The BBC programme How to break into the elite https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000772n/how-to-break-into-the-elite asks good questions about why it is that so many of the most senior jobs still go to people from fee-paying schools. In one of the most telling interviews, Dr Louise Ashley, an expert in how social exclusion happens, explains that many employers prefer candidates … Read the rest >>
Category: Coaching
Theresa May and the Perils of Introversion
When you ask people how they define introversion, the most probable reply is that an introvert is a neurotically shy person terrified of other people and at an enormous disadvantage compared with the audacious swagger of the natural extrovert. If you are familiar with the Jungian approach to personality, as exemplified for instance in the … Read the rest >>
Can coaches ‘make’ clients change?
When I opened the email – and I had certainly never heard of the sender – I saw that it promised me something amazing. If I signed up to a particular training course, I could learn ten questions which would guarantee that my clients would change! Really, truly, they would not be able to help … Read the rest >>
Dieting doesn’t work: here’s what does
At this time of year, the windows of my local bookshop are crowded with the latest books guaranteeing magical ways to lose weight. These books will have been written by an alleged ‘celebrity’ who is young, toned, slim and pretty, male or female. They will all claim that what they offer is not a ‘diet’ … Read the rest >>
Coach panic: ‘Don’t Know What To Say!’
My good friend and colleague Jane Cook of Linden Learning (www.lindenlearning.org) raises the question of how to prepare inexperienced and trainee coaches for life after our courses. She reminds me that on the courses we run together, one of the most frequent dreads expressed by our participants is of being struck dumb with their real … Read the rest >>
The Two Rules of Persuasion Every Coach knows but Remain didn’t
Sometimes we humans are remarkably simple-minded. It should be the easiest-peasiest thing in the world for politicians and media and evil-minded individuals to influence us, as well as the virtuous and high-minded who want us to change behaviour for our own good. When you work as a coach you draw on these principles every day.… Read the rest >>
Six Ways To Wreck your Career Move
Now that the recession really does seem to be over, there are more people on the move again. Previous reasons for staying stuck (fear, fear and fear essentially) have evaporated. But I work with many clients who have made moves for the wrong reasons, and often they have made all of these mistakes at once.… Read the rest >>
Saying Sorry is Not the Hardest Thing To Do
Before this client has even stepped over the threshold she is apologising.
‘Sorry for being late’, she says.
She has actually arrived two minutes after the appointed time so she is only ‘late’ by some super-high standard to which no one is ever held in a social engagement.
As I take her coat she does … Read the rest >>
Sometimes the simplest coaching techniques are the best
The client is sitting in front of me looking hunched and miserable. She and I are at Smart Works (www.smartworks.org.uk) the wonderful charity where I do occasional volunteer shifts. Women who have been unemployed for some time and who now at last have a job interview come for two things that are normally only affordable … Read the rest >>
8 Myths and Half Truths about Creating a Coaching Business
We go into coaching because we love it. We have experienced the power it has and are eager to work with our clients so that they can experience it too. One guesstimate is that there could be as many as 15,000 independent coaches in the UK. How many of those are making a decent living … Read the rest >>
The 8 common delusions of coaches
Coaching is a young profession – if indeed it is a profession – see later. I have been a coach for nearly 25 years and a coaching supervisor and trainer for 18, and have met, mixed with and trained many hundreds of coaches, often following their progress over a number of years. I notice that … Read the rest >>
Resisting the charm of finding a scapegoat
As a coach I have worked with many clients who have been caught in blame games. For instance there was the clinician given responsibility for reforming services that had been appallingly neglected for more than a decade. When she failed to produce the ‘proof’ that these services had magically improved after only a year in … Read the rest >>