About Jenny
For over forty years I have worked with leaders, facilitators, coaches and organisations who want to make a meaningful difference in the world. For much of my working life I have been interested in one enduring question:
How do people, organisations and communities respond creatively to complexity, uncertainty and change?
That question has shaped everything I have done; as a psychotherapist, organisational consultant, facilitator, coach, educator and programme designer.
My work centres on helping people develop the capacity to lead, facilitate and work together in ways that are more creative, more systemic and more deeply connected with one another and with the natural world.
A lifetime of practice
For more than forty years I have worked with individuals, teams and organisations across the commercial, public, voluntary and environmental sectors.
My work has included executive coaching and mentoring, senior team development, organisational consultancy, leadership development, facilitator training and the design of long term learning programmes.
A significant chapter of my work was at Schumacher College, where I designed programmes, taught internationally, helped develop a new generation of leaders working in service of people and planet and took over as the Head of the college for a year.
Although the settings have been varied, the work has remained remarkably consistent.
I work systemically, identifying patterns within people, in relationships, in organisations and in the wider communities of which they are part.
My aim is to play my part in healing disconnection, unlocking creative flow and helping reconnect the divides between ourselves and others, between people and nature, and between ourselves and a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.
Everything I offer grows from these intentions.
Again and again I have seen that lasting change rarely comes from quick solutions. It comes from learning to see ourselves and the systems around us more clearly.
Working with the whole system
Much of my work has been shaped by systems thinking, Gestalt psychology (you can read my book on Gestalt here), complexity theory and the understanding that we are always part of something larger than ourselves.
Whether I am working with one person or one hundred people, I am interested in relationships, patterns and possibilities.
How do we become more aware of the systems we belong to?
How do we respond creatively when familiar ways of thinking no longer serve us?
How do we lead when the future cannot be predicted?
These questions continue to inform my work.
Learning by experience
In my experience, people learn by practising and with others.
By experimenting, reflecting, making mistakes and discovering their own way of working.
Through the joy of learning together.
That is why my programmes are active, experiential and practical.
They bring together dialogue, embodied practice, systemic mapping, creativity, nature connection and reflection.
Learning happens through participation and experience rather than observation.
Teaching and writing
Over the years I have taught and designed programmes for organisations including:
Schumacher College
Metanoia Institute
Ashridge Business School
The Pushkin Trust
Syngenta
Roche Pharmaceuticals
British Gas
Birmingham City Council
Department for Work and Pensions
The Nowhere Group
Roffey Park Management College
Harthill Consulting
Community Farm
Ecowild
Alongside this work I have designed and delivered learning journeys throughout the UK and internationally.
I have worked with leaders in business, education, health, government and the voluntary sector, as well as with communities exploring new ways of living and working together.
As well as designing programmes, training trainers and mentoring leaders, I have written two books on Gestalt psychology, Developing Gestalt and Fritz Perls: An Appreciation and Critique of His Life and Work and a chapter on Facilitation as a Form of Action Inquiry in the Moment.
Writing has always been another way of exploring questions that continue to shape my practice.