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Reflective practice is the new deliberate practice
For years we’ve been told that deliberate practice is the key to getting better at ‘anything’. But it turns out that deliberate practice is only really effective in well-structured, stable, ‘kind’ learning environments. Learning maths, learning to code, or learning a new language all take place within kind learning environments. So does playing sports or chess. The rules of the game are fixed, the outcomes of actions are evident and feedback is fast, clear and actionable. But much of business, leadership and life isn’t like this. As Heraclitus told us “No man ever steps in the same river twice, forContinue reading
The Duck-Rabbit & the Polarities of Leadership
A polarity is a paradoxical situation in which two interdependent and seemingly contradictory states must be maintained for success over time. In business, leadership and life, we find ourselves presented by polarities all the time, often without even realising. As leaders, we’re told that we must be great problem solvers. That’s true, but a polarity is not the same thing as a problem, for which a definitive solution can be reached at a given point in time. That’s why the ability to recognise when we are facing a polarity – otherwise known as a paradox, duality, dichotomy, tension, or wicked problemContinue reading
Executive coaching: a complete guide to finding the right coach for you
We know that the most important predictor of coaching success comes down to the relationship between the coach and the coachee. So it’s critical that you find the right coach for you. Whether you’re a leader looking to find a coach personally, or a people lead exploring coaching for your leadership team, this complete guide to executive coaching will tell you what you need to know. Click on the links below to jump to a section. What is executive coaching? How can an executive coach help you? What are the different types of coaching? Business coaching Leadership coaching Performance coachingContinue reading
8 Time Management Techniques for CEOs
Time management is one of the most common themes in my coaching conversations with CEOs and other leaders. There’s just not enough time in their calendar to get everything done. It’s a challenge for any leader but it’s particularly acute for executives in the high-growth businesses that I work with, as they realise that they can’t scale themselves at the same rate as their business. Born out of real coaching experience with CEOs and other C-Suite executives, here’s 8 proven time management techniques that will help you manage and leverage your time better. Experimenting with these time management techniques will,Continue reading
A Deliberately Developmental Experiment
When the founders at Future Arc approached me to develop a business-wide coaching programme, they were clear they wanted to do something different. It felt right that a disruptive company that puts talent development at the heart of its organisation should embrace a new approach to developing its people. Fascinated by how we can build organisations and develop individuals for the future, and already drawing on Robert Kegan and colleagues’ work on adult development in my coaching practice, I introduced them to the concept of the Deliberately Developmental Organization (DDO). A DDO is organized around the deceptively simple but radicalContinue reading
Cynefin: a decision making framework for leaders
There’s no shortage of “how to” advice, playbooks, formulas and even secrets and guarantees for business success (at least that’s what the gurus will have you believe). This can work well in complicated situations. But high-growth technology businesses are not complicated, they’re complex. That requires a different approach to growing and leading a business, explored here through the lens of the Cynefin framework.Continue reading
Learning to think for yourself
Advice is everywhere, everyone has an opinion. It’s what to do with it that’s hard. If you want want to be your best self, then need to stop listening to what everyone else tells you and learn to think for yourself. Let’s explore what that means, including the problem with “how to” advice and the benefits of becoming an independent thinker in a complex world.Continue reading
How can leadership team coaching help your technology business scale?
In his 2017 TED Talk Want to get great at something? Get a coach, Atul Gawande tells the story of the Harvard and Yale American-rules football teams: “In 1875 Harvard and Yale played their first game. Yale hired a coach Harvard did not. The results, over the next three decades Harvard won just four times. Harvard hired a coach”. Every high performing sports team has a coach, why doesn’t every leadership team?Continue reading
How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back – Summary
How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back identifies 12 habits that commonly hold women leaders back as they endeavour to rise to the top of their chosen career. It concludes with a practical section on how to put habit changes into action. This article provides a summary of the 12 habits that the book’s authors, Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith, identify and adds some powerful questions you can ask yourself to unpack your own habits and unleash your full leadership potential.Continue reading
Every entrepreneur needs a coach, mentor & therapist
Like any high-performing individual, leaders need to wrap a professional support team around them if they are to give themselves the best chance of success. That team must be trustworthy, objective, and acting always in the leader’s best interests. This post unpacks the difference between a coach, mentor and therapist and explains why, together, they can make up a such a cohesive support team.Continue reading
4 questions to improve your leadership self-awareness
Self-awareness is considered to be one of the most fundamental issues in psychology, from both a developmental and an evolutionary perspective. As an executive coach, helping my clients develop their self-awareness is therefore one of the most important aspects of my job. Here’s four self-reflection questions that I ask clients, and which you can ask yourself too, to improve your leadership self-awareness.Continue reading
Trillion Dollar Coach – A Summary
Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Handbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell is a book about a man who coached the CEOs and leaders of some of America’s greatest companies, including Apple and Google. He passed away in 2016, leaving a legacy of growing companies, successful people and an enormous amount of respect. The book is essential reading for any manager or leader operating in a fast-moving, high growth business.Continue reading
12 of the best books about Executive Coaching
Are you a manager or leader who wants to develop your coaching skills? Maybe you’re already a coach who wants to continue to develop personally and professionally? Here’s my list of books about executive coaching that have most influenced me. More about my executive coaching practice: I spent ten years at Deloitte Consulting and as a civil servant at HM Treasury. I became an executive coach in 2013. My coaching clients are transitional founders, CEOs & executives in high-growth technology businesses & the investment industry.Continue reading
2 powerful ways to get better at coaching your employees
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, by Michael Bungay Stanier is one of the best books I’ve read for managers and leaders who want to use a coach approach with their employees but don’t have the time or inclination for formal training. It’s short on theory but long on practical tools and techniques that are a shot to the heart of great coaching.Continue reading
Victor Frankl on finding meaning & happiness
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl is essential reading for anybody interested in happiness, personal growth, the psychology of suffering and mental health. It chronicles the author’s time as an inmate in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. The early chapters do not make for easy reading but the book opens up into one of the deepest and most eloquent explorations of finding meaning and man’s search for meaning and happiness. Striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man… This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can only be fulfilled byContinue reading
Coaching & Mentoring: what’s the difference?
The words coaching and mentoring are often used interchangeably, though there are in fact important differences. In his book Coaching for Performance the late Sir John Whitmore, explains what the difference between coaching and mentoring is. Whitmore is the founder of the coaching movement in the UK. The book is widely considered to be the industry gold standard for performance based coaching.Continue reading