The slow swell of business cycles

I’ve been pondering a cycle that I’ve noticed in my business. It seems to go action, reflection, reinvention and back to action. As a consultant and coach, I deliver as long as the client needs my help and wants me to be their helper. Fortunately, I get repeat business. But even so, the [...]

I’ve been reading and rereading Difficult Conversations by Stone, Patton and Heen. I find it particularly useful because it identifies the thing that has always baffled me about “those” conversations: they’re not about facts and logic. Even though we spend inordinate amounts of teeth-grinding time on “But you said…” and “I don’t remember [...]

Swine flu? Learn to work from home

Don’t travel. Don’t get close to people. Stay away from large gatherings.
Whatever this becomes, the effect on the our workplaces and way of working will be severe. If you have children and / or are a knowledge worker, spending your time talking, thinking and working on a computer you must get prepared to work from [...]

What would Atticus Do?

I just read a great blog from Harvard Business Review based on the work of Rafe Esquith, the author of Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire. It’s all about morals.  Morals in Management.  Ring any bells?  HBR has gone to an award-winning 5th grade teacher in Los Angeles for help.
According to the blog, Esquith [...]

Exercise: Observing the party

I invite you to try the following exercise:
You are standing on a balcony looking down on your life, as if you were at a party watching the revellers, and you see yourself in the crowd. You are fascinated. You watch yourself engaging with some people, avoiding others, watching others, moving from place [...]

Who uses coaches and why?

Some Initial Findings From 2008 ICF Global Coaching Client Study conducted by PricewaterhouseCooper and the Association Resource Centre, Inc:
65 percent of coaching clients are female.
The majority of coaching clients are between the ages of
36 and 45 (35.9 percent).
The majority of coaching clients have acquired an ad-
vanced level of education (a post graduate degree such as
a [...]

Who uses coaches and why?

Some Initial Findings From 2008 ICF Global Coaching Client Study conducted by PricewaterhouseCooper and the Association Resource Centre, Inc:

65 percent of coaching clients are female.
The majority of coaching clients are between the ages of 36 and 45 (35.9 percent).
The majority of coaching clients have acquired an advanced level of education (a post graduate degree such as a [...]

Ageism – The Last Acceptable form of Discrimination

Because I’ve been focusing on coaching for Millennial managers, I have been wading into the seamy side of intergenerational issues.
There was an iconic saying of the 60’s, “never trust anyone over 30″. Today, the very generation that coined that phrase is long past the age they once distrusted. They are in the position of [...]

Quitting to succeed

Seth Godin, author of Tribes and Small is the New Big, has another book out – The Dip.
An important and audacious premise of The Dip is that quitting is sometimes the very best action to take to get what we want. Godin says, “we fail when we get distracted by tasks we don’t have the [...]

10 Strategies Science Tells Us Make Us Happy

I’ve been reading some of the books in the canon of Positive Psychology lately to find out what science has to say about what we can do to get happy:
 The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky
 What You Can Change . . . and What You Can’t*: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement  by Martin Seligman
and Finding Flow  by [...]