Category Archives: Mentoring

Reflective practice is the new deliberate practice

For years we’ve been told that deliberate practice is the key to getting better at ‘anything’. But it turns out that deliberate practice is only effective in well-structured, stable, ‘kind’ learning environments. Learning maths, learning to code, or learning a new language all take place within kind learning environments. So does playing sports or chess. The rules of the game are fixed, the outcomes of actions are evident and feedback is fast, clear and actionable.

But much of business, leadership and life isn’t like this. As Heraclitus told us “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man“. Many of the more challenging situations that we experience, and their context, will be different the next time from the last time. It turns out there is another type of practice that can help us in these more ‘wicked’ learning environments that hasn’t gotten the air time of it’s well-publicised counterpart. It’s called reflective practice.

When our environment is constantly changing it isn’t just the person who works harder and practices more deliberately that succeeds. Let’s dig into the limitations of deliberate practice in the workplace, and how reflective practice can help us instead to make better decisions and accrue wisdom in business, leadership and life.

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A Deliberately Developmental Experiment

When the founders at Future Arc approached me to develop a business-wide coaching programme, they were clear they wanted to do something different. It felt right that a disruptive company that puts talent development at the heart of its organisation should embrace a new approach to developing its people. Fascinated by how we can build organisations and develop individuals for the future, and already drawing on Robert Kegan and colleagues’ work on adult development in my coaching practice, I introduced them to the concept of the Deliberately Developmental Organization (DDO).

A DDO is organized around the deceptively simple but radical conviction that organizations will best prosper when they are deeply aligned with people’s strongest motive, which is to grow. Deep alignment, it turns out, requires something more than making “a big commitment to our people’s growth,” admirable as that may be, even when such a commitment is followed up with significant investments in people’s ongoing learning on the job. It means something more than consigning “people development” to punctuated moments outside the flow of day-to-day work, such as standapart trainings, high-potential leadership development programs, executive coaching, corporate universities, or once-a-year retreats. Deep alignment with people’s motive to grow means fashioning an organizational culture in which support to people’s ongoing development is woven into the daily fabric of working life, visible in the company’s regular operations, day to-day routines, and conversations.

The Deliberately Developmental Organization
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Learning to think for yourself

Advice is everywhere, everyone has an opinion. It’s what to do with it that’s hard. If you want want to be your best self, then need to stop listening to what everyone else tells you and learn to think for yourself. Let’s explore what that means, including the problem with “how to” advice and the benefits of becoming an independent thinker in a complex world.

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How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back – Summary

How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back identifies 12 habits that commonly hold women leaders back as they endeavour to rise to the top of their chosen career. It concludes with a practical section on how to put habit changes into action. This article provides a summary of the 12 habits that the book’s authors, Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith, identify and adds some powerful questions you can ask yourself to unpack your own habits and unleash your full leadership potential.

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Why entrepreneurs need a coach, mentor & therapist

Like any high-performing individual, leaders need to wrap a professional support team around them if they are to give themselves the best chance of success. That team must be trustworthy, objective, and acting always in the leader’s best interests. This post unpacks the difference between a coach, mentor and therapist and explains why, together, they can make up a such a cohesive support team.

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Trillion Dollar Coach – A Summary

Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Handbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell is a book about a man who coached the CEOs and leaders of some of America’s greatest companies, including Apple and Google. He passed away in 2016, leaving a legacy of growing companies, successful people and an enormous amount of respect. The book is essential reading for any manager or leader operating in a fast-moving, high growth business.

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12 of the best books about Executive Coaching

Are you a manager or leader who wants to develop your coaching skills? Maybe you’re already a coach who wants to continue to develop personally and professionally? Here’s my list of books about executive coaching that have most influenced me.

More about me: I spent ten years at Deloitte Consulting and as a civil servant at HM Treasury. I became an executive coach in 2013. My coaching clients are transitional founders, CEOs & executives in high-growth technology businesses & the investment industry.

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2 powerful ways to get better at coaching your employees

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, by Michael Bungay Stanier is one of the best books I’ve read for managers and leaders who want to use a coach approach with their employees but don’t have the time or inclination for formal training. It’s short on theory but long on practical tools and techniques that are a shot to the heart of great coaching.

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Coaching & Mentoring: what’s the difference?

The words coaching and mentoring are often used interchangeably, though there are in fact important differences. In his book Coaching for Performance the late Sir John Whitmore, explains what the difference between coaching and mentoring is. Whitmore is the founder of the coaching movement in the UK. The book is widely considered to be the industry gold standard for performance based coaching.

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