Women of the World Contributor – Carrie Foster

Women of the World Contributor – Carrie Foster

Hello!  I was born in Essex, raised in Suffolk, educated in Leicestershire, Lancashire and Yorkshire, moved to Wales, found a husband and never left.  It was in 2016 whilst watching the UEFA European Championship Cup game between England and Wales that I realised that I was now a flag waving Welsh woman as I cheered when Gareth Bale scored a goal and my heart sunk at England’s Sturridge late goal.   Having moved 36 times in my life, I have lived half my life in Wrexham and this beautiful country is definitely home.

I hate camping, love reading, enjoy movies, reluctantly engage in exercise, embrace walking and have so far indulged my innate curiosity for the what, why and how of human behaviour and politics without it being fatal.  I call myself a Woman of Many Businesses, combining Academia, Organisation Development Practice and writing business and text books.  The thread that runs through all my activities is challenging people to Be and not Do.  Whether it is in a classroom, a boardroom, facilitating a workshop, writing a book or working with a client in a coaching session I wake up each morning with the joy of working with individual’s helping them release their talent potential.

When it comes to people led change, fun and creativity is at the centre of what I do and there is nothing more practical than a good theory to navigate change and avoid resistance.  I have been described by a number of people I work with of being mad as a box of frogs. As a practicing academic, what I do is grounded in theory, so there is method to the madness when I ask clients to build stuff out of lego, ready steady cook their own lunch and create strategy using feathers and glitter. All I know is that is that it gets results, change becomes enjoyable and my clients keep coming back.

I finally owned being an author when I gave ‘author’ as my occupation whilst sitting in the front seat of a police car being interviewed (I didn’t do anything wrong, and it was not my fault).  I’ve been writing for several years and had multiple books published but sometimes you have to grow into the realisation of living a dream, one that I had held since I was a young girl of seven.

When I’m not trying to hit deadlines, marking assignments or facilitating business leaders to surf the edge of chaos, I am mum to two brilliant, charismatic kids who don’t have a ‘typical’ brain.  This is challenging living in Wales because the 2014 Child and Families Act does not apply, and the Special Education Needs legislation is over 30 years old. Fighting the system is a daily reality. I confess that I am ‘that’ mother who proactively takes a hammer to barriers put up by officialdom and won’t let “we’ve not done that before” be a reason not to do something.  I work on the ‘Dr Pepper’ principle, what’s the worst that can happen?  My passion to see everyone I meet reach their full potential doesn’t stop at work.  You’ll have to ask my kids, friends and family whether that is a good thing or not. I hope this passion will translate into something that adds value to members of Network She.