Professional Standards

Hey Coaches, please don’t over complicate coaching!

  Coaching is a wonderful way of supporting others. It’s meant to be an impactful and rewarding experience. I’ve seen many articles, chapters and papers giving their own specific descriptions of what coaching is. There often seems to be a tendency to over explain or over complicate, especially on process and method rather than impact. … Continue reading →

Sharing Practice – My Coaching

A couple of weeks ago I wrote this post in sharing my professional practice. I described my approach to Coaching Chemistry Sessions which are often the start of the client experience when working with a coach. Essentially, I believe that Coaching Chemistry Sessions must reflect time well spent focussed on seeing what value can be created together. We always … Continue reading →

Sharing Practice – Coaching Chemistry Sessions

In a coaching relationship we know it’s critical that there is the right level of trust, rapport and belief in the relationship. So it’s been common practice for anyone considering working with a coach to be guided towards an initial “chemistry session”. Why wouldn’t you want to take the time to get to know each other? Well … Continue reading →

The Learning Facilitators Charter

We will endeavour to facilitate the best learning experience, appropriate for your needs. If at any point this endeavour fails to meet your expectations or satisfaction then we will confront this deficiency, together, as it happens. We will make every effort to avoid raising failure or deficiency after the event when there is nothing we … Continue reading →

The Business of White Noise

Business… trade or profession; commercial activity. White Noise… random talk without meaningful content. Look… I can see you do superficial really well. Your frenetic Twitter timeline shows the broad shallowness of your sharing. The lack of meaningful dialogue and your constant affirmation that all things are cool, great, fab, groovy…. LOL…  just confirms this superficiality. I know… … Continue reading →

Is experience necessary in order to be a good coach?

So this was the question raised on Twitter last week by my friend Sukh (@sukhpabial), asking whether life experience, work experience and coaching experience all contribute to being a good coach. Sukh also asked “does experience equal credibility in being a good coach?“… a related but perhaps different question. Is experience necessary in order to … Continue reading →

Originally posted on Leading in Context:
By Linda Fisher Thornton “Ethics” Means Acting Beyond Self-Interest Ethics is fundamentally about acting beyond our own self-interests. Can we be ethical without considering others and acting in ways that benefit them? Here are some interesting questions and quotes on the subject. As you read, think about the business leader’s…

Developing my Practice and Staying Sharp!

We’re running a series of guest post on “Positive Practices in Coaching & Mentoring“. You can read last week’s excellent blogs from Clare Manning here & Ian Pettigrew here. Today’s post is brought to you by Julie Drybrough (@Fuchsia_Blue). As a consultant, facilitator and coach/mentor Julie has worked extensively in both private and public sector … Continue reading →

At risk of being coached?

I met someone earlier this week and we were talking about coaching. The conversation turned towards how some practitioners take a very purist stance towards coaching and how others don’t. In this instance, a purist stance would be what is often termed “non-directive”. That is to say that the coaches role is purely to ask … Continue reading →

Communities Take Action

I’m just returning from latest Coaching & Mentoring “research day” run by Sheffield Hallam Business School (SHU). For those of you who don’t know, the round trip to Sheffield from my home in Norfolk is over 7 hours by train. Not something I undertake lightly but these “research days” are worth every minute! The train … Continue reading →