We’d like to share the journey of another one of our long standing clients with you – Nik Green. We first started working with Nik over ten years ago, and this working relationship evolved and developed into a friendship. Nik spoke about his experience of using NLP in an Outdoor Education setting at our NLP conference a few years ago – you can see this video on our Youtube Channel.
Read on to hear, in Nik’s words, about his personal evolution.

My Journey with Evolution by Nik Green

I was working as the Learning & Development Specialist for the Global Mining Company Imerys in Cornwall when I first encountered Evolution.
Not long before my arrival at Imerys, Evolution had been recruited to deliver a small part of a training course that was aimed at raising the awareness of Operational Supervisors in their roles and responsibilities. The course was mainly delivered by internal staff who did a reasonable job of covering their respective areas. The section of the course that Evolution delivered was of an exceptional quality and it became clear that they could assist me in delivering on my organisational objectives.
The provision of training was fairly fragmented at Imerys with individual Business Units and Departments organizing their own interventions for staff without taking the bigger picture view of the companies organisational needs. I began working with Martin on the development of an ‘Introduction to Management’ Program for those in managerial positions without formal training and for those aspiring to such a position. The course consisted of five workshops over five months with a consolidation period of one to one coaching over the next six months. The one-year program met exactly with my belief that to achieve long lasting positive change in behaviour then a longer duration of training program is required. The course was a success and received excellent feedback and achieved demonstrable improvements in the performance of the attendee’s.
Evolution went on to become the preferred provider for all Leadership, Management and professional staff training at Imerys designing and delivering a range of exemplary workshops that contributed to the achievement of organisational goals.
During this period Martin also became my business coach and became invaluable in enabling me to improve my performance at work. We also discussed my longer term development needs and my career aspirations. Martin led me through the NLP process of ‘Well Formed Outcomes’. Martin facilitated the process that allowed me to explore what I wanted from my work but also from my life more generally. The proposed outcomes of this coaching process included a move to self-employment dividing my time between work as a management consultant, picking back up on my previous career in adventure education and spending more time working with my parents on our family business the Raleigh Estate in Devon.
I have always had a low boredom threshold and in my past had changed jobs & careers often normally lasting around four years in each role and then moving onto a new challenge. The coaching that Martin provided reassured me that perhaps three different roles can co-exist at the same time.
It was not long after setting my life goals with Martin that the opportunity to start the change occurred with a voluntary redundancy process occurring.
Fast forward ten years and I’m sat writing this article having achieved almost exactly what I set out on that day with Martin to achieve. I am a freelance Outdoor Activity Instructor, part time Management Consultant and taking an active role in the Management of our family business. I’m also four months away from completing a BA Honours in Leadership & Management through the Open University.
What can I say about Martin and Fiona? They not only have a huge range of tools in their developmental tool kits, they have the uncanny knack of knowing which tool is right for the job and the personal qualities to deploy each tool to best affect. They are two of the best communicators I have ever met and on top of that are thoroughly pleasant people. I cannot thank them enough for their support, guidance, challenge, friendship that has enabled me to achieve a balance and continuity that I didn’t even know I needed.

The ‘Well formed outcomes’ process that Nik mentions is one of the key NLP techniques covered in the Practitioner Course. We’ve just started a new course in the North West and will be starting one here in St Agnes next month. You can find out more here.