Coaches and mentors use many tools to stimulate the learning dialogue. Among the most frequent, though we are often unaware of it, is the process of analogy. An article by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander explains that “an apt analogy allows a person to treat something new as if it were familiar. If one is...
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OK, so we know that either inherently, or as practised, or both, pretty much everything HR has relied upon for managing talent in recent decades turns out to be ineffective, misleading and in some cases, damaging. We also know about the sunk cost trap in decision-making – sticking with something that doesn’t work, because you (more…)
It’s common for coaches to be so concerned about the well-being of their clients that they become oblivious to their own. Coaching, when done well, is frequently emotionally draining and intellectually demanding. Every now and then, there are comments in the coaching social media about how coaches (and especially those working by telephone) can earn...
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Mentoring is all about transitions – foreseeing them, preparing for them, managing them and moving on from them. But mentees often don’t recognise how ready they are for a transition. It’s a bit like outgrowing your clothes, but not doing anything about it because you can still squeeze into them! It’s useful for a mentor...
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Yesterday I was deeply honoured to be welcomed onto the Royal New Zealand naval base just outside Auckland, with a traditional Maori welcome, a powhiri. It was a deeply humbling experience and an introduction to a perspective on hospitality, which has been largely lost in our urbanised societies. The ceremony starts with a traditional welcome...
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Eldership: Some Ideas on What, Why and How A brief look on Google revealed a remarkable shortage of information about this topic. The Wikipedia entry focussed on church governance and hadn’t been updated for 13 years. There were no dictionary definitions but there were a lot of biblical ones! The most common themes in these...
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The immediate aftermath of a merger poses a number of major challenges. While many of these challenges relate to integration of systems and structures, the people challenges are often the most difficult and long lasting. In particular: Introducing a well-designed mentoring programme for top talent can make radical and positive difference to managing each of...
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In a newly-merged multinational organization, there is typically an urgent need to ensure quality and consistency in talent development – even if the strategy is to continue to operate largely as separate entities within the same group. One of the key areas to examine, and one where it is possible to have a large impact...
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When we talk about mentoring, we describe it as a relationship. Coaching still requires a relationship (though often perhaps less intimate and of shorter duration), but we tend to talk about it as an assignment. This difference in language or metaphor can affect subtly the way we think and behave. The word assignment carries with (more…)
In our reading and conversations with coaches, we have identified four types of loneliness: The first and last of these are unhealthy. Even though coaches meet lots of people, they may experience the loneliness of isolation, because as professionals, they must maintain an emotional distance from their clients. If they lack close others, who they...
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