Great one-to-one coaches possess knowledge, skill, and a set of personal attributes that include compassion, curiosity, courage, and humility. Great team coaches need all of this – and more! The increase in complexity from supporting a learning dialogue with one person to a dialogue amongst a group of people (who may or may not be (more…)
Sponsors play a special part in the retention and development of talent within organisations and professions. A good sponsor takes an active role in helping individuals grow and be recognised. Their responsibilities include: Sponsorship vs. Mentoring Being a sponsor is not the same as being a mentor—in fact, the two roles can be largely incompatible. (more…)
What makes an impactful question? In their early training, coaches are taught a number of questions that have the potential to help clients to think. In practice, these rapidly lose their impact because: A question is only powerful or impactful if it causes the client to step outside of their normal narrative or self-discourse. From (more…)
Various studies have demonstrated conclusively that mentoring and sponsorship are different, largely incompatible relationships. Attempting to combine them leads to reduced impact in terms of both career and personal developmental outcomes for a number of reasons, including: These problems may be exacerbated in the context of gender, where the power dynamics of the relationship may (more…)
Spiral Dynamics1 is a concept many team coaches apply to help a team explore and become more aware of its internal dynamics. Unlike most stage models of human development, Spiral Dynamics assumes that the values people and groups apply vary with the situations in which they find themselves. It identifies eight v-Memes (short for values-attracting (more…)
A team’s readiness for learning and achieving Having the right environment for learning together is critical for any team. One useful way of looking at this is by using the matrix below. Read the description and consider: The reality of teams is that you have to work hard to maintain both trust and clarity of (more…)
Mentoring relationships “go quiet” for a wide variety of reasons, many of them positive. For example: And that’s where the problem may lie. Both mentor and mentee may feel some anxiety in approaching the other. This anxiety may stem in part from embarrassment that they let the mentoring relationship slip off their radar; and partly...
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Giving feedback is tough for both parties. Most people prefer not to cause others pain, so we tend either not to give them feedback at all, or to soften it. Feedback givers may also be concerned that the feedback receiver will react with aggression. Making it safe for other people to give you feedback is (more…)
Because mentoring is a learning relationship, it’s important to find the right mentor for your needs, at the right time. The following questions will help you make a good choice. What do I want a mentor for? People want mentors for a variety of reasons. The most common are: A potential mentor will expect you...
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The acronym of this model , developed in Hungary by Judit Abri von Bartheld, stands for: Listening. Active listening leads to a high level of presence and intuitive questioning. According to Dave Ulrich: “Listening is not that I understand but that the other person feels understood.” Awareness and Ambiguity. Suspending judgement, allowing alternative scenarios and (more…)