- The discomfort and frustrations caused by the status quo (boss, partnership, promotion, home/work balance) are significant.
- Commitment to the process: seeing the personal, long-term benefits, making the coaching cycle a priority in terms of time, attention and homework.
- The person being coached understands what it means to (more…)
Dan Gilbert at TED.
See also Are you sacrificing the real now for an illusory future?
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
–Teddy Roosevelt
Citizenship in a Republic
Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
–e e cummings
American Poet (1894 – 1962)
According to an article by Michael Shermer, Ph.D. in the September 2007 issue of Scientific American, several elements are needed for a movement or an idea to gain acceptance:
- The idea takes a stand for something, not against something, and is based on a positive assertion.
- The idea uses an intelligent, rational approach to tackle myths and raises consciousness and awareness.
- The idea embraces the uniqueness of self and others, and it requires us to respect each other.
- The idea encourages exploration, experimentation and a sense of adventure.
— Carole Carson
Here’s a radical idea:
getting fit is fun and contagious
LA Times
January 12, 2009
Organizational coaching has been found to positively affect leadership, increasing charismatic behaviors and the ability to inspire and impact followers.1 The results of a study done by the Corporate Leadership Council2 indicate that executive coaching helps improve management capabilities in experimenting with new approaches, shifting to an enabling style of managing, successfully dealing with difficult performance and team issues, and freeing up time for strategic thinking through more effective delegating.
–Bennett & Bush
Coaching in Organizations
OD Practitioner
1Kampa-Kokesch, S. (2002). Executive coaching as an individually tailored consultation intervention: Does it increase leadership? Dissertation Abstracts International, 62(7), 3408.
2Corporate Leadership Council Report. (2003, May). Maximizing returns on professional executive coaching (Catalog Number CLC1X8YD2) Washington, DC: Author.
For a group of people to work smoothly together, each member must understand what constitutes agreement. This understanding is often left in the background, unexamined, as everyone assumes their standards match those of other people. Fundamental to the success of the executive off sites I conduct is helping the group make these assumptions explicit so that everyone is playing by the same rules. If, in fact, everyone has the same standards, we finish this step quickly. If not, time invested early to clarify the ground rules saves a lot of time (and upset) later.
There are two essential parts: clarity and verity. First, everyone must be clear on what is being agreed. Second, the group needs a way to know if agreement has been reached.
#1) What’s the deal?
Coaches are in the business of helping people to reflect on their assumptions and behaviors. Then we help them to widen the space of possibilities as they formulate life choices, make interpersonal decisions, set strategic directions and sometimes, simply, know better who they are.
Yet, when it comes to making important long-term behavioral changes, the transformation is often slow to come. Why is it so hard to put knowledge into practice? If real learning means that people transfer knowledge into action, what’s missing? How do we best facilitate this growth for our clients, turning mental states into personal traits?
–Dr. Marcia Reynolds
The Water We Swim In:
A New Look at Cognitive Evolution
[Complete article is here, on page 2.]
I was listening to a clever and timely story on NPR this morning about the renewed prevalence of the hackneyed imperative, “Do more with less.” This is widely interpreted as a demand for longer hours to compensate for reduced budget and staff. My executive coaching clients, in contrast, report growth in income and profits while working fewer days and shorter, more flexible hours. Two keys are reducing stress and misdirected energy.
I was very pleased when the NPR reporter revealed the original form of the phrase from Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, “by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. … as we read in Poor Richard, who adds, drive thy business, let not that drive thee.”
Great advice, then as now.
My son’s sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Rohlfs, died one year ago today, on February 26, 2008, ten years after her doctor gave her just six months to live with ovarian cancer. Here is part of what my wife wrote to Mrs. Rohlfs’s adult son:
I am so sorry to learn of your mother’s passing. Your mother had a profound impact on my son and because of that I feel compelled to write to you. I want to tell you about who your mother was for my son. I suspect that what I want to tell you about your mother is not unique. Through tear-filled eyes and sobs of grief, my son told me about your mother. I knew Mrs. Rohlfs was a special teacher, and that Greg was fond of her. I knew that she gave him his first-ever “C” and that he was working harder than ever this year. I knew that she was a really good teacher – one who was good at explaining things. But what I didn’t know, and learned Tuesday night, was that Mrs. Rohlfs deeply and passionately loved her students – each and every one of them.
Greg told me the following and I remember his every word, every look, like a videotape in my head. “There is one boy who all the teachers hate to deal with. But Mrs. Rohlfs found the good in him. She found the thing that he was really good at, and he’s been doing so well this year, so well. She loved him.”
I asked Greg “How do you know she loved him?” With tears streaming down his face, he looked at me with the most knowing look I’ve ever seen. I understood. So I said to him “You just know it, don’t you?” He nodded and sobbed. I asked him “Did Mrs. Rohlfs love you?” All he could get out was “Oh yeah.”
What an incredible gift. To be loved so completely, for all that you are and all that you aren’t. To convey your love so that, not only does the recipient know it, but everyone around knows it too. Wow. What a wonderful place the world would be if people were more like Mrs. Rohlfs. To be able to see the good in everyone. To be able to see potential in everyone. To be able to foster that potential, in just the right way. What a gift Mrs. Rohlfs was to all of her students. Sometimes, kids (and all people!) just need someone to believe in them, and that makes all the difference in the world.
How many children has she influenced? How many lives has she changed for the better, forever?
One of Mrs. Rohlfs’s favorite quotes was:
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter.
–Dr. Seuss
And now, this. From the New York Times.
Students Learn From People They Love:
The New York Times
Putting relationship quality at the center of education.
By David Brooks
Jan. 17, 2019
See Gina Rohlfs’s online memorial here.
Recent Comments