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The Ability to Choose

Ability to choose

How much control do we have over the choices we make?

The Ability to ChooseThe Ability to Choose explores the forces that shape our choice-making and the extent to which it is possible to interrupt these forces in order to have more agency.

In ‘The Ability to Choose’, Hank Williams looks back over his varied career to show how choice has been a key element at each stage.

As a consultant, he has used choice to generate and channel energy. As a mentor, he has used choice as a focus for reflection and the development of self-awareness.
He also looks back at some of the key choices that he has made in his personal life and the forces that shaped them in order to explore the main themes of the book: agency, awareness and resourcefulness.
Personal and professional are woven together in a number of stories that will stimulate reflection on choices that you have made in the past and the ways in which you make choices now.

About the book

This book is self-published in order to raise money for the two charities that Hank has been closely involved with for some time – Parents & Children Together (PACT) and The Purple Elephant Project. More information on the charities can be found below.

  • Parents and Children Together (PACT) is a Voluntary Adoption Agency operating across the south of England. It provides support for children and parents of adoptive families and also for women, families and children in the Thames Valley recovering from adverse childhood experience, trauma and abuse.

To donate to PACT, please visit: pactcharity.org/support-us/make-a-donation/

  • The Purple Elephant Project provides play and other therapeutic support for children in Hounslow and Richmond recovering from adverse childhood experiences, trauma and abuse. It works with parents, schools and other local agencies to provide integrated and sustainable solutions.

To donate to The Purple Elephant Project, please visit: cafdonate.cafonline.org/11850#!/DonationDetails

If you would like to receive a copy of the book, please make a donation to one or both of the charities. The minimum donation is £10, but if you are willing to donate more that would be much appreciated.

Once you have made your donation, please email theabilitytochoose.hw@gmail.com to request a copy of the book. You will be sent The Ability to Choose in e-book format. Look out for an email from TATC in your inbox or junk folder.


About the author: Hank Williams has been a management development consultant since 1982. He joined Huthwaite Research Group in 1987 to help them establish a new Management Skills Division: developing a client base and new products and recruiting and developing a team of consultants. He left Huthwaite in 1991 to set up what became the Learning Curve network. From 1987-2008, he worked closely, as a consultant, facilitator, trainer and mentor, with multi-national companies in the private sector.  In 2009, he set up Continuum to emphasise a shift in working from global to local and from private to public. From 2011-2019, he worked with the British Council to support the development of quality assurance and enhancement in the higher education sectors in Afghanistan and Bangladesh.  Hank is now semi-retired and works primarily with UK universities as a mentor to senior managers and leaders.