Why be a coach or mentor?

I am a little biased but I love both coaching and mentoring. I used to enjoy being the ‘trainer’ which satisfied the performer in me but as I get older there is something that I find deeply satisfying in being a coach or mentor.

More than that, I find it a privilege to work with people.  People that trust you enough to share their greatest challenges, dearest hopes, deepest fears and core beliefs about life. I can think of few professions in business that afford you such intimacy. I feel lucky and grateful each and every session I get to spend with my clients. (more…)

Can I Coach the Team?

20 Questions to enhance Teams

‘Can you do something with my team?’

‘What seems to be the problem?’

‘Well morale is really terrible, nobody seems to care about working here and we have lots of conflict’

‘So can I ask, what have you done to them?’

A not untypical conversation whenever I get asked to facilitate a Team Day, sometimes called an ‘away day’ or ‘teambuilding’ event.  Whilst I may be a bit harsh on the leader in this scenario, I do think that this kind of ‘state’ within the team is not a natural one. Something must have happened (or not happened), to create it. (more…)

Do you have time to think?

One of my ILM coaching delegates recently recalled a coaching session they had with a client. ‘I didn’t seem to do much, in fact I felt a bit of a fraud’, they said.

When I asked them to expand on this, they explained that (more…)

Am I a Coach or a Mentor?

We’ve been training coaching and mentoring for quite a few years now and this question always pops up, ‘What’s the difference between coaching and mentoring?’  In fact it’s one of the questions you need to answer if you want to (more…)

No Guru now working with University of Huddersfield

Quarter 1 has started off with brilliant news, a newly commissioned programme of delivery for the University of Huddersfield to deliver ‘Strategic Thinking in Higher Education’ as part of an ambitious programme of development for Senior Managers. This leads to a recognised qualification from the Chartered Management Institute.  Head of Staff Development, Daniel Benton explains (more…)

Before the Goldrush

5 key learning points from Rio

It is hard to get your head around the achievements of Team GB these last couple of weeks.  Those of us who are old enough may remember getting up early in the morning to watch David Hemery win Britain’s solitary gold on the track in Mexico, and the stir that created.  20 years ago in Atlanta (more…)

Have you ever stuck a Post-It note on your forehead?

Taking the guesswork out of the people business

You must remember the old guessing game.  The one where a group of you wrote the names of random famous people (sometimes objects or place names) on Post-It notes.  (more…)

The Dearth of Leadership

Leadership lessons from Brexit?

It has taken me a full week to even begin to gather thoughts about the outcome of the European referendum that can be articulated in a business blog.  At the end of a tumultuous week I am, with many others in business, still processing what this means for us and what lies ahead.  The chaos engulfing us right now as I write this, doesn’t feel as if it will resolve itself any time soon and I am concerned as to how this will affect companies like ours.  Business hates uncertainty and in my lifetime I have never experienced such a deep unease as events appeared to spiral out of control this week.

Most worrying of all is the dearth of Leadership at the very top of our political system.

So what can be learned about leadership and leading change from Brexit? (more…)

The Problem with “Drift”

Woman floating in water

How great leadership teams address their most pressing problems

One of the things I enjoy doing most is working with Teams in solving problems. There are a number of elements to problem solving (or creating solutions) and one of the techniques we use is (more…)

Bowie. The man who …

I watch the ripples change their size

But never leave the stream

Of warm impermanence and (more…)

Older Posts »