Interpersonal & Thinking: Where I'm Going

Ever since I went on a negotiating course in the 80's, I've enjoyed improving and learning new skills. I'm sure I've improved in all sorts of ways in both work and personal contexts - and I know there's a lot more to do.

I'm still keen to learn more and always seem to have one or more self-help books on the go.

Some of my key influences have been :

• NLP where I found a 'pre-supposition' that matched me: "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got" so I started exploring different behaviours. I learned the value of modelling people I admire, and the power of goal setting and action plans.
• "Mozart's Brain & the Fighter Pilot" - a fantastic book by Richard Restak who is both a practising psychiatrist and and a professor of neurology - he gives you 28 challenges such as "Cultivate fine-motor-control skills involving your hands" and "Turn your feelings and emotions to your advantage" see http://www.richardrestak.com/mozart.htm
• Rick Allen telling me I was creative (when I thought I wasn't) - I've taken this on using a large empty table with a view, a pile of paper and coloured pens and mindmaps. I think that the key to being creative is to recognise that, just like the seeds from a tree, many of your ideas will go nowhere.
• Visualisation - the power of your subconscious to get you where you want to be if only you'll sit down and imagine it.

This all excites me so much that I want to find ways to share this with others.

African Development: Where I'm Going

I've had a fascination with Africa for a long time. In my 20's I was an anti-apartheid supporter, went on demonstrations, and read a lot about South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique & Angola. In my 30's I watched with interest as Lord Carrington arranged the transfer of power in Zimbabwe. I can clearly remember the day when Nelson Mandela walked out of gaol and made those powerful speeches. I love to listen and dance to African music and for a while was in a band that played it.

I've been moved by Geldof's campaigning work for Africa, and most recently I've been inspired by reading powerful stories about'social entrepreneurs' who are changing Africa :

• Kickstart who provide hand pumps which greatly improve crop yield so transforming subsistence farmers into cash crop produces - they come with training, support and micro-loan finance http://kickstart.org/home/
• Ashoka which funds, trains and supports social entrepreneurs www.ashoka.org
• Room to Read which supplies books and builds libraries in the developing world www.roomtoread.org
• URDT - an innovative school, radio station and university in Uganda which focuses on giving people the skills they need for their lives today and building up their self-esteem and creativity - "job-creators not job-seekers" www.urdt.net

I want to share this excitement, and explore how I might make a contribution.

Could Coaching help you ….

Here's an article I wrote for my company's in house magazine last year

Could Coaching help you ….

• to solve a difficult problem?
• to grow into larger roles?
• to plan your future?

I picked up Myles Downey’s book on coaching in someone’s office some months ago, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Effective-Coaching-Lessons-Coaches-Coach/dp/1587991721/sr=8-1/qid=1171295756/ref=sr_1_1/026-5262685-2527642?ie=UTF8&s=books and skimmed the pages. I was captivated by his story of helping someone who was scared of catching. With other course members watching, he coached this nervous young man to the point where he smiled unbelievingly, having made three catches in a row. Miles had not given a single piece of advice - he had just asked questions. He asserts that coaches don’t need to be subject matter experts, their skill is in enabling each of us to develop our own solutions to the challenges we face, so that we continue to grow both in self-assurance and capability.

As someone who gets a buzz from watching others grow, I thought “I must be able to do this too”. So I dropped in on our HR Director, who told me a course vacancy had just come up. Three weeks later I was in Birmingham on the course. We learned the key principles, some theory behind it and a coaching method. We did lots of role play that was both challenging for the coach and useful as the coachee. One of the other course members is now my coach - already he has helped me to work out an approach to giving my anxious client more confidence in LogicaCMG’s ability to deliver.

There’s a spectrum of roles here: from advisor and mentor through to coach. Whereas an advisor or mentor will often give you a solution, some advocates of coaching will tell you that a coach will at the most raise an eyebrow but never give advice. In the form of coaching we learned there is a place for a few challenges, when the coach might say things like “Are you sure that’s the only option?”, or “You might consider how this looks from so-and-so’s point of view”. The emphasis is on helping you get to your solution, and making an action plan that you can stick to.

A key principle of coaching is confidentiality. Things you say will not be communicated to others; nor find their way into ePMS or any other such tools.

To those of you who are trained coaches: get in touch and let’s build a network..

To those of you who’ve never had coaching or feel you’d like to try it again: say so!

Unfortunately this has got nowhere yet, but I'm still trying .......

Where I'm going

So here are the areas I'm interested in :

• globalisation and what it means for me and the people around me
• how I might make a contribution to development in Africa
• the evolution of humans and what we can learn about ourselves from this
• the evolution of language and how we can learn to communicate better
• how to improve my interpersonal and thinking skills - and how I can help the people around me improve these too

I want to tell about what I've learned, knowing that I'm only scratching the surface of all these areas. Please give me comments and plug me in to others who are exploring these fascinating topics too.