Encourage Mentors Online mentoring and coaching


Home page
Self Management
Problem Solving
Relationships
Conflict
Decision Making
Leadership
Meetings
Performance
Planning
Teams
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Who

What

Why

Where

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Terms & Conditions


Who We Are

EncourageMentors was created by owner Tom Watkins, and Adam Travers Watkins.

Click here to contact Tom.

Tom Watkins, Mentor (Owner/Director of EncourageMentors)

Since 1978 Tom Watkins has specialised in leadership, people-management and facilitation practices, assisting the transfer of practical skills and processes to workplaces that include:

Shell NZ
NZ Department of Labour
The NZ Treasury
Waikato Polytechnic
Health Waikato
Procare Ltd
Exicom NZ
Laura Fergusson Trust
Western Bay (BOPD) Health Mitsubishi Motors
Trade Aid Importers Ltd
Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd

Reserve Bank of NZ
Shell Chemicals Australia
Mazda Motors
South Auckland (Counties Manukau) Health
Otago DHB
Phillips NZ
Canterbury DHB
Te Puni Kokiri
NZ Lotteries Commission
Crown Research Institutes
Southern Districts Health Board

NZ State Services Commission Methanex NZ Ltd
Bonds Hosiery Ltd
Air NZ (Flight Operations & Engineering Services)
Hurunui-Kaikoura PHO
Synfuels Ltd
Nurse Maude Association
National Library of NZ
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Ltd
Schools & community groups



He has studied in the USA with the Tom Peters Group and in Australia with The Australasian Institute of Socio-Analysis.

Tom has owned a number of professional training and consultancy business, coached several other consultant trainers and facilitators into successful international careers, and authored a range of well-respected publications:

  • Hear and Be Heard - The Heart of Dialogue
  • Encouraging Performance: Coaching, Feedback and Problem Solving
  • Encouraging Meetings
  • Encouraging Teams
  • Plan, Lead and Manage the Plan

Tom's work is driven by his interest in helping people change systems within and around them to release energy for progress. At different times this has focused on police training, community development, interpersonal relationships, co-counseling, training trainers, changing organisational culture, teams, managers, leaders, men's groups, transition management, life-planning, strategic planning, and mentoring. He has owned and managed several consulting businesses.

A constant thread has been his belief in the need for "right" relationships in which the parties experience themselves as inter-connected, respected for their humanity, treated justly and helped to a realisation of purpose and potential. The essential basis for this, he believes, is a "right" relationship with the self. Tom is widely respected for his compassion for and empathy with others' challenges, and for his ability to transform common sense into common practice. Clients report significant and usefully long-lasting life changes resulting from his work.

Of himself, Tom says:

"My family of origin was heavily influenced by mildly eccentric Spaniards, musically melodramatic Welsh and the unforgiving attitudes of Victorianism. Many of my early experiences with formal education, employment and relationships lacked the depth of goodwill, support and guidance necessary for optimal growth. Without the ability to influence them, I found these crises tough, until I realised how much I could learn by studying them. The resulting insights - especially into the conditions under which relationships thrive, stagnate or disintegrate - have been pivotal to my work ever since.

"At various times in my career, informal mentors offered to help me articulate my dreams and supported me to realise them.

"This encouragement set me on a journey of self-discovery that has led to splendidly fulfilling work and the desire to offer similar support to others. I now engage a regular mentor, to ensure I continue to distil meaning from my experience.

"The continuing journey is either fun or learning and sometimes, miraculously, it is both at the same time! These days, whenever I am tempted to become Very Serious about any of this, laughter eventually and mercifully intervenes. I recommend the Scenic Route."


Tom lives at Mapua in Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka a Maui (top of Te Wai Pounamu/the South Island) in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where he fiddles with the garden.

Click here to talk with Tom.

Typical of client comments about Tom's work are these:

"Tom Watkins is a highly professional mentor who functions from a well-cemented value base. His consummate integrity and personal conduct led to a trusting relationship, essential for a successful mentor/client rapport."
Senior Manager, New Zealand

"He has exceptional listening skills, is amazingly perceptive and has a style that instils trust and confidence."
Senior Executive, New Zealand

"Tom Watkins has walked with me through adversity, encouraged me to explore opportunities, taught me the skills to coach and lead, and been a trusted advisor and mentor for much of my working life. Tom brings the much needed 'soul' to management and leadership."
CEO, New Zealand

"Tom is a rare gem, a person who has a wide experience of the technical skills and attributes required in senior management who has also mastered the art of management-with-heart."
General Manager, New Zealand

"There are mentors and then there are those who can wipe away the dust from doors to pathways we might have missed. Tom knows just where those doors are hidden. I've learned great insights into plans and strategies to grow my business."
Writer and Community Consultant, Sacramento, CA - USA

Click here to subscribe Tom's occasional blog, Thriving Matters.

[Send this page to a friend]

[ Back to top ]
 

About Mentoring  |  Profile: Tom Watkins  |  Our Policies  |  FAQ  |  Free Newsletter  |  Contact us  |  Home Page

EncourageMentors Professional Mentoring Group
E: office@EncourageMentors.com

© EncourageMentors 2005. All rights reserved.