A Stitch in time
Thank you for the wonderful article “Pieced Work” by Hetty Einzig. Her use of a patchwork quilt as a metaphor for better understanding life and work is inspiring. I have used the quilt metaphor with a number of clients who have welcomed this new perspective, contrasting it with the common image of tension, juggling, and a compartmentalised life.
My clients now see more clearly how diverse things can fit together and have a different way of conceptualising their lives. Einzig explores in detail the metaphor of the patchwork quilt, elegantly linking scraps, colours and threads, helping us see things in a new, integrated way.
I supervise some coaches outside of the UK, and was thrilled to be able to share this article with them. There’s already one coach in Greece and another in Bermuda using this new approach with their women clients.
I wholeheartedly agree with Hetty when she says, “… at work and in a world just beginning to realise the destruction we have caused through the single-minded pursuit of individual goals, we are badly in need of a discourse that emphasises our common ground”.
She urges us to stop seeing ourselves as separate from each other and the world we live in. Einzig, like John Whitmore at the UK International Coach Federation conference last October, challenges us as coaches to extend our reach and consider the role we might serve with our clients in “midwifing” these transformations.
Such consciousness-raising articles challenge our thinking and help us see our connectedness. I also believe it’s time to focus beyond meaning and purpose on an individual level, to ask the bigger questions about those concepts in society as a whole: what kind of world do we want and what is the role of coaching in bringing it about?
Marianne Craig
Director Firework Coaching Company
www.fireworkcoaching.com
Confidence knocks
As businesses feel the pinch, we asked you online how coaching can help improve employees’ confidence. Here are some of your responses:
What an excellent question, that’s at the heart of much coaching. When we help an individual to tap into their own resources and ask their own questions of themselves, we are doing what we can to help them build their own confidence.
I shouldn’t be shocked but I find I am at how many senior leaders have faced a large dip in their confidence recently. They are making big decisions, and there is no rule book for how to operate in today’s uncertain market. It’s not surprising then, that they question their own judgement.
Coaching, unlike a training programme, truly finds ways that an individual can start to feel proud of themselves and be more confident in their own way. On a training programme, however, they’ll pick up, for example, three tips that they might find difficult to use.
Carolyn Matheson
Master certified coach and founding director, People Work Best
Like Carolyn, I often find that leaders, even in senior positions, suffer from lapses in confidence. A negative event at work can seriously compromise it. In such circumstances, coaching can help the individual gain a realistic perspective on themselves, and recover clarity about their values, strengths and achievements. They can also learn from the situation by understanding how they might handle it more effectively in future.
Leaders are grappling with unprecedented economic circumstances. A coach can provide both a sounding board and a rigorous yet supportive challenge. This will encourage the individual to stay in touch with the inner core of their being – the part of themselves that knows who they are and what they need to do.
Ann Lewis
Director, Ann Lewis Coaching
I agree with both Ann and Carolyn. Coaching can also be an invaluable tool for junior and middle managers who are often “dumped” into their new roles with responsibilities beyond their immediate capability. Having coached a number of middle managers in investment banks, where employees don’t often have a defined development programme, becoming a manager can be a daunting career prospect.
Coaching can help these new managers define what it means to them to be a manager, recognise and accept the areas they need to develop, understand what the team expects of them and play on the new manager’s strengths as a basis for growth. It is reminding them that they have the resources they need to be the best they can be.
By setting parameters to work towards, new managers can measure their success (and that of the coaching relationship) with a renewed sense of self-belief, confidence and positive business results. These will spur them on through what may initially appear to be a daunting task…
Helen Storckmeijer
Coach, Quantum Leap International
Volume 4, Issue 2