John Armstrong

A Wealth of Experience

John is a professional engineer, leader and manager with thirty years of industrial experience. His focus has been on building, leading and inspiring teams in the field of innovative and creative engineering, working in matrix-based organisations with international links in Europe, the USA and India.

At the same time, John has developed and deepened his inter-personal skills through professional studies of psychology and what motivates people. He feels equally at home working with business leaders in the individual achievement of their professional goals as in leading group workshops or mentoring high performance teams.

He also has valuable experience of being a client of CLC, so can appreciate client-side change pressure. In 1992, as Managing Director of the Wind Energy Group, a subsidiary of Taylor Woodrow Construction, he called in CLC to help with a re-structuring and team building exercise within the company, lasting for just over a year.

He has worked across a wide range of cultures and functions with AstraZeneca, Peter Brotherhood, Standard Bank, Bayer, Novo Nordisk, EMCOR, Nycomed and is currently working with Rolls-Royce to support their development of a new renewable energy division.

Illustrative Assignments and Activities

• Helping key leaders and managers within a large pharmaceutical company to deliver to their stretch business goals while shifting their behaviours and attitudes in the contexts of a major merger, globalisation, leadership and working with cultural difference
• Supporting individual leaders and their teams to build and deliver a new operating model, build high performance team environments whilst downsizing the organisation by 50% and managing ongoing business deliverables
• Designing and leading large group events and workshops as part of a global implementation programme
• Leading and facilitating small groups in mindset change and related work
• Presenting to and working with large groups on topics such as cultural diversity and change management
• Supporting leaders to re-balance their working and private lives, so as to have more energy to achieve their goals in both

Qualifications

John has an MA and PhD in Engineering from Cambridge University, and a UK approved qualification in Therapeutic Counselling with the Institute of Psychosynthesis.

Individual approach

John is at heart an engineer, and gets great satisfaction from working with people in the design and implementation of strategic approaches for the shifting of old attitudes and habits that get in the way of more collaborative and effective approaches. As an ex-MD of an engineering company, he knows from his own experience what it is like to be a manager and a leader in a large industrial group, and the conflicting pressures that exist there. At the same time, he has discovered how to meet with individuals and groups where they are, and work with them in a way that brings out their own inspiration and creativity in the delivery of their goals through high performance teaming.