Three questions you should ask yourself as this year draws to a close

Newsletter header - image of jan peters in green cardigan hlding a microphone

Katalytik Dec 2024 Newsletter: 3 things to ask yourself

Newsletter header - image of jan peters in green cardigan hlding a microphone

It’s a shock to us, if not to you, that we are a quarter way through the 21st century. As our last newsletter of 2024 we want to send good wishes for a well deserved break, and offer 3 coaching questions to help you reflect on your year:

  1. What have you most surprised yourself with?
  2. What are you most pleased with?
  3. Who has made a difference to you this year? Tell them.

Our 2024

Our year has been full of celebrations, with the UCL Engineering Integrated Engineering Programme 10th anniversary early on. And it ended on a terrific high, as category winners at the Elektra Awards: best company supporting the education and training of engineers.  This comes with the amazing support of our clients and positive feedback from participants in our programmes. We love that our desire to do better and adapt is met with yours, together we are better and stronger!

Highlights of 2024 include sharing our Conflict and Communication whitepaper, adding the positive intelligence Saboteur and Sage tool to our portfolio, and working to provide tools and resources for client intranet pages to help keep CliftonStrengths alive. We’ll also be running our LinkedIn Challenge in the New Year and quarterly, maybe add it to one of your targets for the year, to spruce up your profile.

Workshop sessions for clients this past quarter have included teams at Schroders, GSK and Shell – exploring Cliftonstrengths, Saboteurs and Sages, and psychological safety to improve team performance and communication. As well as supporting more undergrad and early career researchers., adding KCL Natural Sciences to our valued clients.

What’s up for Katalytik in 2025?

Highlights for the coming year will be supporting the Ingenious programme with WES members across the country, writing up the study on the lives and careers of engineers, and transforming our wellbeing in engineering work into a more accessible workshop. There will be an online briefing, and a one-day symposium, and then we’ll be offering in-house workshops for you.

Keep a look out for a date in April for our wellbeing and engineering face-to-face workshop/seminar. If you fancy hosting it do give us a call.

As we turn the heating and lights off for the break, all remains is to wish you ha happy and healthy break, and whatever your celebration (there are so many this December) enjoy your time.

PS If you’d like to catch up and hear more, or check-in for a chat  just book a call

Jan and Helen in red tops

Jan (left) and Helen (right) have reflected on the past year

What have you most surprised yourself with?

Jan: I managed to dial into every session of the 17 Neurodiversity in coaching programme evening sessions.

Helen: Being able to stand on stage and introduce PhD students to CliftonStrengths

What are you most pleased with?

Jan: Seeing Helen take the stage and rock it.

Helen: Watching my daughter achieve her Masters.

Who has made a difference to you this year? Tell them.

Jan: Having Becca on the team and getting the White paper out

Helen: Seeing my coaching clients grow. 

solar power for katalytik - it heats our office and powers our servers.
Elektra Winner 2024
2024 3 big cheers (1)

That's a wrap on 2o years!

Our 20 years trading ended well with the Elektra Award, fabulous support from new team member Becca Perl with her wonderful copy editing and attention to detail, helpng our Whitepaper see the light of day; Helen celebrates taking an increasing role in delivering workshops and growing confidence leading online learning; and Sean McWhinnie continues to provide data support and insights through his skills and love of pivot tables.
Connectedness blindspots in text and a groupf of peopel with locked arms

Connectedness - the power and the blindspots

The CliftonStrength Connectedness® is a gift in many settings. It brings a big picture persepctive and sees connections innately across many things. Being a relationship theme time spent with people is a top priority and conflict not something to relish. This months CliftonStrengths blog explores the blindspots and strategies to keep the power and edge of this fabulous strength polished and sharp.

Wellbeing through Connectedness

wellbeing check in

Wellbeing through CliftonStrengths

We continue exploring CliftonStrengths focusing on wellbeing for one of the 34 themes each month - now it's time for Connectedness® to be explored through the five elements, defined in Gallup's research. Today, helping you unravel how to manage your wellbeing through the lens of your Connectedness®
career wellbeing

Career wellbeing

When you look at your world or work your power to conenct everyone to the team's goal and help them see the intersection is of huge value. Question: How is your team organised How do you help your colleagues see how they fit? Action: Take time to talk to colleagues and check in with how their role fits and how you compleement each other. How can you help colleague's align their strengths to tasks and goals.
social wellbeing 2

Social wellbeing

You can bring a calm during times of chaos and uncertainty because you see the whole as greater than its parts. Question: How have you helped a friend to get through tough times? Action: Reflect on how you can help others to see how you can help friends, family, and colleagues make peace with the past and have faith in what is to come. Find time to locate tools or activities to support you in this.
financial wellbeing

Financial wellbeing

You understand that no financial decision exists in isolation. Question: How have your buying (or investing) choices impacted your finances? Action: Reflect on how the tiniest choice you make is connected to the larger whole. Review your finances and check with how your plannng meets this strengths need.
physical wellbeing

Physical wellbeing

You may feel you are "at one" with nature and humanity and feel pulled to the outdoors. Question: What type of activity gives you the most energy? Do you need to do it alone or with others? Action: Consider spending more time outdoors hiking or running, connecting to your inner self and the world around you. Try yoga or martial arts.
community wellbeing

Community wellbeing

When the world is suffering, you feel a heightened sense of duty to bring people together and help them see that everything happens for a reason. Question: How can you bring others together? Action: Help others see that everything happens for a reason. Remind them their ability to unite generates more commitment to serious societal issues.

Read more →

November 2024

Image of jan in a green cardigan holding a microsphone with her right hand in the air.

November 2024 News

It’s a shock to us, if not to you, that we are a quarter way through the 21st century. As our penultimate newsletter of 2024 we want to share our passion for group coaching and the importance that everyone deserves and needs a coach, see Jan’s LinkedIn post) and that the essence of a high performing team is about communication.

It’s now 5 years since we launched our conversations on inclusion. And in 2025 we want to grow the engagement with this approach.: to help stop the preaching about EDI and to enable and empower each person to do one thing.

This month we’re exploring

  • The CliftonStrength, Competition – scroll to the bottom
  • The benefit of getting a coach , early in your career, and especially for PhD/Postdocs. Also, how group coaching is a cost effective and powerful choice.
  • Helping to get things done with the FREE graphic summary of the 4 disciplines of execution
  • Notice of our December Strengths Jam end of year party. 4 December at 11am

We hope you will be rooting for us at the Elektra Awards, for a company supporting the education and training of engineers on 10th December.

We continue to love, love, love, facilitating workshops and create action plans for a diverse range of inclusion programmes with corporates, professional societies, and universities including renewing for Athena Swan.

This year in the office we are enjoying the sunny days, knowing that all our energy for heat, light, and PCs is coming from the sun! 100% solar.

In the meantime we hope your Movember is a good one. 

Jan and the Katalytik team

PS If you’d like to catch up and hear more, or check-in for a chat  just book a call

PPS don’t forget to sign up to our GDPR compliant news letter at the top of the page to get this direct to your inbox. 

.

Elektra finalist 2024

We are excited to have been shortlisted for the Elektra Award, for companies supporting engineering education. Since we led the Set to Lead project at UCL in 2010 we have proivded input to the UKSPEC and AHEP, three times! gone on to embed inclusive thinking into the award winning Integrated Engineering Programme at UCL, and from the symposia in 2016 and 2018 written the report Designing inclusive engineering education. Our learning has led to our Engineering Inclusion Forum – training trainers to tweak their programmes, supporting doctoral students and academics, and working to measure progress.

the work vortex

We’re not all blessed with ‘executing themes’ high in our CliftonStrengths profile. But we probably all get caught up in the vortex of work and life. This months ‘must read’ and your free download is the summary of the book “The 4 disciplines of execution” by Chesney, Covey, and Huling.

If you find yourself in a vortex, are stuck, and feel like you just aren’t getting things done, see if this helps. And then read Atomic Habits! 

4 researchers standing around a glass window with post it notes.

The value of coaching early in one’s career is often underestimated. While coaching is often associated with senior professionals, the truth is that coaching can propel individuals towards their goals swiftly. As Eric Schmidt of Google emphasized, ‘Everyone needs a coach.’ We advocate for the impact of group coaching. It serves as a platform for peers to collaborate, learn from each other, and grow collectively. It provides an opportunity to enhance practice listening skills abilities by actively engaging in the coaching process. Read more on Jan’s LinkedIn

A man standing in front of a screen pointing to a diagram and the words taking strengths deeper

Helen and Jan took a day out of the office to meet with other CliftonStrengths coaches and Simon Hurry of Play Nicely to dive deeper into positive psychology and Simon’s deep thinking of how groups of CliftonStrengths are often found within one person.

Simon has framed these types into a 4×4 matrix that shape how we show up: as Guardians, Change Managers, Change Agents, and Reformers.  We’re looking forward to exploring his methodology in 2025 and bringing our insights to our workshops and teams very soon. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, call for a chat.

Graphic lightbulb on dark blue background with Electric Dreams written across the front.

Katalytik is excited to be the training provider for the Electric Dreams project – celebrating the innovation and passions of women from 1924 who set up the Electrical Association of Women to “free them from domestic drudgery”. And asking people to think forwards to 2054. Part of this years Ingenious fund, we are providing the training and faciliation of the project. 

Funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious Project Jan is excited to be the training facilitator. 

Strengths jam with images of jan, helen and a participant. The Katalytik Community call.

Strengths Jam – 4th December  11am

A Strengths Jam Christmas Party 😊

Let’s reflect on great moments from 2024,  What strengths were you using, and why are these such powerful memories? How can we bring this into the Christmas period and 2025? In true party style, you all leave with an e gift from us at Katalytik

Join us by registering here

Silvered figures sprinting across the image withthe title for the blog "Competition blindspots" and a small icon of Darth Vader.

This month’s strengths blog

The CliftonStrength Competition® is a gift in many settings. It brings an energy and push to be first. Appreciating that others are not motivated by being first, or winning at all costs, can seem surprising. Time to reflect and explore what their world is like can be an eye-opener into how you can be helpful partners.

This blog looks at the darker side of Competition and offers strategies for leveraging its power and learning how to let it be a help and not a hindrance to your success.

Read the blog

 

Read more →

Tune into your talent

Celebrating International Women’s Day Great news to see TechUK launch their Returners Hub today and to see our Tune into your Talent workshop featured. Tune into your Talent aims to help returners to STEM and digital careers. We help you find you: Behind every…

Read more →

Code Challenge submission extension

  In response to requests from schools that have had busy start to the year we have extended the submission deadline to the 18th March at midnight. This will let us process the video links to judges before the Easter Holiday. We’ll be able to…

Read more →