Archive for the ‘Career Development’ Category
« Older EntriesChoosing Your Ideal Business Mentor
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
The subject of mentoring has come up several times in conversation this week. I’ve been with clients – ambitious rising talents in their organisations – discussing the importance of selecting the right mentor. And I’ve been fortunate to spend time with my mentor, Maureen Simon, who has fostered the development of my business for many years.
Mentoring is different from coaching, and I thought it might be worth offering a few thoughts on the mentoring relationship. Both coaching and mentoring offer the client support and assistance with defining goals, career direction, and success measures. However, in a mentoring relationship the assumption is that the mentor has experience, wisdom, and insight that will be helpful to the end client. A coach, on the other hand, doesn’t offer advice – coaching operates on the assumption that the client already has all the resources they need, they may just need a little help locating them.
When you’re looking for a mentor, choose someone who has been where you want to go, and got there in a way that you like. Find someone you can easily develop a great rapport with. And look for someone with clarity about what mentoring is all about. Ideally, you aren’t looking for someone who has all the answers and will tell you what to do. As with a coach, you’re looking for someone who gets how you think, and who will act as a touchstone for your developing work. When you connect with them, you should gain confidence and clarity. And they should thoroughly enjoy supporting you.
If you’re a coach looking for business mentoring, I may be able to help. Email me to find out how you can grow your business easily.
Tags: business coaching, business development, business mentor, career development coach, coaching, Maureen Simon, mentoring
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Recognising Talent and Expertise
Monday, July 26th, 2010
Last week I spent a day with the remarkable Philippa Pride, an accomplished book editor and life coach, who is guiding me through the process of writing my first book and getting it published. With us was another writer, currently working on an amazing novel. The day was extraordinarily stimulating and it caused me to reflect on the importance of working with our natural talents.
Philippa has many years experience as an editor, and of coaching writers to produce their best possible work . Watching her give feedback to my colleague, I felt astonished by the depth of her perceptiveness and the skill with which she deployed her expertise. It was one of those extraordinary moments when you realise that something remarkable is happening – you are witnessing someone operating from their core genius, through the filter of many years of practice and application.
And what about the writer? Well, his natural talent shines off the page. Coupled with his desire to refine and improve his work, I’m certain we’ll be seeing his book on the shelves soon.
The experience of watching Philippa’s genius – natural flair for editing coupled with a high level of competence – alongside a writer’s latent talent got me thinking about how talent and expertise are treated in business life.
It’s common for large corporates to promote people into roles that don’t suit their natural gifts, in order to ‘develop’ them or ‘broaden’ their skills. Yet most of us don’t need more ‘development’ or a raft of new ‘skills’ – we need more encouragement to become exceptional in the deployment of our natural strengths. When people struggle to achieve in areas outside of their natural competence, massive internal conflicts result. Confidence is lost as individuals begin to suspect that they are ‘not good enough’ or ‘don’t have what it takes’. Compare this discouragement to the exhilaration felt when an individual plays to their strengths. Which delivers the most benefit to the overall organisation?
The next time you witness genius in action, comment on it. Encourage people to express more of what they’re best at. Then sit back and watch the magic.
Tags: business coaching, career development, coaching, leadership, Love your work, stimulation and motivation, strengths deployment, strengths finder, talent development
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NLP Tip: Pacing Yourself for Better Concentration and Productivity
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
This short video clip explores the NLP concept of ‘pacing’. You can use your understanding of pacing to improve your concentration, be more productive, and effectively influence other people. In the video, I share practical examples from my own coaching practice to illustrate how pacing works.
Please let me know what you think!
Tags: Communication skills, Improve concentration, Improving effectiveness, Increase productivity, Leadership Skills, neuro linguistic programming, NLP, NLP Pacing, self improvement
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Magnify Your Business and Watch it Grow
Thursday, July 8th, 2010
Last week I had a long and interesting conversation with my friend and fellow coach Paul Zelizer. I always value Paul’s wisdom about the true heart of success in business and this call was no exception. It has provoked profound reflection that has lasted all weekend.
Paul and I spent a lot of time talking about the elusive nature of business success that is ‘out there’. So many of us construct our business goals, and our success, on a ‘bigger is better’ basis. We invest our time, money, and energy overstretching ourselves attempting to vastly increase our businesses so that we’ll be more successful. In doing so, we tend to create a contrast between where we are now in our business and where we think we’d like to be. We construct success as an ultimately unattainable goal, floating on the horizon, firmly out of reach.
Even if you’re not a business owner, you can probably relate to this kind of thinking. Business owners have a tendency towards this ‘never enough’ thinking. It promotes overwork, lack of balance, and feelings of guilt when the natural desire for rest arises.
On our call, Paul shared his recent learning about the importance of really enjoying the business we already have. He talked about the deep wisdom of being deeply rooted in where we are right now, and into whatever success is today.
It’s so easy, isn’t it, to want more? Instead, why don’t we place our focus on everything we have already? In coaching, we talk about how you get more of what you focus on. What do you already have that you would like more of? Place your attention on it like a magnifying glass, and watch it grow.
Tags: goals, motivation, motivation in business, Paul Zelizer, reflection, Spiritual Success, stimulation and motivation, what motivates you
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Non-Verbal Communication – Which Animal Are You?
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
When I first began studying group dynamics and non-verbal communication, I quickly became fascinated by Michael Grinder’s work. It’s indispensable knowledge for anyone wanting to communicate and influence effectively.
Michael’s ‘cats and dogs’ model is a great way to understand individual motivation, especially at work. Essentially, Michael compares people’s behavioural style to cats and dogs.
The dog is inherently cooperative. It wants to be accommodating. Its behaviour is predictable. It wants to fit in and behave well in the group. It understands hierarchy. It will submit to authority and is teachable.
A cat knows nothing about cooperation and being accommodating. Submission is not in his nature and it does not behave well in groups. It is only interested in hierarchies where it is at the top. Its behaviour is perceived as unpredictable by others, although the cat knows exactly what it is doing. You can’t train a cat.
This is a great analogy for people. Who do you know that is a dog? A cat? And what are you? A little bit of both?
Tags: behaviour models, Career Development, group dynamics, human behaviour, non verbal communication, psychological models
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Four Tips for Managing Tasks (or How To Eat an Elephant)
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time…
I’m talking task management! How many elephants do you have? And how big are they? Some days, I feel like I’m facing down a giant herd of unruly elephants when I look at my project list! This post is about taming your elephants – taking big tasks or projects and breaking them down into manageable chunks. Here’s 4 simple ways to tame your tasks and projects to get things done:
- Make the elephant smaller. Size is relative. There’s probably a direct relationship between the size of your task and the degree to which you feel overwhelmed by it. When overwhelmed, we tend to distort things, making them more effortful, difficult, and complicated than they really are. Why not turn down the dial on your overwhelm and distort the task the other way? Say to yourself ‘it’s great that this project is so easy’ ‘I’m glad that I have plenty of time to do this’ and so on. Remember, your mind believes what you tell it.
- Break the task down into smaller chunks. Can you mind map your task? Put it in a sequence of steps? Sort it into areas of focus? It can be helpful to move from the big picture to component parts. You know the old saying ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’? Giant elephant thinking is an example of ‘can’t see the trees for the wood’. Get each ‘tree’ clear in your mind, and know which you will tackle first.
- Harness the amazing power of incremental change. We can reach any goal when we break it down into small enough steps, and then take consistent action. It’s like compound interest: for a long time, it seems like nothing’s happening, and then suddenly the interest adds up. Are you willing to take daily action regarding your elephant? What’s the next step to take?
- Follow the 15 minute rule. I learned this from the wonderful Flylady (www.flylady.net). She says that you can do anything for 15 minutes a day. Probably, you spend more time thinking about your elephant than you do doing anything about it. Commit to tackling your task for 15 solid minutes, and you’ll be amazed how much you accomplish.
I wish you every success in taming your elephants, and managing your tasks!
Tags: businesss goals, managing tasks, motivation to work, project management, task management
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Where’s the Juice?
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Where is the juice for you, in the work that you do? What do you LOVE about your work? What are the activities that you could do endlessly?
Many of us approach our work with a kind of determination, expecting that we will have to do many things that we don’t enjoy. We assume that work will contain unwanted complexities, difficult decisions, uncomfortable ambiguities, and a raft of disagreeable tasks. Since our reality tends to reflect our expectations, guess what we get?
I believe that our best work, our greatest excellence, our most valuable successes, come easily to us. Now, by easy I don’t mean that there is no challenge or stretch involved. What I mean is that there’s a sense of ease, of flow, about the work that suits us best. More than that, the right work for us provides deep satisfaction and the knowledge that we are effortlessly excelling. It’s juicy.
There’s a coaching technique called the Spotlight, where you make a circle on a page with a smaller circle in its centre. Then, list all the tasks you perform in a typical working week. Plot these visually on the big circle – the more you love the task, the closer it should be to the circle in the middle. If you absolutely adore an activity, that goes inside the smaller circle.
The smaller circle is your ‘spotlight’ – your area of greatest enjoyment and highest potential possibility for excellence. Your goal now is to spend an increasing percentage of time operating in your spotlight. If you were to do this, what would be the first step for you? How juicy could your work become?
Tags: business coaching, coaching, goals, work
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Knowing What to Measure in Business
Thursday, May 13th, 2010
How do you know when you’ve done a good job? How do you know when things are going well? How do you know that your business, organisation or project is heading in the right direction?
We’re often busy trying to do our best and get results, with no concrete way of knowing if we’re on track or off track. Many people in business spend all day long looking at numbers and measurements which may or may not be measuring the right things. Either way, it’s useful to consider what we should be measuring.
In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) we use the key concept of the evidence procedure. This goes beyond most goal setting strategies.
First, you ask yourself ‘what do I want’ or ‘what would be my desired result’?
Next, ask yourself ‘how will I know when I’m getting it’?
The answer to this question is your evidence procedure. When you get what you want, what will you see? Hear? Feel? Who else will be involved? These questions give you the key things to measure to know if you are on track for your goals.
It’s also helpful to consider the process of achieving your goal. How will you know that you are making the right choices and taking enough action to achieve your goal? Your evidence procedure for the process of achieving the goal may differ from the evidence for the accomplishment of the goal.
Tags: business coaching, evidence procedure, Executive coaching, metrics, neuro linguistic programming, NLP, well formed outcome
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Sharpen the Axe
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
‘Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe’ Abraham Lincoln
Are you good at balancing rest and renewal with activity, preparation with execution? Is occasional burnout a part of your life? Get to Friday and feel exhausted? Then this post is for you!
Stephen Covey, in ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’, notes that highly effective individuals make time to ‘sharpen the saw’. Time for rest, reflection, and attention to self is essential if we want to perform at our best. In my view, our creativity, or innate genius is activated when we take the time to refresh.
What stops you sharpening the axe? Many of us are hooked on being productive. We think that somehow, if we slow down, everything will fall apart. We think that it’s somehow wrong to take time to reflect. The western working culture conspires with these limiting beliefs by providing us with endless rounds of meetings, a constant stream of email, more information than we can possibly keep up with, and phone calls to return. Is it any wonder that we sometimes feel exhausted?
I know that many of my corporate coaching clients feel guilty about taking time for themselves, and even about taking ‘thinking time’ during working hours. I enjoy challenging this limiting assumption by taking them for walks during coaching sessions, or meeting away from work in a deliciously relaxing atmosphere. It’s often extraordinary to witness how many fresh perspectives, new ideas, and renewed enthusiasms come out of these particular sessions – all because we spent the time sharpening the axe.
It’s natural to seek balance – and time for reflection and renewal is essential for balance. Commit to scheduling it for yourself, and keep your promise to yourself by taking full advantage of the time you set aside. You’ll be glad you did. Remember, you won’t get very far with a blunt axe!
Tags: decision making, effectiveness, leadership, Leadership Skills, motivation in business, reflection, Restoration of self, self improvement, stimulation and motivation
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How to find your dream career – part 2
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
Picking up where part 1 left off, in this video Nick shares more ideas and practical inspiration. Here we discuss some of the thinking that stops people moving forward professionally, and share from our own experiences getting started in our businesses. Nick has a sincere, genuine, practical message – watch and enjoy.
You can follow Nick on Twitter: @nickwilliams1 and download his free nine part e-course Discover the Work You Were Born To Do and become an Inspired Entrepreneur at www.inspired-entrepreneur.com
Tags: career change, career development coach, Inspired Entrepreneur, leadership, Leadership Skills, making positive change, Nick Williams, Starting a Business, The Work You Were Born To Do
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About Kate Warren
Kate Warren is the founder of Brightlife. She is a leader in the field of personal and professional development, and is a sought-after speaker, teacher, and coach. Kate is passionate about helping people to unlock their personal and professional potential. She is an NLP Master Practitioner, a Certified NLP Coach, a Master of Group Leadership Dynamics, and the U.K.'s first certified WealthyMind™ trainer. In 2008 her business success was recognised when she was invited to join ‘Courvoisier the Future 500’, an elite group of the 500 rising stars of British business.
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Courvoisier The Future 500 is an exclusive member's network of the country's most innovative business brains and creative talent. Being awarded a place shows dedication and commercial success.