Coaching and Mentoring

Visualizing the Payoffs of Employee Engagement

A great deal of attention has been paid to the matter of employee engagement in recent years - and for good reason: it has been well established that employees who are engaged with their work and their organization contribute far more of their discretionary effort than employees who are not engaged or, worse, disengaged. This paper visually illustrates the nature of this payoff. [Contributed by Fred Nickols, Managing Partner, Distance Consulting LLC.]

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Assumptions for Coaches and Coaching

Every technique we apply to coaching is bound to reflect our underlying assumptions about it, the client and the wider context. Which are "right" assumptions are matters for you to determine; what's important is that you do establish them. Here I discuss the basic beliefs and assumptions I've distilled from my 25 years a coach. Use them to shed light on your own.

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The Coaching Relationship & Rules of Engagement

Coaching should be experienced as a forum within which coaching clients may free-associate in search of insights or drill-down systematically into their issues as they choose, knowing they will not be judged but helped to clarify and make sense of their thoughts, however disorganised, and plan to address them. This article sets out some of the prerequisites of the ideal relationship.

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Methodical Coaching Practices

This simple guide to the coaching process provides a dependable system and consistently constructive results. Detailed illustrations of its application are given, with suggestions on where to begin and how much coaching to provide. The essential and generic skills of workplace coaching are listed, emphasising the centrality of listening practices.

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How are you doing (since you last got off the treadmill) . . ?

Faced with the prospect of a coaching or mentoring session, some people find it difficult to establish what they should focus on to get the most from it. When you are the coach, you could use this simple, one-page graphic to help your coaching/mentoring client prepare. It'll help them to clarify personal reference-points and assess progress towards their intentions.

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Coaching Defined, Distinguished & Contextualised

Given its well-proven potency, coaching should be pivotal to organisational strategy intended to inspire, focus, empower, support, encourage, develop and mobilise staff. In addition to defining, distinguishing and contextualising the process, this article outlines the individual and organisational benefits arising from coaching, and relates it to other supervisory responsibilities.

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