• Darren Priest

    Solutions Coach

Coaching for individuals, teams and young people –
simple, effective and quick

  • Individuals

    1-to-1 coaching and career coaching

    I have worked hard to become qualified and experienced as a Coach … and it is at this point that I realise I am not the expert when it comes to your life, you are! My job is to ask the next useful question.

  • Teams

    Workshops to help create Solution Focused Teams

    Ambiguity, just not knowing, is often filled with negative shortcuts when a team is forming. Imagine a team that fills any ambiguity with a more useful positive scenario, asking “What’s the best that might happen?” and starts meetings with “What are our best hopes from this time together?”

  • Young People

    An approach that truly respects what you want

    People often ask how working with young people is different. The answer is it isn’t a lot different. Although they may not have been the one that made the appointment, it is still their best hopes that we have faith in together.

Click on the image to learn about the services we offer

CoachingTMPQO2Work PositiveCareer Coaching

If you are asking yourself any of these questions, coaching may be the answer for you!

  • Do you want to unblock a situation, realise your best hopes, regain well-being or make a change in your life?
  • Would you like to improve your relationships with your loved ones?
  • Do you lack enthusiasm or self-confidence?
  • Do you feel like you’ve strayed from your dreams?
  • Are you going through a difficult life change (separation, moving, departure of the children, etc.)?
  • Are you having trouble making an important decision?
  • Do you feel like you are going in circles or not making the right choices?
  • Would you like to take care of yourself and don’t know how?

Speaking together will help you bring out your own resources, values ​​and solutions that will allow even greater autonomy and to know that you are the author of your life.

Take the time to listen to yourself, trust yourself, and reconnect with what is really important to you.

We all have within us our own resources to meet the challenges of life, but we do not always know how to identify them well.

We are not the experts in your life. You are. We are trained in active listening and in asking precise questions that open up choices for you.

Our coaching work will be adapted to your situation, always within a CONFIDENTIAL,  RESPECTFUL and  CARING environment , and without judgement of you or your choices.

Price: €100 per 90 minute session

TEAM MANAGEMENT PROFILE (TMP)

The TMS Team Management Profile (TMP) is one of the world’s leading psychometric profiling tools for personal, team and leadership development. Since 1985, the TMP has successfully delivered a framework for creating and sustaining high performing teams for many of the world’s most successful organizations.

The TMP is about learning, not just assessment. It identifies eight core activities (Types of Work Wheel), mapped against four work preference measures (RIDO Scale) which combine to create an individual’s unique Team Management Profile. The advantages of understanding a team member’s Profile include:

  1. Being able to identify a person’s strengths and work preferences,
  2. A greater self-awareness and strategies to improve performance,
  3. Helping people understand why they work the way they do,
  4. Providing a common language for teams to communicate with,
  5. Enabling leaders to successfully and confidently assign people to projects and tasks, and
  6. Delivering objective, constructive and work-focused insights.

If you are operating in an environment where your teams or clients are seeking improved team effectiveness, greater understanding of team dynamics and opportunities for improvement, this simple and easy to implement Profile is affordable, agile and results-driven.

With 208 Profile combinations, the Team Management Profile is one of the most comprehensive personal Profiles available today.

PRICES:

Profile Only @ €145

Profile + 90 minute Coaching and Feedback Session @ €215

Team Training – Price on Request

OPPORTUNITIES-OBSTACLES PROFILE (QO2)

The TMS Opportunities-Obstacles Profile (QO2) highlights people’s predisposition to seeing Opportunities versus Obstacles in particular situations, and their probable approach to innovation, change and risk. If you are operating in an environment where your teams or clients are seeking improved decision making, more effective problem solving and stronger clarity around goals, then the QO2 is the right solution.

The Profile provides valuable insights as to why some people:

  1. Are threatened by change, while others are energised by it
  2. Hold on to the past, while others race towards the future
  3. Only see problems, while others see opportunity and solutions
  4. Assume the worst (glass half empty), while others see potential (glass half full)
  5. Find it difficult to set goals, while others are driven by them

Understanding these differences allows leaders, HR and L&D professionals to more successfully:

  • Design and execute change programmes
  • Develop resilience in the workplace
  • Identify thought leaders and innovators
  • Design teams better equipped to run risk related projects

PRICES:

Profile Only @ €100

Profile + 90 minute Coaching and Feedback Session @ €175

Expertise to access FREE stress tools

Our coaching work and use of psychometric team building profiles helps individuals and teams work smarter, engage better and be happier in their work. All these efforts are hindered if the employer and employees are not addressing potential psychosocial hazards in the workplace environment. Our expertise in Occupational Health Psychology can help guide in the initial use of these tools and thus allow an easy and cost effective way to monitor and address potential stressors in your company.

Work Positive

Work Positive includes a free online surveys tool. This can be used to help you fulfil the requirements of stress risk management in your organisation. All results are anonymous and meet the requirements of data protection law.

You are able to

  • send an online questionnaire to all or some of your employees
  • view the results online
  • compare your results against organisations of similar size or sector
  • consult directly with your employees about the results
  • create a plan of action that you can then monitor and review
  • access the surveys tool
  • use our paperwork to support stress risk assessments for individuals with specific needs.

Management standards

Management standards for the workplace have been developed by the HSE. They cover six key areas of work design that, if not properly managed, can lead to stress and/or poor mental health amongst your staff.

The six areas are

  1. Demands – such as workload, work patterns and the working environment.
  2. Control – how much say people have in how they do their work.
  3. Support – the formal and informal encouragement, and resources provided.
  4. Relationships – promoting positive working relationships to avoid conflict and dealing with unacceptable behaviour.
  5. Role – whether people understand their role within your organisation there are no conflicting roles.
  6. Change – how organisational change is managed and communicated.

You can find out more about the Management Standards on the HSE website.

Visit the HSE site for Management Standards

Prices for consultancy work are on request, tools are free to use.

You can benefit from support in:

  • CV Preparation
  • Cover Letters
  • Interview Techniques
  • Preparing for Competency Based Interviews
  • Strengths based evaluation and alignment

Price @ €100 per 90 minute session

Why should you work with the Brief Solutions Focused Approach?

Unlike traditional forms of therapy that take time to analyse problems, pathology and past life events, the Brief Solution-Focused Approach (BSFA) concentrates on finding solutions in the present time and exploring one’s hope for the future to find quicker resolution of one’s problems. This method takes the approach that you know what you need to do to improve your own life and, with the appropriate coaching and questioning, are capable of finding the best solutions.

  • Simple

    (but not easy)

    Our conversation is based around 3 essential questions:

    What are your best hopes from our time together?

    When your preferred future is realised, how will you know?

    What are you already doing and have done up to now that might contribute to these hopes being realised?

    My job as your Coach is to trust that you have the answers to these questions and ask the questions in such a way that you are able to do so.

  • Effective

    (as effective as any approach)

    There have been approximately 150 randomized clinical trials with Solution Focused Brief Therapy, which along with meta-analysis, demonstrates that SFBT’s effectiveness is equivalent to or greater than other evidence-based practices, such as Cognitive-Behavior Therapy and Interpersonal Psychotherapy.

  • Brief

    (as quick as one session)

    Research demonstrates that while effect sizes are similar to other evidence-based approaches, these effects are attained in fewer sessions, averaging about five sessions and rarely extending over eight or ten. That is why we do not offer packages of coaching sessions or a free consultation. Our work together may require as few as one session and should need no more than five … otherwise you must question if it’s working.

A little bit about me
and my previous work

Read my story in The Echo

Education

  • Trained at BRIEF UK
  • MSc (Distinction) Career Coaching – University of East London
  • MSc (Merit) Occupational Health Psychology – University of Nottingham
  • Post Graduate Diploma (Merit) Coaching Psychology – University of East London
  • BA Honours (2:2) Social Studies – Liverpool John Moore’s University
  • FETAC Level 6 Train the Trainer
  • FETAC Level 6 Group Work Facilitation

Employers

  • Employability West Cork
  • West Cork Development Partnership
  • University College Cork
  • National College of Ireland
  • TBG Learning – part of the Rehab Group
  • The British Council
  • International Trainer and Teacher Trainer in Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Greece, Japan, Lebanon, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom

Testimonials

Darren is an exceptional listener who has an ability to enable you to find the answer for yourself. He guides you along your own journey and goes above and beyond with his advice and direction.

Darren, gave me job coaching assistance to help me find suitable employment. He is a great mentor and he wants everyone who is a client to succeed. He helps you to only take the positives from any Interview that you may have. He has excellent planning and strategies to cope with even the most difficult interview.

Darren’s “can do” attitude and technical ability was a tremendous asset to me in rejoining the work place following redundancy. He knows what he’s talking about and more importantly, he delivers.

Darren has most definitely got what it takes to be a very effective career coach. His detailed knowledge of what employers want to see and his unstoppable enthusiasm are sure to give even the most nervous job seeker new confidence in the face of what is proving to be a very challenging labour market at the moment. Darren is doing some very valuable work, and it is obvious to anyone who talks to him that he is doing it 200%

Darren is an excellent trainer and teacher.He builds rapport quickly with people and gets them activly involved in the learning process.Darren uses warmth and good humor to good effect when training and has a strong work ethic.I cannot recommend Darren highly enough, not just because of his skills and experience, but also for his willingness to go the extra mile to help others,be they colleagues or students.

In Darrens role as a contract trainer to Nifast, I would highly recommend Darren as a trainer. Having attended one of the courses that Darren facilitated, his training style is a breath of fresh air. He engages with participants and has everyone interacting in a comfortable manner by the techniques he uses. He has a way of putting acorss the information which enables the learner to absorb information effectively. I would highly recommend Darren as a trainer and look forward to sitting in on one of his courses again soon.

Darren provides excellent career guidance I found his service invaluable which included CV, cover letter and interview preparation. I was very impressed with his dedication and his professionalism. I strongly encourage those considering a career change or even just a change of job to contact Darren for a consultation

I was forwarded to Darren’s service after being made redundant and looking for a new position. Darren a showed a genuine dedication to helping and I get the impression worked tirelessly to get a result. The communication was clear and frequent and the coaching was invaluable. His coaching made me realise what the real priorities in my search were and boosted my confidence.

Darren’s warmth, humour, openness and honesty made it an absolute delight to work with him during our time together at the University of East London. His Masters in Occupational Health Psychology combined with his education, knowledge and skills in the Career Coaching arena meant he had a wealth of experience to share and from which I benefitted. He naturally recalls and draws upon theoretical models and I was particularly impressed with his technical ability to work with clients in a solutions focused way. I consider Darren as high potential and I happily recommend him as a coach within the corporate, educational and government environments.

Es una persona con mucha dedicación a las tareas encomendadas, implicándose más alla de lo meramente prescriptivo. Sus objetivos son superados con éxito, gracias a sus amplios conocimientos y a que se involucra personalmente, haciéndo de ellos un reto. Su personalidad le hace ser idóneo para puestos de alto nivel y mando de equipos de personal

Darren has the wonderful ability to facilitate one on one, and in a way that solves practical issues facing people. He also, has perhaps a more important quality, in that, he unselfishly brings people together to add even more benefit in the wider context. It’s called Authentic Leadership Coaching and we need more of that.

Darren Priest gave me the tools I needed to build my confidence and get back into the work force. He helped me to broaden my horizons in places I wasn’t looking before. I have a fantastic job which I feel suits me well and I am happy going into work. I would recommend Darren to everybody looking to engage in the job seeking process. A wonderful facilitator and support Thank you.

Get in touch

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