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
Tag: manager as coach
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
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
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
The Stroke Economy
Your role as a supervisor is to give strokes as you manage your people’s performance. (And when I talk about managing performance, I am not just talking about the once/twice a year performance appraisals – I’m talking about the daily interactions that increase performance). It’s about giving people attention, whether that’s through praise, recognition, thanks,
Focus on the positive
It’s dreadful weather here in the New Forest. So bad that I feel my Seasonal Affective Disorder starting early this year. I don’t get it as badly as some people, but I know it when I feel it now, and I know what to do about it. So my lightbox is on, my dynamis flower
Update on Conversation Starters App
I got lots of feedback from our internal people about the conversation starters app. I’ve sifted through all the great feedback and have updated the picture. I’d like to share that again so you can see the next iteration. One thing to bear in mind is that these are just the titles of the conversations,
Conversation starters app
One of the things I am working on is an app that will help supervisors when they go into conversations with their people about their performance (as opposed to career type conversations). I’ve outlined what I think those conversations are, and I’d love to get your insights about additions or edits needed before I start
