Jo Ouston & Co – Client Stories

Let's Move On
Michele Golden

'The higher you are the harder you fall'. It's a cliché, but when it happens to you it feels horribly true. This was certainly Michele Golden's experience when she found herself facing redundancy from a senior management position in the NHS.

"I was used to success in my career," Golden says, "so when the opportunity was offered for spectacular promotion, I went for it." Problem was, the support she expected wasn't there, reorganisation changed the landscape, and the glittering new job quickly faded to a view of the exit sign.

"I'd never been out of work before. I had two children, and a mortgage based on the assumption that my career was untouchable. Within weeks of agreeing a redundancy package I truly started to think I might never work again. A mind frozen by fear isn't the best way to start re-building a career."

"I'd heard of Jo Ouston & Co so I called Jo and went to see her, more curious than hopeful. That was when the nonsense really stopped. Self-pity went out of the window, self blame, recrimination … the negatives were stripped away. Jo's first and most important message was simple: 'Let's move on'."

Michele Golden had a series of one-to-one consultations with Jo Ouston followed by a two-day course - Power of Communication. Soon she was on the scent of at least two jobs. Within months she was offered the one she has now (and in which she has had promotion).

What lessons did Golden take from her consultancy and training with Jo & Co?

"First, to see change as exciting rather than frightening. Next, that confidence and self-belief don't die. I learned that they're still there, buried may be, but that I was able to re-grow them."

What about being on a course with other people, with strangers? Did that feel like some sort of exposure?

"Working with other people on the course, I lost any victim complex. My position wasn't unique. Life wasn't out to get me. Very soon a sense of proportion and reality came flooding back."

Golden views her career today in a quite different light - different from the gloom post-redundancy and different too from what she thought was the comfort zone of the NHS.

"Now I understand the real value of my skills and personal qualities. I know they're transferable. So I'll always be able to try something new. I don't think I'll ever again be scared of change."