A vast amount has been written about the competencies of coaches and mentors, and even more about the qualities of great leaders. Much of this is contradictory and dependent on circumstance or context. Research into the desirable traits of both coaches and leaders, for example, shows significant differences of expectations and perspective arising from cultural (more…)
While anger is usually seen as an unhelpful emotion, it doesn’t have to be so. Managed anger can be a force for good, and has been a significant factor in every peaceful social change, from the abolition of slavery to equal opportunities at work and in society. While someone, who seems to be angry about...
An implicit assumption within coaching and mentoring is that the coachee or mentee is motivated to change. That isn’t always the case and even when it is, there is a big difference between externally motivated change (doing something because you have to) and internally motivated change (doing something because you want to). Internally or intrinsically...
One of the common and dangerous misunderstandings of managers in organisations is called correspondence bias. We tend to assuming that someone else’s behaviour (positive or negative) can be attributed to fixed personality traits (for example, the need to control, or risk aversion), while explaining our own bad behaviour as a reaction to circumstances. Gilbert identifies...
A model developed by Ken Blanchard and presented in his book Trust Works provides a simple framework for understanding, communicating, developing and assessing trust. It identifies four areas: Able = demonstrating capability Believable = showing integrity, honesty, respect and sincerity Connected = caring for other people, listening to them, being empathetic Dependable = being reliable; (more…)
The questionnaire How psychologically safe is this team? provides a useful resource for assessing how psychologically safe you and your colleagues feel within your team environment. This questionnaire has been designed to reveal the differences within a team in how psychologically safe people feel, as studies have shown it is very closely related to team performance. (more…)
What it is: The Diversity Awareness Ladder is a tool, created by David Clutterbuck, to help both clients and practitioners understand and work with their stereotypes and implicit biases about people, who they perceive as different from themselves. It has also been used widely in the context of general diversity education. How does it work? (more…)
Foul-up factors (FUF’s) are the gremlins that bedevil every complex system. A simple way to explore FUFs is to draw a schematic model of the key business processes. (The principle can be used at every level from organisational and functional to project management or individual service tasks.) In many healthcare organisations, the system has three (more…)
The questionnaire How Effective Are your Team Meetings? provides a useful resource for assessing how effective (or not) your team meetings really are. Score each statement from 5 (this describes our meetings accurately) to 1 (they are not like this at all). The results within a team may show significant differences. Sharing these with the team (more…)
One of the biggest criticisms of agile methodology is that it is very difficult to transfer from a project team environment to teams engaged in “business as usual” (BAU). In the latter, there is no definable end to the process. Instead of experimenting and making continuous improvements, in pursuit of frequently changing priorities, stable team (more…)