2010 March

‘Depression & recession’! What a time! Our nation is in a financial mess thanks largely to years of Labour Government incompetence and vote-buying. It raises questions about personal awareness and where this should be placed? There are many who, for reasons that may include the desire to avoid psychological despondency, avoid the news and try to stay positive. This is understandable. Others are so ‘involved’ and affected that they are pulled down, reduced in effectiveness and their ‘wellbeing’ impaired. So for many then, there must be plenty of ‘managing states’ in between from which to choose?

I generally prefer to focus on what I can do, rather than on what I cannot influence and change. Until that is, politics and the Labour Government’s mismanagement force their way into consciousness. At this time, every day brings more appalling news: cheating MPs, public money wasted by bad management, wrecking of pensions and the value of the pound, the printing of bank-notes without the assets to back the currency (creating obvious inflation) and the lowering of the value of the pound, negative effects of Government inititiates, spin/lies protected by swords of truth made of sand and guided by moral compasses made of unmagnetic lead. What a dreadful epoch we are living in! My balance is somewhere between the two extremes and wondering, other than by voting, what other influence I might have?

So, to the focus away from the daily array of crap disemminated by our morally-currupt leaders!

In an earlier blog, I wrote that we would be adding to our video library and this is now a major project. Over fifty videos have now been loaded onto the new wesite with many of them free-to-view. We have also added a member area and the potential to add comments, tweet and to buy streaming video to view and review over an 8 week period. All the video to date features me, but upcoming will be others in the team who will contribute to our free resource for managers and coaches wanting short learning opportunities through this medium. We are also uploading three free-to-view coaching masterclass ‘sampler’ videos. These feature some of the coaching and debriefing that takes place after the coaching session. In each case we are offereing cheap access to the full-feature video, typically an hour and at super-low prices!

I have ten papers coming out in South Africa’s leading HR journals this year and already three, I think, in the quality, Training Journal, plus a chapter in Prof. David Megginson’s excellent new book, ‘Virtual Mentor, Virtual Coach’ in which I offer some learning from our experience of Ask Max, the world-leading e-mentoring product. There will be others. The book, ‘Performance Coaching Toolkit’ (McGraw-Hill) comes out in mid May 2010 and is already featured on Amazon. Yes, the focus on what we can do, rather than too much on the woes of this nation can be productive, and I for one feel much better for that. Amen!