My name is Alison Quest – and I set up Heartfelt Associates to specialise in supporting people through difficult times at work. Whatever they are. It’s my heart’s work. 

I want to offer something that I wish I’d had.

Because I have come up against a few tricky times during my career. And no doubt the challenges will keep on coming! But now I’m equipped with a combination of self-knowledge, confidence in my strengths and the ability to reach out for help when I need it.

Here are some of the things I struggled with:

Starting a new role:

  • I joined a huge multinational in the middle of a reorganisation, which I was exempt from, but my manager was not successful in his application to stay in his role, and so a week  after joining I had no manager and I had to find my way

  • I joined a new organisation into my first role with a larger team reporting into me, and I was asked to manage the person I was replacing. They were not seen as right for the leadership role but would stay in the team and my new team were extremely loyal to them and continued to look to him for leadership.

During a role/assignment:

  • I had a director-level manager, who led all of her direct reports by being incredibly inconsistent – sometimes super supportive and open and sometimes challenging and closed. I was then asked to join a merger & acquisition project, with the rest of the team consisting of her peers. She found that incredibly hard - and her behaviour towards me became pretty much unbearable

  • I took a sabbatical (with no guarantees that I could return to the organisation, let alone my existing role). At the end of the sabbatical, I was lacking the confidence or strength to apply for roles in new organisations. So, I took one back in the original company against the advice of many friends and colleagues. It was incredibly tough time for me.  My manager was great, but I found the stakeholder group toxic to work with - and it really took its toll on me.  I took it all on as mine to fix and tried harder and harder. I could not find a way to work through it and it was seriously affecting my mental health. Eventually I resigned.  

At the end of a role: 

  • I finished a one-year contract and was then offered three different permanent roles that I could choose between. The choice weighed so heavily on me – I felt I had to make the “right one” for the rest of my life – and although it was very positive situation; I found it very stressful.

  • I was made redundant from my first job after graduating. It was due to a new boss deciding to put a new structure in place.  My role was the only one impacted.  So, it was very isolating.  And I felt very rejected.

  • I was sacked during my end of year review – without any indication of what was coming. I had to pack up my things in front members of my team and be escorted off the premises on the same day. Never to return. 

I have learned from all of these experiences and can look back on them and put them in context, alongside all the amazingly positive experiences and development my career has offered me.

But I can also see the support, reassurance and care I needed - but did not have. I so wish I had known to hire a coach to help me process what was going on and to see things through different lenses. And to help me find my sense of autonomy and choice and to stay anchored in my strengths. I am certain I would have made different decisions. And I definitely would not have endured so much painful rumination and self-doubt. 

Back in the day, I held the view that coaching was reserved for senior executives or for those with very serious performance issues.  Not for someone like me.  I did not realise that having coaching was as simple (and as uplifting) as having a dedicated thinking partner and supporter.  When I moved into the learning and development world at work, I came to understand what coaching was. I immediately wanted to learn how to coach. And it was possibly on the first or second day of my training course, that I realised that – in fact – I wanted to become a coach.   

And so the story comes full circle.

I needed a coach at many times during my career - but didn’t know such a thing was available for me. Now coaching is my heartfelt work. 

Heartfelt Associates offers to others what I did not have. Support. Attention. Perspective. So now we coach people who find themselves in “the tough stuff” at work. If that’s you, then don’t hesitate to get in touch. 

WHAT SOME OF OUR CLIENTS HAVE TO SAY

“Your professionalism, expertise, and ability to create a supportive environment makes you an exceptional coach. Your ability to ask thought-provoking questions helped me to gain clarity and explore different perspectives. I genuinely appreciate the positive impact our coaching sessions has had on me.”

— Kuldeep, IT Delivery Manager

Download Our FREE Resource.

Download our free Heartfelt Mini Work Audit – which takes you through a series of self-coaching exercises to help you explore how you think and feel about work right now. We provide some frameworks and questions to support you to take stock and reflect.  Grab this opportunity to do some self-coaching!  And let us know how you get on.