I had a flash of enlightenment last week, in conversation with another coach. (As a side note, that just shows the power of conversation to prompt aha moments). I realised that I am strongest in my auditory sense – hearing – as compared with my visual or kinesthetic senses. This explains a lot. It explains
For leaders
The Progress Principle
I recently read a new book, called the Progress Principle, by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. They have done years of research into what motivates people to higher performance, using daily diaries to elicit how people are feeling as a result of events. If you’ve previously read Drive by Dan Pink, you’ll also recognise some of the
Letter to new managers
I got this idea from a couple of books I read this year – Execution by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan; and Fierce Leadership by Susan Scott. Both great books if you like to learn by reading. Here’s my own version of a letter to new managers (also relevant for experienced managers, so keep reading).
Get Out of Your Head
Today’s guest post comes from Patrick Ryan. He says: Get out of your head; Get the emotions out of your decisions and go faster – override your body’s natural rhythm – You can do it… I often hear people say to others or to themselves, “Get out of your head!” I for one love my
Coaching an individual to become a team player
Slightly different nuance here – Monday was about team coaching; today is about coaching individuals to become better team players. In fact, I think this is less about coaching, and more about giving them feedback and then discussing and agreeing (using a coach approach of asking questions, listening, challenging) how they will move towards the
Coaching a Team
We have a guest post today from Berit Ohn, Master Certified Coach. You asked for information about coaching a team, so here’s an article she wrote about that very subject: What makes a group of people feel connected, feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves? Well certainly it’s not as simple as just signing
Coaching a peer
Now, let’s move on to talk about how to coach a peer, which one of you requested in the survey a while back. The easy answer is that you use exactly the same skills as you would use with anyone else. (active listening, powerful questioning, presence, contracting, direct communication, creating awareness, designing actions, planning and
How to gracefully accept feedback, even when it’s perceived as negative
Today’s post is from Berit Ohn, Master Certified Coach. Berit writes: The situation The other day when I was coaching an external client of ours, he mentioned his difficulty of receiving what he called “negative or critical feedback”. He defined himself as a high achiever, almost a perfectionist, and he had noticed that every time
Handling senior management “interference”
One of you asked how to deal with senior management interference when you are trying to develop your team. I don’t know the context of this question, so I’m going to use a coach approach to helping you. That is, offer you some questions to ponder. If something is not working, don’t just let it
Making time for frequent coaching conversations
Ok, so I get that we are all mega-busy. And I get that it’s tough to lay all of our tasks down to coach. And yet, there’s something else that I believe. Susan Scott summed it up in her book Fierce Conversations: “Why do we have such a long history of mistaking profitability and stock
Triple the Wisdom
While you take a breather to let us all know how Two-Day went for you, here’s a guest post from Patrick Ryan that gives us more food-for-thought about what to bring to our conversations: Patrick writes: “Imagine how your life at work would be different if you could expand your ability to apply your own
Today is Two-Day: time to fill that conversation gap
So it’s time to have that conversation that you’ve been putting off. Time to hold yourself and your supervisor or career counsellor accountable for higher standards. But if you can’t have the conversation today, don’t make that an excuse not to have it. These conversations must happen if we are to feel better engaged, and
Fill that conversation gap: Two-Day Storybird
Just one day until Two-Day (22/2/2012). In celebration, and as a reminder for you, Bob and I created this Storybird, a short electronic picture-book to encourage you to fill that conversation gap. I’m really proud of it; I hope it inspires you to schedule a conversation – either with those working for you, or with
Two-Day Countdown: Be More Demanding
On Monday, I wrote about how supervisors and career counsellors could encourage individuals to tell them what the supervisor/CC needed to do to earn the right to coach the individual. A kind of “contracting” conversation if you like. Now let’s think about it from an individual’s perspective. I often hear individuals let their supervisors and
Trust and the conversation gap
We’ve been talking about conversation gaps, and using Two-Day (22/2/2012) to fill those conversation gaps. If you’ve missed the previous blogs about this, catch up here: What will you do to celebrate Two-Day What is a Conversation Gap? Which conversations are most “gappy”? One of the reasons that there may be a gap in
Which conversations are most “gappy”?
Continuing with our theme about the conversations gap, I thought you’d want to know which kinds of conversations will make the most difference. Perhaps this is where you should focus the conversations on Two-Day. Career Innovation, in their research, found that “many
