Making our Mission Possible

What matters most in coaching

I came across this list of issues that Vega Zagier Roberts and Michael Jarrett summarise as 'What Matters Most? when coaching  and I really like this.  You could use it a checklist for yourself as a coach and see how you shape up....

A good coach should:
1. Have genuine commitment to the client and their success
2. Create clear contracting so coach, client and organisation have shared expectations and objectives: includes explicit agreement about confidentiality.
3. Have honesty: no secret agendas between coach and organisation, such as assessing client: address possible conflicts of interest between coachee and their organisation
4. Know and work within your own limitations, in particular "not unpacking what you don't have time or skill to pack up again"
5. Set appropriate task boundaries - clarity about what kinds of issues are legitimate
6. Create appropriate role boundaries - clarity whether on is in the role of facilitator, teacher, expert, friend and aware when there is conflict or confusion about the coach's role.
7. Have awareness of the potential for creating dependency and vigilance not to exploit this.
8. Having a broad flexible repertoire of interventions and ways of thinking about people and organisations.
9. Have regular review of ones work in formal or informal supervision with colleagues.

Values - everyone is getting in on the act

Values - the rules that we live our lives by are getting into everything.....today I was in Sainsburys doing my  shopping and looked at their latest advertising.  It said "our values make us different" and I could not believe my eyes - now major retailers are using values as a marketing slogan?

How to keep focused on your goals

If you want to get better at keeping focused on your goals then here is a useful method that Marshall Goldsmith told me about which is quick, easy and yet challenging.  Team up with a close friend or colleague and share with them the key goals that you want to achieve in your life or work this year. e.g. spend more time with my family each day, win 5 new clients each month, put "me time" in my diary weekly.  You also ask them for their goals and make a note of them.

Then at regular intervals you make contact and ask each other to report on progress by giving each goal a rating from 1 - 10.  So all you need to do is remind them of their goals and then they say 5, 8, 3 etc. and they record their ratings.  They do the same for you.  Its quick, easy, no judgements are made and you get a sense of how you are doing against your stated goals. Over time you will get a sense of whether things are changing. You are both in it together and making a commitment to help one another. Try it and see what happens!

Positive intentions

I am trying to get my contact information in some sense of order so that using my iPhone becomes easy for me.  I must admit its a bit chaotic at present because I am not the world's best organised when it comes to filing.  So resolution no 1 - when I file documents name them correctly so that they can be found again quickly.   resolution no 2 - keep contact information for people up to date AND in the correct program.   

Two simple little resolutions - and yet how much they are likely to test me over the coming months!

My favourite present - iphone

Happy New Year!  I spent most of yesterday engrossed in my new Christmas present, my iphone.
It's just so good and having upgraded to this from a phone thats almost two years old i felt like I had got a Ferrari after owning a Fiesta.  With so many of us doing business on the move, the ability to have all your information at your fingertips along with the internet makes life much easier. What impressed me so much was the way that all the features have been made so user-friendly. Even before reading the manual (does anyone else do this?) I instinctively knew how to use most of the functions!  The iphone also inspired me to organise all my contacts, photos and music so that was a good start for 2008. 

So, if you were to think about the service or product that you provide to clients, is it user-friendly?  Have you thought about those little extras that give it the wow factor?  We are running a workshop on this topic in February so it will be interesting to hear what others have to say on this subject.

Off now to listen to some more tunes and while away the day.....