured over the years is that Josie’s makes the content “real” and it is delivered with absolute credible belief from her heart. Such a style leaves the audience saying to themselves “I must do it” rather than “I would like to do it”

Alas therein lays Josephine’s strength and the coaching fraternity’s weakness. Josie has truly set the “Bar of Expectation” for delivery so immeasurably high for potential clients and coaches alike. I like many others who have attended her presentations and Art of Coaching training forums have been left questioning ourselves was it the content or was it the presenter who made the difference. Invariably the answer was the presenter and her natural and very “real “approach.

Murray Harris
National Procurement, Fleet & Facilities Services Manager
Origin Energy Services Limited

"Josie has facilitated a number of sessions for QIC, working with our managers and leaders in QIC's cultural redevelopment program. Given her previous results, her credibility with staff and the trust she had built across the leadership group, I asked Josie to help us to re-shape our Leaders' Forum. Josie played an important role in helping me establish a very different feel to the Forum and the behaviours of participants. As is her style, she was quickly able to get the "buy-in" of participants and establish the rules for the forum which included open, honest and free discussion. This set the scene for some active and robust discussions. Josie's frank and outcomes orientated approach ensured that the forum delivered tangible outcomes which we are now working through as a group."

Doug McTaggart
Chief Executive
QIC

Josie Thomson has made a needed impact to my personal and business life. Her understanding of the culture required within a business has resulted in changes that now better serve our team memebers and our customers.

It is one thing to have knowledge but another thing to be able to apply that knowledge and create positive change. Josie has provided me with more confidence in my own intuition but at the same time given me challenges around my own short comings.

The ability to identify people in your organisation who neither want to lead or follow is critical to any teams success. Changing such people's behaviour or moving them on are the only options. Of course the need for a leader to focus on strategy and planning is something that Josie will ensure anyone she is coaching is very aware of.

I highly recommend Josie to you. I can also assure you that she will only take on projects where she can give true value.

Allan Todd
Todd's Sound & Vision

Tynan Mackenzie Pty Ltd is one of Australia’s premier professional financial planning and wealth management companies. Recently we brought together a number of our client service staff into one service team. These team members had been operating more or less independently, however the increasing size of our business meant that amalgamating teams of people to increase levels of service efficiency was inevitable.

Many of these people in the new group had never worked in a high-paced team environment before, and as a result many necessary team synergies did not gel.

Our company was familiar with Josie Thomson’s work in other organisations, particularly in the realm of executive and management coaching. Due to Josie’s reputation and impressive references we sought her out to see whether she would be interested in working with our newly created team to identify and work on the gaps in the team dynamic.

Josie readily accepted the challenge and commenced her work with us by individually profiling all the staff and stakeholders involved. She was able to provide excellent support and advice to each person and made preparations for several successful workshops where the issues were revealed, explored and addressed.

Josie uncovered some underlying tensions and anxieties amongst the team. She was able to apply her impressive coaching skills to both teach the team how to operate effectively and guide the team to achieving ownership of the direction and success of the team. They learned how to work in synergy and achieve more together.

Josie's patience, skill and professionalism was borne out both in the measurable success of the team following their sessions with Josie and the very positive comments about Josie’s methods and abilities from both the team members and stakeholders alike.

In my many years of managing groups of people I have no hesitation in stating that Josie Thomson is the most professional and skilled workplace coach that I have worked with. I have no hesitation recommending her services or engaging her again in the future.

MARK SCHROEDER
COO
Tynan Mackenzie Pty Ltd

Our company chose Accelerated Excellence to assist us in consolidating and extending the benefits gained from a major business restructuring. The new structure was in place but the challenge moving forward was how to ensure we maximised our potential as individuals and as an organization.

The Coaching process was challenging, thought provoking, insightful, sometimes emotional and often entertaining. It involved a journey of rediscovering yourself, your values and the importance of healthy relationships at work and in life generally. Whilst coaching opens your mind to endless opportunities, the process always maintains a focus on your key goals and delivering tangible and lasting results at every step.

Workplace Coaching enabled us to achieve significant benefits at an early stage in the programme. Better still, we are confident that the major benefits are yet to come as we are now equipped with the tools to maximize our potential.

Thank you to Accelerated Excellece. Special thanks to our Coach - Josephine Thomson.

Tony Evans
Managing Director
Jensen Bowers Group Consultants Pty Ltd