Corporate Vision December 2017

24 CORPORATE VISION / December 2017 , Judith Cashmore-James is a specialist leadership coach, working with organisations and individuals to help leadership to grow and attain its own positive and authentic voice. Recently, we profiled the talented Judith Cashmore-James, to discover more about her Touchstone Associates Ltd and her remarkable success. Creating the Organisation You Want, Not What You Think You Need In 2007, Judith Cashmore-James established Touchstone Associates Ltd (formerly Cashmore-James Ltd.) with the mission of supporting transformational leadership in the public, private and not for profit sectors. Touchstone is a small business dedicated to providing high quality, highly experienced support for clients in developing confident, self-assured leaders who have a clear vision of their leadership and what that can contribute to their organisations and to their communities. Judith heads up a discreet team of highly experienced coaches and assessors who have been selected for their skills, knowledge, experience and their positive approach to transforming leadership and its role in organisations. Working with Judith and the Touchstone team, you are assured that the individual you will work with has significant experience of working at the top of organisations, is strategically savvy and understands the challenges and political nuances of the world of leadership. Touchstone’s main area of work is the public sector. Whilst they cover all organisations, a significant amount of their coaching and team development work is in the education sector from primary schools to universities. The public sector is facing unprecedented challenges to reduce costs whilst still being required to deliver continual improvements in services. Clear, strategic and positive leadership is vital if organisations are to provide the services our communities need on a daily basis. Touchstone work across the UK and in the Middle East to deliver excellence in leadership at all levels. As a small business Touchstone do not employ staff, rather they choose to work with a range of hand-picked specialists on a project by project basis to ensure provision of the best fit for their clients at all times. The best of the best is what they aim to deliver at every level of leadership coaching, assessment and development work. Their business is supported by a range of other small businesses from a virtual receptionist and admin team, through to specialist IT support, financial advice, branding, document design and marketing; all chosen for their high-quality attitude to delivering their own work to Touchstone as customers. In this way, they can ensure that they are agile enough to respond quickly to clients’ needs and can be assured of delivering a quality service. Judith models to her team of Associates a rigorous 1711CV12 approach to her own ongoing professional development by planning and undertaking a full programme of learning, reading and researching leadership developments, drawing from the leading researchers in the field. At the heart of Judith’s approach is that “If we are true to our own values then embracing learning and development for ourselves is essential and not just essential it is an absolute joy, as Michael Scott said, ‘the day we stop learning is the day we die’. If we want to help others to grow and learn then modelling that to our clients is a complete must”. Selecting individuals to work with Touchstone is done through observation, often by working with others on projects, understanding the way they think and work, ensuring full alignment to the Touchstone values and those of their clients. Drawing on