August - 2017

Our Journal - a space for sharing our thinking, feeling and doing...

Participatory planning for the skills agenda

The issue of skills is so often integral to most of the current national and more local headlines - be that Brexit, immigration, the NHS recruitment difficulties, poverty and/ or inequality. Although 'skills' rarely in and of itself makes the headlines. Aside from what will no doubt be the annual furore this week and next week about the "downgrading of school exam results" with the publication of A-Level and GCSE results (this year with added confusion for GCSEs of new number

The art of giving advice

"You've got to know when to hold 'em Know when to fold 'em Know when to walk away And know when to run..." Don Schlitz (released by Kenny Rogers, 1978) I've been thinking a lot lately about 'advice'. With my ongoing boat renovation project I am asking for a lot of it. I'm also receiving a lot of the unsolicited type. Some of this advice I find useful, some not, and then there's the contradictions and dismissal of the advice of others to contend with. Now not all advice ca

"Heads-up navigation" to make things happen

I think of coaching as offering you 'heads-up navigation' to make change happen. Navigating is an activity I am regularly engaged in through both orienteering and sailing, as well as the more day-to-day of 'getting to places'. Spending time outdoors looking at and reading maps, landscapes and weather means this constantly developing metaphor of 'heads-up navigation' has become a powerful and fundamental part of my coaching practice. Given that, I want to share here some of wh

a thought on authenticity in coaching...

A few weeks ago I met someone new, and so followed the inevitable conversation about what our respective jobs were. An interesting discussion emerged enabling me to share my passions on the whys, whats and wherefores of being a 'coach'. And then I was surprised to be asked, "so do you practice what you preach then, and your life is perfectly sorted?" The answer for me came immediately, "well yes, and no". I was not unsure of the answer but clear that these were two entirely d

The comforts of language

"Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort", Peter McWilliams The language that we use to talk about learning and discovering new things matters. This was brought home to me last week when I was talking to my colleague Sue about the work I have started on renovating my narrow boat. There are lots of new skills, experiences and knowledge this process requires of me; it is a personal development process of a very specific, and often frustrating nature. I want to