HOW TO… GET THE MOST OUT OF LINKEDIN

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LinkedIn can help coaches build their business. So why are so few using it well? Helen Pritchard reports   The average LinkedIn user spends 17 minutes on the site per month1, which is a statistic that makes my soul weep! Managed well, LinkedIn can be a great source of information for coaching buyers on who to work with and why, and an amazing lead-generating tool for coaching providers. In this article, we look at how it can support coaches in building their businesses. (Spoiler alert: there are no quick fixes or ‘hacks’ despite what you might have read, seen or […]

HOW TO… AVOID DIGITAL DISTRACTIONS

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Steer clear of digital distractions if you want to increase your wellbeing and productivity. Jane Piper reports   Modern technology including smartphones, email and social media, are having a major impact on the way people think, work, communicate and collaborate. Many, including coaches, struggle to manage the pressure of the triple whammy of being available 24/7, expected to respond immediately and overwhelmed by the high volume of emails and information. The reality of most people’s daily lives is that they never get a chance to get into flow, or even have a period of uninterrupted time to focus on one […]

HOW TO… COACH FOR RESILIENCE – PART 3

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In this three part series, Jenny Campbell explores how to coach for resilience. Part 3: The ethics of resilience coaching   In this final article in our three-part series on resilience coaching, we examine ethics. While coaching is a reflexive ethical profession that strives for real integrity on behalf of clients, resilience coaching has a few additional ethical factors that must be considered. These factors fall into two broad categories: the potential vulnerability of your client, and your own understanding and experience of the implications of different resilience levels – for you as coach and for your client.   Your […]

HOW TO…COACH FOR RESILIENCE – part 2

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In this three part series, Jenny Campbell explores how to coach for resilience. Part 2: Coaching for different levels of resilience   What’s your client’s resilience level? Is your coaching aligned to what they can actually take on, what they have capacity for? Resilience is about our capacity for change. It’s synergistic with wellbeing; you can’t have one without the other. Also it goes up and down daily. Resilience is driven by two fundamentals: a person’s resilience potential and the day-to-day demands on resilience. Each have different landscapes and it’s important to know which one someone is in. A person’s […]

HOW TO… COACH FOR RESILIENCE

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In this three-part series, Jenny Campbell explores how to coach for resilience. Part 1: The principles of resilience coaching   Employees need to be resilient. I’ve always found the insights from the Resilience Engine’s resilience research1 transformative in my leadership coaching. But there’s another side to resilience. Employees are under massive pressure to perform. Many are overwhelmed and their well-being is suffering. Recently, the Academy of Executive Coaching carried out a survey2 around the demand for resilience. The results were shocking – 82% of participants said the demand was high; only 10% said the demand was manageable. If we add […]

HOW TO… USE RECORDINGS IN REFLECTIVE PRACTICE WORK

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Eve Turner and Peter Hawkins consider how we enhance learning when someone brings an audio or video recording to supervision   A topic that regularly comes up in supervision is the use of recordings: why, when, what, where and how. This article explores these issues, and how we can get the most benefit from recordings. It offers thoughts on giving feedback as a supervisor/tutor to someone who brings or submits a recording for review in a way that enhances learning, keeps the review collaborative and a dialogical inquiry and minimises the person feeling judged, criticised and then becoming defensive. We […]

HOW TO… NAVIGATE CONTRACTS, CONTRACTING AND RE-CONTRACTING

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In part 2 of this two-part series, Carol Whitaker, Michelle Lucas and Tammy Turner share tips from their just-published book on how to contract using the Shared Outcomes model. Part 1 covered spotting the signs of a need to re-contract The purpose of a contract is to get a shared agreement on outcomes for all parties involved including clearly defined accountability and responsibilities. However, as engagement progresses, you’re bound to run into circumstances where there are misunderstandings or miscommunications. Coaching and mentoring engagements can fail because of assumptions, bias and lack of clarity that can feel awkward to discuss. Heightened […]

HOW TO…NAVIGATE CONTRACTS, CONTRACTING AND RE-CONTRACTING

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In this two-part series, Carol Whitaker, Michelle Lucas and Tammy Turner share insights around contracting from their just-published book. Part One: spotting the signs that re-contracting might be needed As coaches and mentors, we can often find ourselves stumbling across a situation we hadn’t foreseen. No matter how well we agree the way we want to work together (the contract) at the start, the need to re-contract along the way arises. Doing this well requires contracting skills, which as they’re rarely given full attention in training programmes, we build by trial and error. However, in this two-part article, we aim […]

HOW TO… MAKE A PROFESSIONAL WILL

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Have you got a professional will? It makes sense to arrange one – while you still can. Gill Smith and Linda Aspey report What would happen to your clients, your livelihood and your business if you were suddenly unable to work because of serious illness, accident or unexpected death? Have you made arrangements about who’d tell them, who’d support them (and, if they wanted, continue their coaching, or help them to access other coaches), and who would take care of the financial and administrative aspects of your work? In other words, do you have a professional will? When one of us […]

HOW TO…WORK WITH THE COMPETENCE LADDER

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Jenny Bird and Sarah Gornall describe working with the competence ladder, a model for exploring the discomfort of learning Lots of coaches are familiar with the competence ladder, which describes a series of predictable stages through which people pass as they learn something new. It’s a useful model in relation to our own development and for helping clients recognise where they are on their learning journey. Some of these predictable stages are more comfortable than others: Stage 1 We don’t know what we don’t know. We’re in a state of unconscious incompetence Stage 2 We now know that we don’t […]