Coaching for success with a soul
I’m writing this at the Winter Solstice. It’s one of those still Dartmoor winter afternoons, there’s a blanket of motionless grey clouds and not a breath of wind. Earlier a buzzard wheeled lazily over our rooftop, the only movement in a sky where even the ubiquitous rooks were still and silent. Though it’s only 4:15pm …
Continue reading “At the still point of the turning year – solstice reflections…”
Granite. A glittering, resilient rock. The Barefoot Barn where we hold our Wise Goose Devon training programmes stands upon granite, the house I live in is built from it. Both overlook the huge granite plug of Dartmoor. Granite is one of the defining characteristics of this place. The moaning, whistling, howling or …
On ancient maps of the world cartographers, perhaps believing the world was flat, would write: ‘beyond here be monsters’. Fear of what lay beyond the edge of the known world kept their world small. Today we smile at how wrong this perspective is; we know that over that imagined rim lay whole new worlds. …
I have the quote above from Thomas Berry, scribbled on a post-it on my desk. Some days it brings out a smile and a sense of purpose. Some days it feels like a bad joke. I am a ‘glass half full’ person but as I look at many of the changes currently sweeping through the …
Continue reading ““The present is not a time for desperation but for hopeful activity.””
As the nights draw in and another year draws to a close, its a natural time to pause and reflect. I’ve been looking back and asking: Has this year brought me closer to the goals I’d imagined for Wise Goose this time last year? Have we made the most of the opportunities and the gifts that …
Sunday morning was definitely on the chilly side, bright and beautiful but with an unmistakable sense that autumn is elbowing summer out of the way. As the equinox brings shorter days I feel an impulse to turn inwards and take some down time. But I have to keep busy; I launched a new one year …
Have you ever been ignored, rejected or felt slighted by a colleague or a boss? Have you ever given someone the ‘silent treatment’? Silent bullying is common and costly, I know a lovely woman who was so badly shunned by her boss she became depressed, burnt-out and left a career she loved. I’ve also …
Continue reading “Tackling silent bullying in the workplace”
Management is out of fashion, not many people want to be called a manager, they might want their title to be leader, or entrepreneur, or even coach – but manager? Executives have been getting bad press for years now, they are thought to lack integrity, a 2008 Gallup poll on honesty and ethics found that …
Continue reading ““A Magnificent Profession” – The future of management?”
What do you most deeply and profoundly love? What are your deepest and most profound gifts? What are your most profound responsibilities? On Friday, sixty of us, mostly coaches, spent the day at Embercombe reflecting on these questions. Embercombe is a delight, ‘a garden that grows people’ a place dedicated to touching hearts, stimulating …
Last week I shared this photo on Facebook of Joolz Lewis. We first met earlier this year through Plymouth University’s ‘Futures’. I took the photo at the Bakehouse in Cullompton where we’d met for lunch to celebrate the launch of her first book ‘Enlightened Business: Leadership for Sustainable Success’. What a lunch! The food was …