Monday

An early start to the week; I leave home before 7 to run an assessor skills refresher course for a client in the financial services sector. They’re due to hold assessment centres next week as part of their graduate recruitment programme.

I’m working with Stuart, a partner in the business. We split the group for most of the day so I’m working with four participants, observing while they practise and then giving them feedback. It’s been a fairly intensive day as the timetable was tight and one of the participants needed a lot of help.

Tuesday

Arrive at the office just before 9, and spend the morning outlining a new development centre process. Our client, a major brand manufacturer in the food industry, wants a process that will incorporate the latest thinking on management development. Fortunately, I had been thinking about some new approaches, and this is just the opportunity to implement them. Less happily, the client wants a detailed specification by the end of the week to bring it to a meeting of their HR Managers in Holland on Monday!

After a quick lunch Heike and I travel by train to meet a public sector organisation that had short-listed us to pitch for a series of diversity awareness workshops for 240 of its managers. We are due to make a presentation to the Board at 4.30pm. On the train, we brainstorm the issues they are likely to ask about. It pays off, as many of the issues actually arise, and we’re well prepared to respond to them. Sometimes it’s hard to tell how well a pitch has been received, but on this occasion we feel quietly confident. We’ll know by Friday!

Wednesday

No travel today - I’m working from home, as I need peace and quiet to complete the development centre design. I wasn't feeling very creative to start with, but as I got stuck into it, the ideas flowed and I’ve come up with some innovative proposals for scenarios and exercises, and even some practical solutions for the logistics of the event. By the end of the day I e-mail a draft to Ceri, one of the Partners, for review.

Thursday

I spend the morning working on a proposal. It was difficult to figure out how we could deliver the solution that the client wanted within the budget that they had set. In fact, most of the morning is taken up with solving this problem and finalising the proposal. By early afternoon, Ceri gets back to me with feedback on the development centre specification – he had spotted a few potential difficulties. We talk through ways to overcome these, and by the time I have re-drafted the specification, it’s close to 7.30pm.

Friday

Everyone is in the office this morning. We don’t sell Friday to clients; it’s our day for reviewing progress on projects, for catching up with clients and for paying attention to our own business.

At 9.30am we have a psychologists’ meeting. Later, I meet with Olivia to plan the next week's work and to make arrangements for accommodation and travel.

Between 11.00am and lunchtime I’m involved in meetings concerning our web site and making arrangements for development opportunities for our recently-joined psychologists. Then it’s off to the local for lunch, a regular Friday occurrence.

In the afternoon, we have reviews of current projects. On tenterhooks waiting to hear if we had won the contract for the diversity workshops. Not until 4.30 does the call come, and it’s good news. What a great way to end the week!