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
Tag: supervisor
What is a Conversation Gap?
Before I dig in to conversation gaps, a quick update on Katy. Thank you to everyone for your well wishes; your compassion was much appreciated. I am relieved to tell you that she has a calcium deposit under her tongue, which is harmless. No further action needed. Thank goodness. It takes these incidences to remind
What will you do to celebrate Two-Day
The 22nd day of the 2ndmonth 2012 is almost upon us. Two-Day. What will you do to celebrate? May I make a suggestion? It takes two to tango, so they say. It also takes two to have great conversations. People with conversation gaps are 280% more likely to say they intend to leave an organization.
Sick with worry
My gorgeous, eldest bloodhound Katy has just left the house to go to the vet for a biopsy on a lump under her tongue. I am sick to the bottom of my stomach. The vet assures us it probably isn’t cancer as she’s so young, but I can’t help being anxious…and not just about the
How to feel valued as a manager when delegation and coaching means there are less tasks for you to do
A manager’s job is not to DO all the DOING, but to delegate more and more downwards. Lots of good reasons for this: your people learn how to do more they feel challenged; and as a result, more fulfilled decisions are pushed down the pyramid, freeing you up to make the tougher decisions that involve
Coaching virtually
Almost all of the coaching I do is virtual, and in many cases, I have never even met my coachee face-to-face. So it can be done! Here’s how… The skills – contracting, ethics, powerful questions, listening, trust, intimacy, and presence, direct communication, designing actions and planning and goal-setting, and managing progress and accountability – are
Coaching a career counselee vs coaching a direct report
Today’s post revisits the subject of how to coach a career counselee/mentee vs coaching a direct report. The difference is in the focus, rather than the skills. The skills – contracting, ethics, powerful questions, listening, trust, intimacy, and presence, direct communication, designing actions and planning and goal-setting, and managing progress and accountability – are exactly
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 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
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,
Integrated Adult
I’ve been reading through my notes from my Transactional Analysis 101 course, to develop my own understanding of how I can get the right balance between Parent, Adult and Child behaviors. Seems like it might be useful for me to share it with you guys too. So here goes, let me try to translate it
