Working From Home

I’ve worked from home for many years. In fact I was one of the first people in the large corporation I worked for at the time to work from home. My job at the time didn’t need me to commute for three hours a day just to sit at a desk in an office, but convention, and suspicious backward thinking bosses, meant I had to.

Coupled with an accident whereby I broke my leg (not purposefully obviously – bit extreme), it was either working at home, or sitting at home, quite literally, with my feet up for six months. “You decide” I said to my boss. She chose wisely.

And when I was back on my feet (which took the best part of 18 months) and fully mobile, the case had been proven; that home working errr, worked. Everything that needed to be delivered had been and we moved from a management culture of command and control to one whereby clear objectives were set and where I was physically located became irrelevant. Stuff still got done and in a far more efficient way.working at home

Nowadays, if you are doing a role which doesn’t mean you physically need to be in a specified place to get the job done and the company you work for doesn’t offer home working, then find a company who does. I wouldn’t want to work for individuals who’s management techniques are seemingly rooted in the dark ages. If they’re not willing to embrace such a way of working then I’m willing to that their other people policies are also just as archaic.

What has this got to do with coaching?

Coaches can interact with their clients in whichever way they prefer; face to face, phone or via Skype. Aside from the former none of these options involve travelling. Most of my clients prefer their sessions being delivered via Skype (or Facetime) usually at their place of work or at home and this is one of the beauties of home working. It suits both of us and it works.

Coaching: Internal vs External

A CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) survey in 2005 indicated that 64% of organisations use external coaches as opposed to training their own employees. I’d be interested to see what that figure has changed to in the subsequent years, but what this means is 36% of organisations use existing employees to deliver the coaching exoperience to either their colleagues or subordinates.

In my experience, using existing employees (“internal”) to undertake coaching results in three major things:

1. “Coaching” usually means the coach offers ideas and advice to “help” the coachee. This isn’t coaching, it’s mentoring.
2. Employees are reluctant to apply for coaching as they have a real fear and suspicion that the coaching process and sessions aren’t confidential and they will “be recorded” with HR. This issue is exacerbated when the HR team acually provides the coaches from within their own teams. Not a smart move.
3.  A lot of organisations (and I could personally quote four international conglomerates) state they have a coaching service available to their employees. The reality is actually very different. The “service” they offer is either very limited in its availability, and usually only available to senior executives, or they have a limited number of coaches and there is a lack of support for it. In other words they pay lip service to the whole ethos.

Obviously there are many arguments regarding using internal coaches versus the use of external coaches and this will be determined by a company’s HR policy. There are pro’s and con’s in either approach.

However, no matter who you receive coaching from, if you get the opportunity to get some then grab it with both hands. Coaching works. And if you’d like to know more, please get in touch for a free taster session.

Motivation

Motivation means different things to all of us. Some people get motivated by money, fame or success. Others get their motivation from helping others. Some folk have seemingly little or nothing that motivates them.

Motivation also means different things to different people. Michael Jordan is motivated by succeeding the next time, even if he’s just missed a match winning shot. The late Steve Jobs was convinced that what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones was simple perseverance. Whereas my late mother, a single parent to four boys, was driven by putting food on the table by working two jobs and making sure she put her children’s needs before her own.

My motivational needs have changed over the years. What drove me when I was 20 is very different to what pushes me along now; I think the change can be attributed to different priorities which come with getting older and also achieving the earlier ambitions I’d set myself. That’s not to say I no longer have ambition or motivation; I do, they’re just different to what they used to be.

So if you’re finding it difficult to find, or change, your motivation, then coaching can definitely help. Get in touch for a free taster session and I’ll explain more.

Are You Sitting On Your Hands?

Copyright; Sgt Tom Robinson RLC/MOD

 

One of the better known figures of speech is “Sitting On Your Hands”. Whilst most us don’t literally sit on our hands, a lot of us do this figuratively.

And when people do this, it usually means little or nothing gets done. Which obviously isn’t a good thing.

To enable you to meet your aims and ambitions, then you need to stop sitting on your hands and have a plan. But before you plan the plan, you need to explore your options. And to do that you need to think about what goal it is you’re trying to achieve.

All this is very easy to do. Contact me and I’ll help you through it.

Free those hands and achieve your ambitions.

Richard Branson & Happiness vs Success

Richard Branson has stated “Many assume my business success has brought me happiness. But the way I see it, I am successful because I am happy.”

As you can imagine, many people have taken to Twitter to challenge this and to state that he’s only happy because he’s got pots of money and money buys happiness. I don’t necessarily agree with this viewpoint, and I’m sure you have your own views; it will probably depend on your level of cynicism.

There are many people who run successful companies, who don’t seem to be particularly happy, at least from what we as consumers of media perceive them to be, which again is part of their (carefully controlled) media presence. Some names that spring immediately to mind; Michael O’Leary or any of the “judges” on “Dragon’s Den”. Which of us know what they’re “really like”? Their family, friends and work colleagues probably, but it’s not unknown for people to have differing personae, dependent on the situations we are in.

So what actually measures “success”? Now that depends on each and everyone of us. We’re all motivated by goals that change over the course of our lives; as teenagers we chase very different things to folks in their 60’s. There’s no simple answer; our lives are far too complex for there to be.

But one thing is certain. Coaching helps people achieve their goals. Whether it’s seeking happiness, becoming successful or something else, I can help.

The BBC and Coaching

Today, Tony Hall, the Director-General of the BBC outlined his proposals for a “more open and distinctive BBC than ever before.”

One of the more interesting proposals, and there are a few, is the creation of the “Ideas Service”, an online platform that provides the public with the best of British ideas and culture delivered in partnership with the country’s institutions: from the British Museum to the Royal Shakespeare Company, from the Edinburgh Festival to the Liverpool Biennial, the Science Museum – to the University of Manchester.

So what the BBC is in effect doing, is curating the best of what already happens within UK culture into a platform that will interact with BBC output. Sounds like a good idea to me and it’s already happened in the past with one recent example being the Stargazing Live programmes. It’s public engagement.

The BBC is inviting everyone to come forward and join in, whatever their skills, capabilities and talents, on subjects that are of interest to us as individuals. As a result it’s hoped that we share our collective knowledge and that then gets shared with others. Seems like a win win to me, but of course the Daily Mail have a completely opposite view; which it usually does when the BBC is being debated. (NOTE; some of the claims made by the Daily Mail’s article appear to be supposition and are not based on any facts provided by Tony Hall in his presentation today.)

Now what’s this got to do with coaching?

During the coaching process, clients are gently challenged to come up with innovative (and usually practical) options to help them move forward toward their stated goal. Sometimes these options are mere pie in the sky ideas, but more often than not they’re achievable and the client then gets motivated to achieve them, which in turn creates the snowball effect of wanting to do more.

Without a vision, there can’t be goals. And if there are no set goals, there will be little activity. And if there is little activity, there is no motivation, which in turn means nothing gets done; and the status quo remains.

A coach gets the client to shake all this up and move forward. Just like Tony Hall is doing at the BBC.

Want to find out more about how coaching can help you? Then head on over here.

Simple steps.

A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine came to me and said “I don’t know what degree to apply for and what university to go to. How can I decide?” He’s just completed his A levels.

We briefly discussed his aspirations and goals and within a couple of minutes I gave him a simple tip to determine which of the many options he was struggling with and to help him narrow down the many choices he faced. During our conversation, he didn’t look too convinced I must admit, and I didn’t think he’d do anything as a result of our conversation.

Two weeks later he came up to me and said “Your tip worked. I’ve decided what I want to do.” He’d made a major life changing decision by following my simple guidance. He always knew what he wanted to do – he just needed some help to figure it out for himself. Coaches don’t advise – we guide people to what they already know.

His decision was his own; he made it in a very short space of time, after struggling with it for some time, so imagine what you could achieve with a few sessions with me?

If you think I can help you, then please get in touch.

Promises

We’ve all been there; made a promise to someone, or just to ourselves, and not delivered it. Or have had promises made to us and they’ve not been followed through.

Yet we still adhere to to the concept that when some says “I promise” then it will happen. It’s an unwritten contract, their word or a bond they’ve made with themself or someone else.

But, conversely, a lot of us make promises and deliver none of them, either because we had no intention of ever doing so or we change our mind or simply forget.

But what I CAN promise you is when you get coached by me, you will meet your stated goals. And that’s a promise.

You can get in touch with me here.

Listen more. Speak less.

The Greek philosopher, Epictetus, stated “We have two ears and one mouth, so we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

In a previous post, I bemoaned the fact that most chats weren’t actually conversations at all; they were merely individuals waiting for the person opposite them to take a breath so they can interject – usually with “I’ve had that”, “That happened to me” or “In my experience, this is what…..” as they launch into their own personal story, disregarding what has actually been previously said.

Coaches don’t take this approach. A coach spends 70% of their time listening and 30% of their time asking questions and they never provide their own opinion or advice unless they’re expressly asked to, and even then they will only do so rarely. So you are guaranteed to have a conversation based on your values, beliefs and opinions and not that of someone else.

Want to know more? Then head over here.