Advanced questioning skills Developmental mentoring / coaching is about helping someone with the quality of their thinking about issues important to them. Powerful questions are what prompt this kind of thinking. Observations of effective mentors / coaches reveal that they: How many questions? Ideally, the source of good questions should be the mentee / coachee (more…)
Studies have shown that overly altruistic motivations for coaching and mentoring tend to lead to more directive, unconsciously manipulative behaviours in the coach/mentor. “I want to put something back” or “I’ve got a lot of experience to share” may be altruistic in intent, but the underlying drivers are much more closely related to less noble...
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Anchoring Anchoring is a technique used to change adapt a stimulus response pattern so that the coachee or mentee is able to either, replace a negative anchor with a positive one; or to enhance a skills by building positive anchors. In other words, it is a simple way to change an unwanted feeling to a...
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When people come to coaching and mentoring, they often do so with goals they have only part thought through. They may also come with goals imposed on them by others. Or they jump at a goal because they want to please the coach or mentor. In these circumstances, it’s important to review with them, just...
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Coaches and mentors need creativity skills for two main reasons. Firstly, they need to have effective ways to help the client overcome “stuckness” — to generate new thinking by proffering new ways of looking at problems and opportunities. Secondly, they need to be creative in their approach to the learning conversation, recognising when experimenting with...
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While some people embrace and thrive on change, others find it threatening. When a coachee or mentee exhibits change resistance, it is typically because of one of the following reasons: The first thing a coach or mentor can do is to help them examine their motivations and help them challenge their assumptions. Change usually brings...
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We are all creatures of habit – indeed, research suggests that, on average, 40% of our daily behaviour is habitual. Habits make life easier, because we don’t have to think about what we are doing or to spend time planning. But they come with a downside – when we want to break a habit (good...
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People often struggle to get started on a goal, because they can’t work out how they are going to get there. A simple technique to support them is the Logic Tree. The starting point is to define the goal in as precise terms as possible, then to explore what it would look like and feel...
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Coaching and mentoring don’t have to happen in a formal meeting environment. Sometimes all there is time for (and all that is needed) is 10 or 15 minutes conversation or a short email exchange. A simple template for briefing coaching or mentoring is formed by the following sequence of questions: The output of brief coaching...
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There has been a huge surge into research on the subject of resilience in the workplace. Resilience can be seen as our ability to adapt and bounce back when things don’t go as planned. Resilient people acknowledge the situation, learn from their mistakes, and then move forward. According to the research of leading psychologist, Susan...
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