Coaching

NHS Leadership and Lifelong Learning Team

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Thank you to the NHS Leadership and Lifelong Learning team for the following feedback!

“We value the work that you do and would like to share some excellent testimonials with you of the impact that you have on the system and its people..“

“I feel more positive at work and in life. I feel ambitious again and optimistic about the future. I feel more myself and less stressed and burnt out”

“I have gained a sense of capability and clarity of thought for the future. This has allowed me to effectively lead a large programme of transformation with clear strategy and an approach which is now being taken to drive some wider transformation across local constituent ICBs”

 “Coaching gave me good insight and time to pause and reflect on my leadership style. This has led to changes in my practice and improvements in how I handle things as well as my own sanity”

 “I gained clarity of planning of my priorities which has helped to shape the future direction of the organisation that I lead and input into our wider strategy and place in the NHS”

London Coaching and Mentoring Team

and the wider London Leadership Team

Coaching

Uprising Leadership Programme

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Proud to be coaching future leaders on the UpRising national youth leadership development programme!

Uprising is recognised at Government-level as a pioneering charity championing the critical issues surrounding diversity, social mobility and equality.

The mission is to break the cycle of unrepresentative power in the UK, by developing new, community-minded and socially-conscious leaders so that our future decision-makers truly represent our diverse communities.

What a mission! These people are going to change the future direction of our society.

Coaching

Ships in harbour

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While out running on the beautiful island of Crete this week I noticed these little boats gathering dust. It reminded me of the quote by John A. Shedd, “A ship in harbour is safe – but that is not what ships are built for”.

Our comfort zones eventually blind us to the essence of who we are meant to be. We’re not meant to be boats gathering dust in the field. We’re all born capable of sailing uncharted territories and exploring the high seas. What’s the one thing you might want to start working on right now so you can set sail?

Coaching

Sported award for mentoring

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Really excited to have been shortlisted for the Sported Vanessa Brown Award for outstanding contribution to the work of Sported (http://sported.org.uk/) and the Sport for Development sector.

Sported is one of the leading Sport for Development charities in the UK, supporting over 3,000 amazing community clubs and groups that use the power of sport to transform the lives of disadvantaged young people. Looking forward to dinner with Sir Keith Mills, Baroness Sue Campbell and David Moorcroft at the House of Lords in July! But more importantly, looking forward to carrying on mentoring local charities in Hull who are doing amazing work to turn round the lives of local children. These inspiring role models are having a real impact in giving so many deserving children a sense of purpose, personal responsibility and increased self esteem.

Coaching

UK Cross-Government Talent Programme

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I’m excited to announce that we were chosen recently to coach on the UK Cross-Government Talent Programme. This is made up of a group of highly ambitious and motivated individuals who are aiming to be the future leaders of the Civil Service. We look forward to working with them and making a positive difference to central government. If you’d like to explore how coaching can be a real force for change in your own life then just fill in the form on the Contact Us  page.

Coaching

Letting go

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IndianaFor a long while, I’ve wanted to buy a Victorian rectory in the country; ideally with a few acres and a little river meandering through the grounds. More recently, following a trip to the lovely city of Harrogate, my wife and I set ourselves on moving there.

Now there’s nothing really wrong with where we live now in a quiet little village in East Yorkshire, it is after all the reason we left London. The goal oriented part of me however didn’t feeling fulfilled, it wanted to have even more bedrooms, an estate to stride round in the evening, a swimming pool for all those leisure hours I convince myself I should have and so on.

Whilst restling with these thoughts the perfect epiphany revealed itself while watching Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail. Indiana (Harrison Ford) and the Nazis have been on a quest to find the Holy Grail. Towards the end, Elsa (the bad lady) reaches into a chasm to grasp the grail but it’s just out of reach. Through her obsessive desire and greed she reaches out one last time and over-stretches, resulting in a short fall to her bitter end.

The insightful twist is that the person who should know better – Indiana – then reveals the same human frailty and is also tempted by the allure of the chalice which is just out of reach. Indiana stretches and it’s so close. Just within grasp. Nearly there. He reaches one last time, just as Elsa did before him, when the wise voice of his father (Sean Connery) tells him to “let it go“. In a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, beliefs, desire and engrained thinking, Indy hesitates then breaks out of his tunnel vision trance and realises the truth.

The more attachment we have to something the more  under its influence we become. There never is an end to the material stuff we can strive for in life. If it’s a house or a car there’s always something better. You can never get enough of what you most want but don’t need.

While it’s perfectly ok to be happy with what you have but wanting more, we need to recognise that wanting more always comes at a price. The question you have to ask is whether the price is worth paying. I think for now I’ll acknowledge what a nice place I live in. There’s plenty more things in this short world to experience than stretching to something bigger.
Coaching

Reinvention (or why it’s never too late to be what you might have been)

Matthew McConaugheyI’ve always thought that there’s a deep comfort and sense of hope in a quote often attributed to George Eliot: “It is  never too late to be what you might have been”.

For anyone who watched True Detective last year you’ll have seen a moodier, darker and more intense side to Matthew McConaughey. Now of course he’s an actor and a key ability of actors is to wear different masks and adopt different personas. But McConaughey is coming from a different place. On CBS last year (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/matthew-mcconaughey-on-dallas-buyers-club/)  he said.

“I was going fine in my career. I was enjoying my career. My life started to feel more exciting than my career did… I said, I’m gonna have to stop doing what I’ve been doing. The first thing was saying no to the things that I was doing. I got together with my wife. We said, ‘Look, we’re financially okay. We’re gonna eat and pay the rent. It’s gonna be dry for a while. Don’t know how long.’ That was sort of scary. We didn’t know how long. I just wanted to spice it up. I wanted to shake things up for myself. I wanted to go down to do some roles that shook my floor, that made me uncomfortable.”

I like the idea of taking action to shake things up. That’s a good way to start the process of reinvention. We’re all a work in progress but most of us never consciously invented ourselves in the first place. As McConaughey put it…

“I un-branded, I think is the best way I could say it”.

Un-brand. Re-start. Re-invent. Or more accurately… Invent yourself. You probably never took a conscious decision to be who you are in the first place. As today unfolds, why settle for who you were yesterday? Start shaking things up. It’s time to take the action that will consciously Invent yourself for the first time. Who are you going to start being today?

Time management

Best is the enemy of good

CountdownWe’re always On. We’re all increasingly aware that we’ve moved into a world that demands ever more from us in terms of attention. Tags in social media, pulls from family, smart phones connecting you to the entire world in your pocket, work, 24×7 news, texts, WhatsApp. It’s draining and we’re all adjusting to how best to operate. Techniques to cope with it all are in every magazine.. mindfulness, meditation, Getting Things Done.

One thing which may help is  to reflect on the aphorism that Voltaire wrote in his Dictionnaire philosophique in 1770: “best is the enemy of good“

We’ve got to get comfortable with knowing when enough is enough. It’s the only way we’re going to cope with the demands that threaten to drown us if we don’t take a different approach. Do what’s good enough then move on – anything further leads to diminishing returns.

Case in point is this blog. I’ve had it in development for months, never quite committing to it until I’d understood WordPress better or until things were quieter at work. A quote from Robert Watson-Watt, a pioneer of radar, resonates strongly with me. He suggested the “cult of the imperfect”, based on his view that at times of need “Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late; the best never comes”.

So think what you can do today to get comfortable with being more imperfect than yesterday.

 

East Yorkshire executive and personal coaching