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I remember when I first discovered that I had been accidentally coaching. I had been mentoring people, and often used a technique that I had used as a teacher; asking questions to get my student to think for themselves and reach their own conclusions. I knew this worked, from practical experience, but did not know that this technique was central to coaching. I was confident in my approach, knowing how and when to use it.
My friend and fellow coach Suhas called me on a Monday morning. He had just returned after attending a meeting of all CHROs and Heads of L&D of the large engineering company. He heard a presentation from one of the heads of L&D about a very successful team coaching assignment done by me. Suhas wanted me to meet and talk about my team coaching approach to the CEO of one of the group companies.
We all have something to teach and something to learn. This reciprocity has been a theme for me, and somewhat of a mantra in my ongoing professional development - it is possible to both contribute and learn simultaneously, and using coaching skills has become my way of showing up. To me, this mindset equates to being an empathetic and life-long learner.
I hope that everyone has had a good start to 2023 and that several readers and members have enjoyed the quick succession of welcoming in the western and lunar (Chinese) new year! It feels like 2023 starts now for many as they come off what might be considered a 'normal' break. Firstly, we're delighted to share the following three blogs we're looking forward to publishing from next week and making the good coach's announcement for change in 2023…
Recently a peer, who has worked in leadership development for almost two decades and holds a doctorate, reached out and asked a question about a challenge involving another coach which they considered to be an ethical issue. It was clear in their mind that the situation shouldn’t be taking place, especially as they are also trained as a therapist and the type of dynamic involved would never be allowed. With their permission, I asked if I could summarise their question/observations and share here after writing my response to their important challenge.
Turning my hand to be an executive coach in 2013 was challenging since coaching was not as well known as it is today. The fact that I was only 22-years-old at the time did not help. I was telling myself that if I want to be a great coach at the age of 30, I must start now because things take time.
Welcome to my blog! Here, I will share with you how I transitioned my professional career from my corporate job (venture capital sales) into coaching. There was a lot of soul searching done in the process which I will dive deep into, and will share with you some concepts that helped me in my self-discovery.
This is a story and a dream that started many years ago. It is about the search for the Holy Grail, the key to unleashing the potential energy in leaders, teams and organisations. The journey will cover a new understanding and importance of system energy, how to measure it and most importantly, how to change it.
Peer supervision is an integral part of our practice. We have had between 6 to 8 hourly supervision sessions a year for the past few years and value the expertise in each of our coaching markets to provide the necessary space to check our fitness to practice. Our ultimate agenda when we participate in our sessions is to check our fitness to practice.
In my 10 years of Coaching Practice, one of the constant refrains I find Business Leaders facing is " How do I Manage a Team Member who is constantly under Performing." Normally, the situation for this refrain plays out when a supervisor points out non-performance as and when it occurs, this of course creates some bitterness. It can also demotivate the poor Performer.
Understanding that curiosity is one of the basic traits needed for survival has been a paradigm shift for me, my coaching practice, and my education because it addresses how I have intuitively applied curiosity in my coaching practice with my clients to enable their potential. In Part 2, I’ll go into more detail of how curiosity manifests itself in my work as a coach and the approach I’ve used to write up these experiences for curious coaching practitioners to consider as part of their own continuing professional and personal development.
Understanding that curiosity is one of the basic traits needed for survival has been a paradigm shift for me, my coaching practice, and my education because it addresses how I have intuitively applied curiosity in my coaching practice with my clients to enable their potential. In Part one, I describe why curiosity is important in my practice, and in Part two, I will explain how curiosity unfolds and emerges though my work as a coach.
Studying history is observing the changes that human kind went through and understand our behaviour today. The process of people development, mentoring, training and coaching aim at helping a person change their behaviour and act in a different way. In order to make progress we need to understand where we stand today and what has shaped our behaviour until today; how we have behaved in similar situations; how we formed our current beliefs; what we have achieved in the past. It is our personal history that evolves within the historical framework where we are born.
One concept that haunts many of the executive coaches I work with in supervision is what “success” means, as a coach. Of course, while success can be represented by many possible aspects of our coaching work, one very concrete measure that coaches often use for themselves is … money.
One month before my 17th birthday I read the following metaphor: “Life is a war, we are all warriors, we throw battles everyday and we can either win or lose those battles.” - I felt such a strong resistance to these words that it pushed to my awareness a whole new metaphor: ‘I am not a warrior, I am a guide. …
My coach training was excellent but it didn’t prepare me for what I needed to do to set up and run my own coaching business successfully. I want to share some of the things I’ve learnt in this 3-part blog:- 1) before training 2) surviving and prospering post training 3) the nitty gritty of setting up your own business.
In part one I described how it came to be (add link) and explored the similarities of the framework and mindset a coach and an author (the ‘being’), looking at Contracting and Researching, and Show don’t tell. The final three of the five things that the practice of coaching and the practice of novel writing have in common are;· Getting the reader/client to do the work; Having patience with the unfolding story; Flow state; being ‘in the zone’. I will describe what they feel like for both my coaching practice and my creative novel writing and focus on the internal and external processes for coaching-writing (the ‘doing’).
In Part 1 of this series, I reported on how external coaches have shifted their practice, as time has moved on, on refining their model and refining their offer so that they're offering something unique and specialist. Absolutely, it might restrict their market, I think though there's an element that says it makes you a better coach because you're dealing with your strengths and your unique offerings. Building on this focus of being a better coach, I apply this notion into the internal coaching context and its practical application with a proposed blueprint.
