Are Goals Important?

When I was first being taught to coach, on the BBC’s highly respected Coach Foundation Course, there was a long running debate between the tutors as to what the most important part of coaching was: Questions or Goals. Other answers are, of course, available. I’ll...

Can You Do It On Your Own?

In a world that holds up entrepreneurs and startups as role models for how companies can flourish, the role of the ‘team effort’ seems out of favour. Even in the rise of the mega-internet companies, we tend to act as if the Mark Zuckerbergs of this world create all...

Don’t Save Coaching for a Rainy Day

Some people consider coaching as not really part of work. Like training, networking or filling in your expenses they avoid doing it when there’s ‘proper work’ to do. It’s such an ingrained feeling that this has often permeated the culture of large organisations. Even...

Tips for Optimising your Desk

Tips for optimising your desk …or your working area wherever that is! For many of us, working with a laptop at whichever hot-desk we can snatch, or wherever we can put it down, even if that’s a coffee shop, the notion of having your own desk which you can lay out how...

Why Don’t Coaches Ask Why?

Let me let you into a little secret. Coaching might seem like magic, but there are actually a set of tools and techniques that any good coach will have at his or her disposal to use during a session. One of these is great questions, and a good proportion of the...
Save some play for a rainy day

Save some play for a rainy day

During my 100 Days of Play I realised fairly early on that a lifesaver was having a ‘backup’ play activity saved up for when I needed it. It was pretty easy for me to find myself fretting about how I might play on a given day – and getting stressed about the challenge...
How Much Play Do You Need?

How Much Play Do You Need?

I heard from the brilliant Portia Tung over at The School of Play that those magical anonymous scientists are telling us we only need 10 to 15 minutes of play a day to make a real difference. I’m (obviously) a huge fan of play, so I’m not about to suggest that 10...
What’s Play got to do with me?

What’s Play got to do with me?

I hear a lot that play is for other people. Of course, the most common refrain is that play is for children, not the adults who expound this maxim. But I also get it about lots of other groups. “It’s what parents do,” I hear from childless worker bees. “I imagine...

Mindfulness and Coaching

At the start of every coaching session I do, I offer my client a moment of mindfulness. We both sit, if they want to, concentrate on our breathing, and I lead them through a short exercise to get them ‘into the room’ and leaving aside, for the duration of the session,...