Having spent most of this series outlining the What and How of coaching, it’s time to consider the Why - the key benefits to a business where coaching is an integral part of managing performance and developing people’s talents.

I’ve left this till late in this guide because until we’re clear about what coaching is and how it works, it’s hard to consider its impact on an organisation. With all complex ‘people skills’, it is hard to draw a straight line between particular skills and practices and business results. This is particularly true of coaching, as it is essentially a facilitative approach. Whether managers or consultants, coaches act as catalysts for various processes within an organisation, so it’s often hard to separate the different elements that contribute to success.

However we can identify factors that coaching seeks to influence, and consider how it does this. In each case, note how the personal benefits (to both coaches and coachees) are intimately linked to the business benefits. Ideally a company should be looking for a dynamic balance between the two, especially in the context of a creative business.

Commitment

It’s impossible to create commitment - but you can encourage it by giving people an opportunity to (a) work towards goals they find personally meaningful as well as delivering business results, and (b) use their creativity and initiative to do the job in their own way. Coaching offers a wealth of options for doing both of these. In fact, the coaching approach is founded on the assumption that the coach’s role is to act as a facilitator, while the coachee has the biggest emotional investment in the goal and the responsibility for committing to action.

Creativity

Following on from Commitment, because the coach is a facilitator, asking questions, listening and giving feedback in order to stimulate the coachee’s thinking, it is a highly creative process. Not in an abstract, fuzzy way, but in challenging people to come up with ideas that are new, useful and practical - and then to put them into action and see them through. For more on coaching and creativity see How coaching creates creative flow and my next post on Why coaching is vital to creative companies.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the big events in blogspace last year was the Age of Conversation book organised by Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan. It featured contributions on the theme of ‘conversation’ from over 100 marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators, including David Armano, Roger von Oech, Tony D. Clark, Richard Huntington, Mark Earls, Steve Roesler, Mike Sansome and Thomas Clifford. As well as being a great read, the book raised funds for Variety, the children’s charity. You can get a copy and learn more at the Age of Conversation blog.

And now Gavin and Drew are doing it all over again - and giving you the opportunity to write a chapter for the follow-up book. I’ll be writing one - if you want to join me and the other authors, visit Drew’s Marketing Minute for details of how to sign up.

Whether or not you write a chapter, you can help out by voting for the theme of this year’s book. The three options are:

• Marketing Manifesto
• Why Don’t People Get It?
• My Marketing Tragedy (and what I learned)

Personally I’d love to write about ‘Why Don’t People Get It?’. I have lots to say about that, the (fun) challenge would be fitting it into 400 words. I can’t claim to be a marketer so am not so wild about the other options, but I’ll have a go if that’s what the people decide. Cast your vote on SurveyMonkey.

Image by Nooij

If you read this blog via RSS you were probably surprised by the abrupt switch to partial feeds last week. I know I was. I’ve always published full feeds because most subscribers prefer them, so it took a bit of detective work to unravel the Mystery of the Incredible Shrinking Feed.

The problem was caused by upgrading to Wordpress 2.3 last week - apparently it is now a ‘feature’ of Wordpress that if you use a <!–more–> tag to just show the beginning of a long post on your home page, it cuts the feed off at that point. Which seems a bit odd to me. Now I don’t like to complain about the good folks at Wordpress as they’re giving me a fantastic platform for free, so instead I’ll say thank you to Ronald Heft Jr for creating the Full Text Feed plugin to restore publisher choice in this matter.

I’ve installed the plugin and am hoping that’s the end of the matter. I can’t see the full feed in Google Reader yet, but apparently that’s because some RSS readers cache the feeds. Let’s put in a <!–more–> tag on this post and see if it works… Read the rest of this entry »

The word ‘coaching’ conjures up an image of a one-to-one session scheduled in the diary, focusing exclusively on the coachee’s goals and how s/he can work towards them. And a lot of coaching does take place in this format, particularly when delivered by an external coach.

For a manager coach however, the picture is not quite so clear. Formal coaching sessions are a powerful way of using coaching with her team, and should never be undervalued - yet she also has the option of using coaching informally, integrating the coaching approach into her everyday conversations with her team, so that it becomes part of her basic approach to management. In their book Solution-Focused Coaching, Jane Green and Anthony Grant talk of a ‘coaching continuum’:

In-house workplace coaching lies on a continuum from the formal structured workplace coaching at one end to the informal, on-the-run workplace coaching at the other - what you might call corridor coaching: the few minutes snatched in the corridor in the midst of a busy project.

The two types of coaching are not mutually exclusive - many effective coaching managers use both styles in complementary ways.

[Table=2]

Formal coaching

The most obvious characteristic of formal coaching is that coaching is being used explicitly - during the coaching session both parties are clear that they are engaged in ‘coaching’ and are committed to this process as well as the outcome.

Read the rest of this entry »

Image by Tim Morgan

I’ve upgraded the commenting system on this blog to make it easier and more fun to use. And hopefully more useful to you. There are now three new features:

1. E-mail alerts of follow-up comments on a post

When you leave a comment, if you check the following box before submitting it, then you will receive an e-mail alert next time someone (either me or another commenter) leaves a comment on the same post.

I love this feature when I find it on other blogs - it means I don’t have to remember to check back later and see whether the blogger or anyone else responded. It makes it much easier to have a real conversation via comments. It’s done with the magic of the Subscribe to comments plugin.

If you decide you no longer wish to receive alerts for that post, you can always switch them off - there will be a link in every e-mail alert that takes you to the page with the ‘off’ switch.

2. Your picture next to your comment (if you want it)

Have a look at the comments on the post about my Time Management for Creative People E-book. You’ll see that several commenters now have their picture next to their comment. How does this happen? I’ve installed the MyAvatar plugin, which means that if you have a MyBlogLog account, it will automatically display the image from your MyBlogLog profile and the image will hotlink to your profile page. If you’re not a MyBlogLog member but have a Gravatar portrait, it will show your Gravatar.

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Having taken a few steps into the New Year and received some great suggestions about what you’d like me to write about in 2008, I’ll pause for a moment to give you an update on some old projects and what to expect over the next few weeks.

New tagline: ‘inspiring creative professionals’

If you look at the header at the top of the page, you’ll see I’ve changed the tagline from ‘coaching creative professionals’ to ‘inspiring creative professionals’. This was partly (ahem) inspired by the beautiful folders in the photo above, which were a present from a friend in Japan. Apart from the fact that my research project revealed that some people in the creative industries are virtually allergic to the word ‘coaching’, these days coaching is only part of what I do - albeit a very important part. As well as coaching, my work now involves blogging, training, presenting and writing e-books - all of which are designed to inspire creative professionals.

And as a poet, I couldn’t resist the double-entendre of ‘inspiring creative professionals’ as ‘creative professionals who are inspiring’. That would be you, by the way.

So I’ve decided ‘inspiring creative professionals’ is much more it.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you subscribe to Wishful Thinking via RSS…

Could you please check whether you are subscribed to the Feedburner feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/WishfulThinking

If you are subscribed to a different feed, would you mind taking a moment to point your reader to this one?

The Feedburner feed is the only one I can guarantee will always be published in future - so if you want to make sure you keep receiving Wishful Thinking, I’d be grateful if you would point your reader to this one.

Sorry for any inconvenience, it’s entirely my fault - last time I changed the template on this blog I didn’t notice the additional feed options. If you subscribed using the address bar the chances are you didn’t get the Feedburner feed.

Please e-mail me if this causes you any problems.

If you subscribe to Wishful Thinking via e-mail…

You are already receiving the Feedburner feed so there’s nothing for you to do. Please ignore this message.

If you’re wondering what RSS means…

It’s a way of delivering my latest blog posts to your desktop (for free). Here’s a more detailed explanation of RSS. If it sounds a bit complicated you can have the latest posts delivered to you via e-mail.

Photo by pascalgenest

Photo by givepeasachance

From the outside, the writer pottering around the house while the laptop gathers dust, and the performer shaking with fear backstage might look very different. But having personally experienced both writer’s block and stage nerves, as well as coaching many writers and performers through them, I’ve come to the conclusion that they are basically the same thing.

To see what I mean, let’s take the idea of a block literally, and look at the phenomenon of board breaking by martial artists.

To see someone break a board, brick or concrete block with bare hands or feet looks amazing, but the evidence suggests that it’s a question of technique rather than magical powers. Given the proper training, anyone can learn to do it. In the Kung Fu Science project, kung fu expert Chris Crudelli teamed up with physicist Michelle Cain to investigate the physical forces at work.

On the Kung Fu Science website, Crudelli explains the key points of the technique of breaking boards, one of which is particularly relevant to creative blocks:

Speed and Point of Focus

‘The most important thing is to make sure the hand is moving fast enough when it hits the wood. Advice often given is to imagine that what you’re hitting is actually well behind the board. This ensures the hand doesn’t slow down before the point of impact. Confidence is also important here; you have to believe that your hand is going straight through the board, or you will naturally slow down to avoid hurting yourself.’

Read the rest of this entry »

Kay Vasey of Meshminds has asked me to pass on an invitation to the Mesh Release Party at the Adam Street club in London on 25 January. The event is free, with an option to buy a £5 ticket for a draw to win a trip to Paris for you and your friends. Sign up here if you’d like to come.

Meshminds is a new creative network for London - I recently joined the Meshminds site and haven’t had much chance to explore it yet but it looks very nice. A kind of Facebook with better graphic design, for creative types. I’ve also been very impressed by the enthusiasm and imagination shown by Kay Vasey and Jonny Emmanuel in setting it up.

Here’s the basic idea, from the Meshminds site:

Mesh seeks to promote collaborative creativity by providing a unique forum where business and creative professionals can share ideas with like-minded people, invest in the arts, and showcase emerging talent.

Hope to see you at the party - let me know if you’re going and want to meet up.

Photo by Mami

Having looked at Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail and offered some Tips for Keeping Your New Year’s Resolution, it’s time for me to walk the talk and commit to my own resolution for 2008.

For me, last year was about starting lots of new projects and I made three resolutions. This year will be about paring things down and focusing on the essentials, so I’ve just made one. Here it is:

I will sit still for five minutes every day.

This one definitely fits Steve Roesler’s description ‘knowing what to do, but then not doing it’. Whenever I’ve practised daily meditation, it’ always made a big positive difference to my life - but after a while I get too ‘busy’ or complacent to keep it up, start skipping sessions, then a few weeks later realise I’ve forgotten all about it. So now I’m committing to doing it every day for a year.

Meditation is a bit like creativity - if you’re doing it in order to get something else, you’re not really doing it. Having said that, I do notice the following changes - call them side-effects - when I’m meditating every day:

I’m calmer
I’m more present in the moment
I find it easier to concentrate
I make better decisions
I tend to experience more creative flow
I take problems less seriously

(If you’re curious about meditation and haven’t tried it, here’s a good introduction to the basics.)

So how will I keep my resolution?

By following the 6 Tips for Keeping Your New Year’s Resolution that I used to keep last year’s resolutions.

1. Find something you want to do

OK I’ve done that. Meditation isn’t always easy or enjoyable, but it’s definitely rewarding. Read the rest of this entry »