published 5 and more posts
Andrew Parrock
Sally East
Pradip Shroff
Epimetheus
Lilian Abrams
Martin Richards
Maria Biquet
Simon Dennis
Katy Tuncer
Ian Flanders
Simon Darnton
Geoffrey Ahern
Alan Robertson
Isobel Gray
Laurent Terseur
Aubrey Rebello
Lynne Hindmarch
Doug Montgomery
Sue Young
Jeremy Ridge
Naomi Dishington
Wendela Wolters
Nicholas Wai
Charlotte Murray
Yvonne Thackray
As I stepped back to further reflect on what I’ve written, and integrating them with my recent experiences of coaching, I began to evaluate my style of coaching and what could be underpinning my approach. The key word that continuously popped up for me was ‘character’.
On 9 Jan 2020, in the midst of deep fissures surfacing in Hong Kong, I wrote an article about my naughty 103 year old grannie and her sufferings as a young woman. (What I learnt from my 103 year old Grannie) At the end of the article, I expressed my hope for 2020; “My hope for 2020 and beyond is this: to stop and pause to capture
transcendent beauty even in places of darkness, where love and kindness abide.” Little did I know that this was an overture of my life message for 2020 and beyond.
Promotion to head of sales at corporate level, under a new boss, simultaneously when the boss also has been promoted to the board of the company, leads to a 4-dimensional change for the VP sales. Recognising the complexity of the transition, the CHRO of the mid-size Pharma company invited me to coach and mentor the VP sales.
Getting a clear idea of what Soft Skills are is easier if, first, we have a definition of Hard Skills because the contrast puts them into context.
This blog is the first in a series that follows two coach trainers, Martin and Alexandra, as they train college teachers to adopt a coaching approach to holding collegial conversations following lesson observations.
This article builds on the ideas I examined in my ’Coaching as a manager’ where I concluded that a manager could not truly be a coach to someone they manage, regardless of the fact that they can use coaching techniques to help them. Let’s look wider than the manager/coach relationship and examine the organisational situation they work in.
Onboarding an external President into a newly formed group of an organization with international presence is a challenge because of what is at stake. Recognizing the scope of work that was facing the new president, the CIO*, invited me to become his external coach and support him as he started his new role. In this blog, I share my case study and holistic approach to coaching this client. All names have been changed.
As a coach I help my coachees, as a manager I help my team, in conversations I help my colleagues and in supervision I help my coaches do one thing above everything - achieve clarity. Above all else – a great coach I know, Simon North, says, ‘Clarity Wins’. I think that is the role of a manager. It's the role of a coach.
Can a manager ever be a coach to someone they manage? This question is the subject of chapter 18 in ‘The Complete Handbook of Coaching’. And it is something I have been thinking about for a while now. Managers are encouraged to adopt a ‘coaching style’ and Civil Service Learning offer a programme of self-study with videos, reading material and a three-hour face-to-face workshop to do just that.
The pandemic has provided an opportunity for coaches to re-evaluate and take stock of the practice and business and determine how they want to deliver coaching. Coaching is often described as the 'Wild West' because it has a perception that many who come into coaching consider that it's easy to earn money in coaching, versus those people who are coming to coaching to deliver something of value through coaching.
I’ve always believed that somewhere in a person’s experience there is something that they can use to look at a current problem and use their experience to solve that problem. And my experience shows me that, very often, that person has forgotten or discounted their experience and have built up the issue they face into a problem in their mind.
A few years ago, my dear colleague Yvonne Thackray asked me, “Who are your ideal clients?” I was puzzled by the question. “I can work well with any leader who wants to work with me”, I said. To me, it was a simple question of them being motivated to achieve their coaching goals, and their feeling with a comfortable fit with me. She countered by saying that she suspected that that might not be the full picture.
This blog is the first in a series that follows two coach trainers, Martin and Alexandra, as they train college teachers to adopt a coaching approach to holding collegial conversations following lesson observations.
What’s your view about Critical Thinking? Would it be correct to say that internal criticism of your company would only be acceptable if it were initiated by management? It’s difficult to imagine a situation where an employee would proactively aim a critical opinion at their employer.
I am a Coach and a thinker and the best thing I can do is to question everything. It is probably the only way to maintain a clear view on the events and understand them as facts before we classify them in our thinking as patterns or phenomena.
Feedback is especially useful to further understand how I am developing my coaching style and approach. From my clients’ feedback, there is a general acknowledgement to my depth and breadth of knowledge, understanding of coaching, and how I flexibly apply it to meet my client’s challenges.
When people are thinking about being mentored or coached, they are really nervous about what could happen if they and their mentor or coach don’t get on. This, I think, is entirely natural.
In April 2020, our coaching team set ourselves the challenge to become “masters of the universe” at on-line facilitation. We had facilitated over video before Covid-19 hit, but back then it was unusual, and rarely first choice for high-stakes facilitated sessions.
