Mentoring as been around, in one form or another, for 2,500 years or more. Coaching, the new kid on the block, has a history of at most a couple of hundred years. Yet, while mentoring in the past three decades has had great impact on social development, it is coaching that has captured the headlines (more…)
On a recent visit to Taiwan, I was introduced to the thinking of the Chinese philosopher, Wang Yang-Ming(1472-1529). One of the elements that I particularly liked was that he placed equal emphasis on tranquility and activity, on thinking and doing. He believed that knowledge is incomplete until it becomes conduct, and conduct is not complete...
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One of the exercises I frequently conduct with audiences is to ask them to define what they mean by success. It’s something few have thought about. Almost invariably, the responses fall into two categories: It’s evident that the first of these is largely externally driven and about recognition by others, while the second is more...
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In all the major models of human maturity, two qualities recur constantly: wisdom and connectedness. Wisdom, as exemplified by the original mentor, Athene, relates to the process of reflection upon and learning from experience. The scope of wisdom is therefore associated with and to some extent limited by the range of experiences, to which a...
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Read More The role of wisdom in the coach/mentor – AI partnership
If coaches and mentors rarely, if ever, offer advice, what do they do? They offer context. Context is “relevant information, which the learner does not hold, but which may have a significant effect upon the quality of the decisions they take”. Context might include: The diagram below shows two core contexts that encompass the coaching...
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Read More Coaching and mentoring as conversations about context
The health sector has a long history of involvement with mentoring. The first supported mentoring programmes in Europe took place in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), aimed at supporting the integration and retention of young graduate recruits. The NHS and the Health sector continue to pioneer good practice. For example: The international medical charity...
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Read More The pivotal role of mentoring and coaching in health services
Autism is a badly misunderstood condition. While extreme autism may be disabling, it’s a mistake to think of all people on the autistic spectrum as disadvantaged. In reality, high functioning autistic people have significant advantages over people in general. They are better able to absorb and process large amounts of information, more focused and often...
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Read More Coaching and mentoring people on the autistic spectrum
A recent article in Harvard Business Review proposes six dimensions that define how CEOs exert influence. All of these also seem highly relevant to other leaders – indeed to anyone, who has a large span of control and authority. For coaches and mentors, the dimensions provide a useful framework for reviewing with leaders how they (more…)
Even very experienced coaches and mentors admit to worrying that sometimes they are not taking the conversation deep enough, or giving enough challenge to the coachee or mentee. They feel held back by the concern that they may open up the emotional floodgates on an issue that requires professional therapeutic intervention. The resulting “timid” conversation...
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Much as humans generally crave certainty, we have to live with constant uncertainty. In organizations, uncertain comes in two kinds: prediction uncertainty and decision uncertainty. Prediction uncertainty comes from operating in a VUCA environment, where we know that “best guesses” may turn out badly wrong, because we don’t have enough information, because of constant change...
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