I’m often asked for proof that coaching is worth investing in. Bersins and Associates offer the following statistics, which give a good business case: “Organizations in which senior leaders “very frequently” coach had 21 percent higher business results. Further, organizations with “excellent” cultural support for coaching had 13 percent stronger business results and 39 percent
Tag: coaching
Creating Insight
Creating insight for yourself and others is the main function of a supervisor. Discuss! I read an interesting article on this subject of insight a while back, called “The Eureka Hunt” by Jonah Lehrer. I’d like to propose that instead of trying to do so many tasks themselves, the supervisor should delegate more, freeing up
A poem about listening
Please, just listen. When I ask you to listen to me, and you start giving advice, you have not done what I asked. When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, you are
Great questions
One of the major elements of coaching is asking questions, such that the other person can come to their own conclusions. I found some interesting quotes about questions this week that I’d like to share with you: Neil Postman “Everything we know has its origins in questions. Questions, we might say, are the principal intellectual
What’s the difference between good coaching and GREAT coaching
I went to a presentation by the Center for Creative Leadership about creating coaching cultures recently. I came away with a great 2 x 2 grid that explains the difference between good and great coaching. Some people’s coaching focuses on the problem and the “coach” telling the individual what to do about it – and
How Does Coaching Fit into Awakened Enterprise™?
Today’s guest post is from Patrick Ryan, leadership trainer and master coach. This is a great summary about why we would even care about using a coach approach in today’s world. Patrick shares how coaching fits into the emergent, congruent and profitable ways of doing business. The world is currently facing a series of economic
Busting the myths about coaching
I am often asked to recommend a coach to help someone to “fix” a weakness, such as not working constructively with other people. This is one way to think about coaching…that is, that it is remedial. I much prefer to think of it as releasing someone’s potential – focusing on their strengths and how they
What’s stopping us from coaching?
There are many advantages to both coach and coachee of the manager being more coach-like (that is, asking open questions, not giving the answers through advice). For example, the individual becomes more self-sufficient over time, because they have been “taught” to think for themselves, by asking questions. Over time, that frees up the manager to
Unleash the independent critical thinking of your team members through coaching
John Whitmore, in his book Coaching for Performance, said that he had been told what to do as a small boy, then at school, then in the army. “So when I reached a position of authority, what did I do? I told people what to do, because that is what all my role models had
Accountability
Colin Brett and Philip Brew at Coaching Development write: “As a coach, you can offer your coachee the opportunity to be accountable. This means that s/he uses you as a kind of witness that they have done something. They decide on a course of action in their session with you, plan the steps they will
Safe environment for testing my thinking
Today’s guest post is from Barbara Harvey. It’s great to see how she’s developed her own coaching style, based on an experience of being coached herself. Barbara writes: My first experience of coaching came when I found myself, at very short notice and unexpectedly, rubbing the jet lag from my eyes in a hotel in
On Being Coached
This week’s guest blog comes from Nadine Crowe. She writes… When I joined my company four years ago as an experienced hire, I was given a list of available Career Counsellors in my Workgroup. I asked my then line manager if she knew anyone on the list and she recommended a name. My Career Counsellor
Say nothing
This week’s guest blog post is from Jane Sandwith, Development Director of 3D Coaching, and is about silence as a way of showing you are present. Jane writes: Catharsis, when someone leaps to a new understanding, happens when they are paying attention to what is going on ‘inside’ them, not when they are paying attention
Coaching as a Force Multiplier?
Today’s post is a guest post from George Burton. George writes: I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that there will always be more work than there is time available. To cope with ever-increasing workload, I tried to get smarter and more efficient in my work, but every hour saved was filled with
Performance Coaching and Career Coaching
In companies, I’d suggest that there are two forms of (real) coaching. Why do I add real in parentheses? Because there are so many things that people call coaching, which really are not coaching. Such as mentoring, which is about giving advice based on experience. Coaching is not advice. So what is it? It’s
My coaching story
I thought I might take a step back today and share my coaching story, so that you get a feel for why I rate coaching so highly above other learning options. It was 12 years ago that I started to read about the power of coaching compared to training. Research shows that
