Cameroon is one of those countries that most people have heard of (largely because it once performed well in the football World Cup), but couldn’t place accurately on a map. So when I was invited to join a small group of coaches and leaders climbing Mount Cameroon on behalf of the charity Village Aid, I...
You must be a member to access this content.
Why not sign up to a month's free trial?
When Kathy Kram carried out her seminal research into mentoring at the beginning of the 1980s, she focused on a small number (22) of informal mentoring relationships, taking place within a specific cultural context – educated North Americans. She identified a number of themes that recurred in these relationships and, as she herself has readily...
You must be a member to access this content.
Why not sign up to a month's free trial?
Last year I was privileged to assess one of the most well-founded and effective mentoring programmes I have encountered. This programme was not in a sector, where one would normally look for good practice in mentoring. It was in the military and, specifically, in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. People at all levels received...
You must be a member to access this content.
Why not sign up to a month's free trial?
Coaching and mentoring conversations frequently run into the brick wall of blame, most often in one of two common forms: self-blame (assuming responsibility for one’s own or other people’s misfortunes) or other-blame (protecting one’s own self-image and reputation by blaming others). Both forms block the client’s ability to be authentic and to make progress. The...
You must be a member to access this content.
Why not sign up to a month's free trial?
The word restorative implies “putting back” or “regaining”. An effective supervisor helps you to restore what you need to be a fully functioning coach (which may not be that different from what you need to be a fully functioning individual, although the supervisor is not expected to be a counsellor or therapist). Coaching other people (more…)
Coaches’ attitudes towards supervision vary widely, not least in reflection of what they see as the point or purpose of supervision. One position is that supervision is about helping new coaches embed and expand the competences they have learned in their initial training – after which it becomes an optional cost. The opposite position is (more…)
It seems that every day, there is another story of organizations, which were once respected, betraying the trust of their stakeholders. The scenes at Fifa (pronounced Thiefa), when staff applauded the boss, who had presided over years of corrupt practice, may have seemed inexplicable, but they demonstrate just how easily immoral and illegal practice can...
You must be a member to access this content.
Why not sign up to a month's free trial?
Psychometrics and other forms of diagnostic, such as 360-degree feedback, can be very helpful in getting to know a client and “what makes them tick”. But they take time, often require lengthy analysis and can become somewhat mechanical processes that miss the richness and complexity of “who is this person and how do they connect...
You must be a member to access this content.
Why not sign up to a month's free trial?
Systemic Talent Management views talent management, performance management and succession planning as complex, adaptive systems — unlike traditional HR approaches, which broadly treat these activities as if they were simple, linear systems. An interesting perspective on these contrasting approaches comes from Eric Abrahamson, professor of management at Columbia Business School, and David Freeman who explore...
You must be a member to access this content.
Why not sign up to a month's free trial?
Procrastination is typically a repeating cycle with four stages: Coaches and mentors can help clients break this vicious cycle by firstly helping them to recognise it, then to develop strategies for addressing each stage. When people fail to break the cycle, it is often because they address only part of it – so the process...
You must be a member to access this content.
Why not sign up to a month's free trial?
