Coaching

If you want something to change you need to enable new thinking. Old thinking reinforces the status quo. Here’s how I think you can tell if the person you are thinking with is thinking old thinking or new thinking and why its useful to have a coach.

For those in charge who are determined to see it through no matter what it takes, you will probably recoil when I challenge you to surrender. Though be clear there’s a world of difference between surrender and giving up. Let’s explore.

If we put all the knowledge in the World into a circle it would be a massive circle. If I then think about the extent of my knowledge, what I know, it would be an almost infinitesimally small segment of that circle. Then take into account that most of what I know is probably my…

I ‘get’ coaching. It’s an amazing privilege to stretch a person or a team to achieve what they would not have previously thought possible. “Coaching comes from the world of sports and the arts, where athletes and actors receive coaching so that their work will become extraordinary instead of just okay” Steve Chandler, Author and…

[The challenge is right at the bottom] Years ago when I was a manager my coach said to me “Dave your communication is the response you get”. At the time we were working on my communication skills. I explained to her that I’d spend ages drafting memos (this was before e mail) yet seemed to…

Constructing Excellence in the North East asked me to give a talk on ‘Leadership’ to young professionals in their Generation for Change (G4C) group. Rather than turn up and talk I identified fifteen questions they could explore and then on the day asked them to vote for the five they were most interested in. We…

Get your kids into genetics, robotics and cyber security – that’s where the future lies according to an expert on the radio the other day. Given the huge pressure on infrastructure I would add civil engineering to that list. A customer recently asked me what 2025 will look like, as if I have any idea.…

Firstly what it’s not: Telling someone what they should do. I think we should ban the word should. Giving advice or my opinion Judging – good or bad, right or wrong. Providing technical information Counselling – helping to ‘heal’ the past Shoulder to cry on A “course” of formal learning or training Definitely not ‘agony aunt’…

I see a bloke in the changing rooms at my gym. He suffers with an inflamed knee. One day we got talking and I asked if he was taking anything and he told me his doctor prescribed pain killers and rest. I asked if that was working and he said no. I suggested a natural…

Listening to the radio, watching Question Time, I am noticing that members of one political party keep repeating “and the truth is”. It’s not the truth, it’s their opinion. What is the truth? It depends on your perspective. I’m not sure there is such a thing as the absolute truth. Maybe it’s true that we…