3D Juggling 542: Capacity to Defrag

September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Claire writes “In the post exam summer clear-out with the girls, my job was to speed up the computers by clearing out old files and defragging. Not a fast job when there was as much music and as many photos as I found. One machine took 12 hours ut the outcome was a beautiful line of blue and white. And a much faster experience. The other one was simply too full.

Windows gave up and we were still left with a disheartening solid block of red. And no improvement on speed, of course. To be able to clear themselves, the machines needed enough white space or unused disc space to be able to manoeuvre files.

We had left it too late.

Reorganising stuff, ideas or career change needs to happen while there is still enough time and space to think. Waiting until it’s absolutely essential may be too late. We replaced it. We can’t replace ourselves. Think about it…”

© 2011 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely.  Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com

Filed Under: Managing Tasks Tagged With: ,

3D Juggling 541: Who do you schmooze?

September 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Jane writes: ‘You’ve identified all your stakeholders – all those people, volunteers and organisations that have an interest in your service, product, operations, impact, turnover/profit etc.  How do you know what sort of attention to give each of them?  Do you spend more time and effort with the ones who show most interest in what you’re doing, or those that provide you with most income?  Do you forget about the ones have been quiet for the last six months, or those that you are confident are supportive of your plans?

Tricky decisions, and there’s no right answer.  There are some general principles that you can follow though.  Don’t ignore any of them.  Don’t assume that because they are not showing much interest now that they won’t pop up and exert some influence later.  The best laid plans can be scuppered by a stakeholder whose interest wasn’t understood.

Understanding the differing degrees of interest and influence associated with stakeholders will help you to plan how to keep them involved; through keeping them informed, consulting with and involving them, maybe encouraging them to enthuse about what you’re doing to others.

Who do you need to schmooze?

© 2011 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely.  Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com

We were recently talking to a former CEO of some houselhold name brands. He recommends the Balanced Scorecard as an approach to managing stakeholders.

Filed Under: leadership, working with people Tagged With: , ,

3D Juggling 540: Respect

September 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Claire writes: “One of the coaches I supervise was talking to me and remembered something they had been told in training. ‘If you don’t respect one of your clients, it’s time to help them find another coach.’

Respect (or disrespect) is a buzz word at the moment and a powerful concept in the workplace and in the community.  Respect for others means that I learn from them as much as I learn from anybody else in any other place.  Learning comes when we are open to it.  People have much to teach us whatever their age.  Think about it…”

© 2011 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely.  Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com

Filed Under: working with people Tagged With: , ,

3D Juggling 539: Art Class

September 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Peronel writes:  “My art class is 2 hours on Saturday morning, 5 times per term, 3 terms a year. 30 hours in total.

 

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” Jim Rohn

The time allocated to practising my art at Sunningwell is consistent, and in the great scheme of life not huge. But without it, I wander off into thinking I can achieve something and not doing it.

The doing is the reality, the learning the action where thoughts and facts combine. It’s precious time, it’s protected time where 100% of our focus goes to practising the art of our craft.

What do you need to protect so your expertise continues to grow?

And what do you need to put in place for that to happen? Think about it…”

© 2011 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely.  Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com

Filed Under: Managing Tasks Tagged With:

3D Juggling 538: Congruence – not compliance

September 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Jane writes: “Our credibility depends on several things and one of them is others experience of any gap between our intent and our behaviour.  Our intent is our motive or agenda, our behaviour is what we say and do.  The smaller the gap, the greater our credibility.

Behaving in ways that achieve compliance with what’s expected (explicitly or implicitly) in our family, community or organisation may enable us to ‘fit’ or to retain our role/job in the short term, but when compliance is at odds with our real beliefs and motives about how we should be behaving it will show.  It will seep out in what we say and do.  It may also help to prevent the truth about what is going on from being exposed, creating risk for individuals and organisations. Far healthier to achieve congruence – where we are honest about our motives.  Other people appreciate that, even when our motives may be at odds with theirs.  Our challenge is to work with them to find where our motives and beliefs overlap so that we can acknowledge these.
Sometimes it feels as we have to make a choice – compliance or no friends, compliance or no job.

How do you find the alternatives?

Think about a situation which you find difficult.  How clear are your motives – to you and to others?

Coaching can help you to understand your motives and work out how to be honest about them in ways that build your credibility and help you to discover new options.  And that will help you build you confidence as well. Think about it…“

© 2011 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely.  Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com

Filed Under: working with people Tagged With: , ,

3D Juggling 537: Say Nothing

September 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Jane writes: “Catharsis, when someone leaps to a new understanding, happens when they are paying attention to what is going on ‘inside’ them, not when they are paying attention to what we are saying.  At this point they do not need any verbal or physical (e.g. nods, shrugs etc) interventions from us.  We need to be silent.

To serve others well we need to be able to pay attention to them – their words, what is not being said, what is being communicated without them realising it via their eyes, tone of voice and body language.  When we tune into these things we are able to judge when to allow silences.  An inexperienced coach will ask a question, the experienced coach will wait.  The experienced coach will not be concerned for them self (what should I be doing?  What should I say?).  They will only be concerned for the other person.

For silence to be fully effective there needs to be total trust between those involved.  If you feel uncomfortable with it, they may as well.  Think of yourself as being a relaxed and respectful fellow traveller whose attention is in the space between you, sensing what will be most useful.  Don’t be tempted to fill the space with noise, it’s not always useful. Duck tape is! Think about it…”

© 2011 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely.  Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com

Filed Under: 3 Trust and Intimacy, 4 Coaching Presence Tagged With: ,

3D Juggling 536: The Cake Shop

September 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We are having more career makeover conversations than usual. And there really is hope in uncertain times:

“Thanks for the conversation. It was incredibly helpful – and I’m still processing the discussion. The thing I need to hang on to more than anything else, though, is that I got out of bed on Tuesday morning with a smile on my face and a sense of liberation and possibility”    

Lynn writes: “I was recently working with a nursing team whose services were being decommissioned.  It was a hard time for them; not only were they worried about how to find a new job but they were also grieving for the loss of a service they had a right to be proud of.

As we looked at their CVs and scanned for new opportunities they continuously looked for nursing roles and were stuck as what they wanted to do was what they had to leave behind.  The breakthrough came for one participant when asked “If you could do anything – what would you do?”  Her instant reply:  “I’d open a cake shop”. Immediately she was able to see possibilities of using her skills and passion and began exploring who to talk to, where she would have opportunities to sell and how she could make this financially viable by doing some part time agency work whilst she built the other business.

I told this story at the last career makeover day, and one of the delegates got really clear on what she had to do: “I need to find what is my cake shop?”

What’s yours? Think about it…”

© 2011 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely.  Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com

Filed Under: 4 Have a vision and a strategy Tagged With: