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  We’ll start by considering the change in circumstances that would indicate a need to move from the more controlling ‘tell what and how’, to the more empowering (responsibility generating) coaching approach. When learning from the experience is paramount it’s time to coach. There is very little learning that happens from the tell style apart from perhaps learning how to keep our heads down and learning how to cover up errors. Being told what to do does not engage our brains and so we do not forge new connections and insights; we do not learn. There is also the problem

Coaching Skills Series This is one of many articles I intend to post this year considering the range of principles, skills and experiences you’ll need to be an effective coaching manager for the people in your team. Here we consider the times in which the coaching approach is most useful. Check back in a couple of weeks for a follow-on post. In my office we like to dine out on this little anecdote. A University lecturer we know phoned her HR department and asked “How do I go about getting myself some coaching?” Their reply was, “Why, what’s wrong with

Coaching Skills Series This is one of many articles I intend to post this year considering the range of principles, skills and experiences you’ll need to be an effective coaching manager for the people in your team. This post continues our look at coaching qualities. Check back in two weeks for a detailed look at when to use coaching. How can we summarise the skills, knowledge and experience required to give us a profile of an effective coaching manager? It would seem that the first requirement is for the manager to find time to coach; to take ‘time out’ from

Coaching Skills Series This is one of many articles I intend to post this year considering the range of principles, skills and experiences you’ll need to be an effective coaching manager for the people in your team. Here we consider a range of coaching qualities necessary for an effective result. We’ll pick up on some of these themes in the next post in the series in around two week’s time. Let’s take a look at some coaching qualities that are written about less but can have just as much impact on a coach’s success: Credibility. You don’t need to be

Coaching Skills Series This is one of many articles I intend to post this year considering the range of principles, skills and experiences you’ll need to be an effective coaching manager for the people in your team. This post considers empathy one of many coaching qualities of which more will be examined next time. Never forget that your coachees will not be passive during coaching. They will be noticing what we say and how we say it and monitoring our body language in much the same way as we’ll monitor theirs. I would contend that what the coachee hears is

Coaching Skills Series This is one of many articles I intend to post this year considering the range of principles, skills and experiences you’ll need to be an effective coaching manager for the people in your team. In this post we return to the matter of listening; a most vital coaching tool. It helps to create a climate of empathy which we’ll consider more generally in two week’s time I’ve explored the importance of listening many times, but it is such a vital component of effective coaching and such a key skill for the effective coach that I want to

Coaching Skills Series This is one of many articles I intend to post this year considering the range of principles, skills and experiences you’ll need to be an effective coaching manager for the people in your team. This post is about the importance of self-awareness for the coach. Check back in about a fortnight for a further look at effective listening. In an earlier post we examined the principle of awareness and saw that before anything can improve we must first increase our awareness of how it is now. This applies to us as coaching managers as much as anything

Coaching Skills Series This is one of many articles I intend to post this year considering the range of principles, skills and experiences you’ll need to be an effective coaching manager for the people in your team. Here we consider the matter of feedback. Next time we’ll look at the crucial trait of self-awareness. Let me say firstly that I am extremely dubious about the quality and value of the typical feedback offered at work. It is usually thinly veiled criticism or destructive, judgemental nonsense that does neither giver nor receiver any good. It creates new sources of interference and