ABOUT

Passionate About Enabling Others

To learn about Effective Challenge, you need to understand a little about me, Damian Piper. After a long career in the Security & Defence sector leading business change and helping others to improve their own performance, in 2013, I setup Effective Challenge to enable me to transfer my experience and work with people in different environments. Through coaching, consulting, and facilitation I now help people to develop their own effectiveness to improve their performance, their results and ultimately their happiness.

What makes you tick?

My approach is practical, getting to the heart of what makes an individual or team tick. I've learned that it's essential to get the basics in place and do them brilliantly. These critical steps are often overlooked, causing frustration and causing people to fall short of what they could achieve.

Since Effective Challenge started, I've been fortunate to work with senior leaders in business, people wanting to achieve sporting success, charities looking to make a difference, government employees handling complex changes, teenagers looking to set themselves up for life, and graduates ready to work out what's next.

Delivering on solid foundations

My career began in the late 1980s working in low-level admin roles for the UK government. That all changed in 1994 when after reading Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I decided to take responsibility for myself and start developing. The journey has been challenging. At times very challenging. Worthwhile things so often are. Fast forward to the summer of 2012 and the London Olympic Games. I find myself as a senior leader with teams of specialists who have a key role in delivering a safe and secure games. What makes me most proud is not the role I play in the games itself but the journey I've been on to get myself into that position.

I've built over 30 years of experience performing a range of roles. These include developing organisational strategy, leading transformational change, and leading teams operating in pressurised environments. As a result, I've developed an accurate practical understanding of people and what it takes to tackle challenges. In the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours, I was awarded CBE for services to Defence.

I don't want to leave the impression that my journey is complete. It's not. Or that I have somehow worked out a simplistic formula for success. In my experience, anyone trying to convince me they have is not worth listening to. Instead, I must keep putting effort into ensuring I adapt to the changing personal and professional environments around me.

My development is varied from electronic engineering to an MBA, where I completed my dissertation in Emotional Intelligence. I did my original coaching courses and got certified with the creator of the GROW model, Sir John Whitmore's organisation Performance Consultants International. Since then, I've continued to develop my coaching capability. Examples include deepening my understanding of Steve Peters's Chimp Model and becoming accredited to deliver the Myers Briggs Personality Type assessments. I've also spent time with a top-tier strategy consultancy working with FTSE 100 companies. In recognition of my work leading technology-enabled change, in 2017, I became a fellow of the Institute of Engineering & Technology.