Russell Atagootak has spent his 23 years of life in the artic. The slideshow featuring Russell’s own words, shows pictures taken by the Adventurer Alistair Humphreys. Russell’s main job is being a polar-bear monitor, including fixing trip-wires alarms to protect encampments. 23 years in the artic is a longer life than many have in 50. When Russell says he is not sure when he goes to bed whether he will wake up in the morning, you have to believe him. Be moved. But his philosophy, though simple, is contemporary and would serve many of us well. He lives in the moment, looks for what is similar among peoples and is content.

Coaches can make the mistake of measuring the success of their coachee’s by accomplishment only. This is not right and is not sustainable. Coaches need to coach for repeated success but also for wellbeing. Success should not come when it brings damage into the world of the coachee. Invariably then, the outstanding coach will be checking the sustainability of stated objectives and facilitate the shedding of the coachee’s tasks, so they can focus on specific outcomes, including the quality of their existence.

Watch Alistair’s slideshow of Russell at this link.

Angus McLeod, 17 May 17., 2012.

Part of our ‘Human at Work’ Series ©.

More and more organisations are taking initiative to upskill their senior teams. Down-sizing is mostly complete and there has been a year or two of minimal ‘training for performance’ in many parts of the economy. Now is the right time to get more performance from top layers of management.

Typical errors include upskilling to target new behaviours and performance and members of the Board rejecting these new behaviours and performance. Find out more about best-practice in setting out leadership development journeys.

A coach gets very attached to life and change but for over five years I have also enjoyed the regular and predictable visits to my tyre-fitter and other local retailers. My tyres have been fitted by ‘Nod’. First from his garage in Malvern, then near Upton. The routine of these visits was pretty standard, but Nod was fine about talking while at work and we exchanged small talk. Over time we learned more and more about each-other’s issues, aspirations and history because we were both expanding the box, rather than trapped in the safe stuff. An hour ago I called in and Nod was not there. When I asked his son how he is, Matt said that Nod is not well, in fact “he has cancer and does not have long to go”. The routine of tyre-fiting was the same but the experience was diminished, not only because of the fact of Nod dying, but because the level of human interchange I’d enjoyed with Nod was gone forever.

I have been talking and writing about my ‘Human at Work’ (©AngusMcLeod2011) theme for over a year and Nod’s final illness has lessons for coaches and everyone. Its not enough just to perform at work – when we risk to bring our humanity into work, the value, trust and warmth that humanity engenders creates deeper, more productive co-work. And it does all that without the political agendas that suck the life and productivity out of organisations. Nod had this ability to bring his humanity into work in spades. Its for the rest of us to step-up and bring these qualities into our work too. It’s for coaches and managers everywhere not to be fixated just by targets, but to recognize that great coaching/management is also about engendering focus on people-well-being and the development of the soft-skills that make all of us more impactful, authentic and team-players at work.

Angus

Part of our ‘Human at Work’ (©AngusMcLeod2011) series, the full slide-show has memorable and striking images by Daniel LeClair for Reuters. You can see the slide-show below. There are many lessons for coaches and coaching-executives but the concept of giving and taking is one I explore here.

A number of self-help and charitable groups work in Honduras and elsewhere to try and eleviate the enormous problems of poverty and child deprivation. In Honduras, the President’s wife puts on old jeans and joins helpers to help in the middle of the night. In every walk of life we have givers and takers. In Honduras the povety-stricken may have good excuses for receiving, when they do. But in our lives, what has made our culture so self-centred and selfish to the extent that ‘me first’ darkens almost all human behaviour from the super-market to the street. The coaching mindset is a force for change.

Professional coaches are net-givers not net-takers. If you see a greedy coach, you are unlucky. The Performance Coaching mindset is one of service, and many of us think of Greenleaf’s idea of the ‘Servant Leader’ on which to found our working practices. So, what if many more of us took these mindsets into more areas of our life-experience? What do you think you will see happening around you?

Let’s help make that cultural shift. Against all odds I still believe that you cannot shine darkness into the world, but you can shine light and make a difference that matters. Be a net-giver.

Angus

See the whole slideshow

As part of our ‘Human at Work’ (©AngusMcLeod2011) series you may want to see a slide-show from after the Japanese Tsunami. With lessons to coaches and coaching-executives, the spirit of Japanese people in adversary is hard to match. See the slide-show below. With continuous fire-fighting all of us are susceptible to getting small stuff out of proportion. Reminding ourselves that our glass needs to be half-full and not half-empty is a healthy perspective to hold on to and we can thank Kahlil Gibran for that. “How bad is bad?” & “Calibrate ‘bad for me’?” are good responses to negative thinking about our working predicaments. From calibration comes fresh perspective. From that fresh perspective, the coach in us will look to the first achievable target towards the desired outcome or goal. Things are rarely as bad as we make them.

Angus

see the slideshow

This Blog is part of our ‘Human at Work’ (©AngusMcLeod2011) series.

A slide-show of striking native pictures has lessons for coaches and executives alike. You can see the slide-show below. When Richard Moraes first tried to go in with Brazilian Health Expeditions to bring medical help to the tribes, they often stayed away as the people were frightened. Stories abounded about the white people taking your eyes and replacing them with horse eyes. Fear was rife.The slide-show has stunning pictures showing the results of their breakthrough. For coaches and coaching executives, the story is a metaphor for some of the people who more-or-less trust us, who are more-or-less anxious when with us. What mindset and behaviours should we bring to our work to put others in a good mental and emotional state to perform and have wellbeing at work? For performance coaches the answer is in personal growth. Often, as we know, therapists and pschologists are attracted to their professions as part of their own need to fix themselves. No doubt some coaches are the same.

Our clients and colleagues at work deserve better than that. We need people, coaches and executives who are grown up and do not feel a need to be ‘one-up’ or who feel threatened by others. The people around us grow faster when we have already gone some way along our own development journey.

Angus

see the slide-show yourself

One hour of your time – have you been inspired by someone?

Inspiration is a small and uneccessary aspect of leadership. If you have it, you are probably lucky or just highly developed as a human. But do our coachees develop inspiration in others? A key to this which I borrow from coaching senior executives for over a decade is the observation that inspiration, like charisma or ‘a brand’, mainly works easily in a new environment. This blog is part of our ongoing ‘Human at Work’ (©AngusMcLeod2011) series. If you do grow and develop inspirational charcteristics then these will invariably have more impact if you take them into another arena of work – by moving job into a wholly new environment. In other words, people often put us in boxes and once in, it is darned hard to get out! Yes, there are exceptions and these exceptions are themselves typically ‘exceptional’ e.g. where an individual comes to sudden prominence by doing something truly remarkable.

Now we have a chance to learn more about inspiration and the character of it in a more structured way by participating in the research work of Laura Murphy. If you have felt inspired by someone at work and both you and your ‘inspirer’ are potential interviewees (about an hour each) then do please contact Laura as below.

Laura Murphy is undertaking research on inspirational leadership with a view to publication and is focusing on the values aspect of leadership instead of looking at the usual leadership traits and styles.  She wishes to identify people who have been inspired by someone they have worked with and to interview both the inspired and “inspirer”, separately. In some instances the two would have been in the same company at the time and for others the “inspirer” was someone external to the company. If you are willing to be interviewed or just want to find out a bit more before you commit yourself, then Laura can be contacted on info@mtc2.co.uk.  She’s already interviewed a number of people but the more she can speak to the more robust the research.

Here’s a link so you can find out more about her:  http://www.mtc2.co.uk/about-us/associates/profiles/Laura-Murphy.xalter

I would encourage you to help Laura in expanding the research in this new and exciting area of work.

Angus

Visiting Professor of Coaching and,

External Supervisor of Research at Birmingham City University

Using the McLeod, ‘Human at Work’ (©AngusMcLeod2011) philosophy, I give you a ca. 7 minute video demonstrating how getting to the basics of human development (using ‘Human at Work’) can underpin executive training for stress and numerous performance issues. Free access with a simple sign-up.
My first video based on ‘Human at Work’ technology was a video on mindfulness. Here is the second in the series, called ‘Pain to Gain’. Just sign up and this video will be on your new dashboard. Existing ‘Human at Work ©’ members will find the video on their dashboard.Sign up for your FREE access to all ‘Human at Work’ © technology updates here!

But why ‘Human at Work’ and what does that do for organizations that L&D does not? Although good work is done within L&D we often see too many initiatives without adequate resources to accomplish the job. Naturally, what slips through are programmes that are not themed for corporate key learnings and we also then see an element of ‘tick box’ programmes where whole groups are put in training when in reality, some people should not be in the training room at all. They will get little or nothing from it – they are simply not ready, and their view of HR will be compromised.
Sign up for your FREE access to all ‘Human at Work’ technology updates here!

A COLLABORATIVE OFFER

I intend to add other inputs based upon my ‘Human at Work’ technology including short videos for L&D and HR staff, so if you want some challenges from this ‘Human at Work’ perspective to help you develop ideas and innovation in any given area of executive and leader development, then do please contact me – I shall be happy to engage and move things on with you. Angus.

Sign up for your FREE access to all ‘Human at Work’ technology updates here!

Tarya Seagraves-Quee, a homeless nurse, with three of her four children have been living in Massachusetts in a tiny, dark hotel suite for nearly two months.

Tarya suffers from multiple sclerosis, Aspergers syndrome, anemia and lupus. Two of her children, aged 16 and 6, are autistic. After losing her job, and facing repeated physical abuse from a boyfriend, she spent $700 – almost all her savings — on airline tickets for her family to stay with relatives in Boston. She ended up in a small, gloomy motel on the wrong side of town – in spite of everything she says that this is a ‘wonderful place to live’. Audio slide-show available. This story is part of our ‘Human at Work’ (©AngusMcLeod2011) series.

Reuters’ photographer, Brian Snyder took the pictures and his slide-show, narrated by Tarya can be seen here. As coaches, we know that our life-experiences are massively coloured by our perceptions. Unlike many people, we also know that we ALL have choices about whether to choose ugly, negative, self-damaging perceptions, or ones that uplift. And part of our skill is in facilitating people to re-frame (or choose) better and more useful perceptions. When people take those choices, then they keep their energy, their self-respect and can use them positively to change their lives, again for the better. Other people, like Tarya, learn this the hard way and without help. Her natural ability is little different to that of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela, or Brian Keenan (An Evil Cradling – captive and brutalized in the Lebanon for almost 4 and a half years). All provide lessons to the rest of us how to use our minds to be grateful, positive, responsible and more fruitful in our lives. Coaches make this difference every single day.

Angus

Thinking of becoming a coach?

I have produced my first video based on ‘Human at Work’ © technology. This video is on mindfulness. But why ‘Human at Work’ and what does that do for organizations that L&D does not? Although good work is done within L&D we often see too many initiatives without adequate resources to accomplish the job. Naturally, what slips through are programmes that are not themed for corporate key learnings and we also then see an element of ‘tick box’ programmes where whole groups are put in training when in reality, some of them should not be in the training room at all. They will get little or nothing from it and their view of HR will be compromised.Sign up for your FREE access to all ‘Human at Work’ © technology updates here!

If we have the luxury of going back to basics, then we can think acutely about the ‘Human at Work’ © – specifically, how different executives need different learning opportunities at different times. When we do this, we find (as in the case of mindfulness) that many executives are NOT ready for the programme – instead, we place those on an 18-24 month period of L&D interventions to bring these executives to the point where the mindfulness (thinking and behavioural changes) can take place. Structured learning journeys, over time, allow personal development processes to take place at the pace of the human; anything faster is a waste of time and effort. It’s akin to telling a teenager to ‘grow up’ – we all know that growing up is life-journey and the real impact of personal development invariably takes at least 18 months to integrate and be observable in behaviours/performance. Of course, the structured learning-journey needs to address the key elements of personal development that will challenge and create the will to learn. This then is the heart of my ‘Human at Work’ technology and it is these considerations that then advise what we need to do and what we need to measure.
Sign up for your FREE access to all ‘Human at Work’ © technology updates here!

A COLLABORATIVE OFFER

I intend to add other inputs based upon my ‘Human at Work’ technology including short videos for L&D and HR staff, so if you want some challenges from this ‘Human at Work’ perspective to help you develop ideas and innovation in any given area of executive and leader development, then do please contact me – I shall be happy to engage and move things on with you.   Angus.

Sign up for your FREE access to all ‘Human at Work’ technology updates here!