Category: coaching

Coaching news – July 2022
As we head into summer, I have been taking a break from work and headed to the Welsh coast for a well earned break. I am continuing my work with a number of clients over the summer, but having just completed my current coach training I will also have time to focus on other aspects of my practice including catching up on a whole host of books I am hoping to read.

Whatever your plans for the coming months, I hope you find some rest ahead of the new academic year and enjoy the warmer weather.

Blog posts and resources

This month I am sharing a blog post reflecting on different frameworks to think with. Not necessarily to adopt them whole, but because they usually offer me small nuggets of inspiration. It’s helped me find new ways to explore traits, motivations or fears and also where to turn if you can’t find a framework that feels right for you: Read Nuggets of inspiration: how we work and what works for us .You can find free coaching resources via my website and this time I have two new posts to share: try out a resource to help you reflect on different modes of working, whether from home, hybrid or in the office and exploring Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies and find out about what type of accountability works best for you:
- Reflecting on different modes of working
- Exploring Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies
Current coaching offers

For existing clients who feel like you are just getting started or want to continue our work together I offer a discounted package of six sessions for £210 which includes six one hour sessions, a coaching plan, resources and accountability check-ins.
Although I currently have no slots for new pro-bono clients, I do have a wait-list for new pro-bono clients looking to start coaching with me in autumn.
03/07/2022
Nuggets of inspiration: how we work and what works for us
I like revisiting or exploring different frameworks to think with, not necessarily to adopt them whole, but because they usually offer me small nuggets of inspiration. Here are some examples of what I explored and what I found out along the way:

Ways to explore your traits, motivations or fears
- Enneagram Core Motivations: This is a tool which combines modern psychology with an ancient personality system, and it helps you identify one of nine core motivations. There is a helpful post that explains how to choose your type, and plenty of free online tests available to experiment with. I found this really helpful as a prompt for reflection and enjoyed thinking about which core motivations I would NOT choose and why.
- Gallup Clifton Strengths Assessment: this is a popular assessment tool, particularly in a work context. Whilst the assessment tools either require a paid subscription or one off fee for completion, there is a wealth of articles, tools and resources online via the official site. This could be good fit for you if you are working in a large organisation for example, and may be something employers offer.
- Myers Briggs Personality Types: This is probably one of the best known frameworks, and it offers free online tests as well as resources to explore. I have done several of these over the years as part of recruitment and coaching, and always found it helpful not least because it’s interesting to see if your answers change over time.
- Spark Types: This framework offers a free test to help you find your Spark Type and is based on the work of Jonathan Fields, and his accompanying book ‘Sparked – Discover your unique imprint for work and what makes you come alive’.
- Harvard Business Review: If you prefer to explore rather than do an assessment, there are plenty of examples online to help you reflect on different leadership styles or personality types. I found the later video especially helpful as it focuses on potential limits rather than strengths.
Beyond finding a fit

At times, finding a framework you feel affinity with can be hard or feel unproductive. So here are some ideas for what I explored in that situation, starting with Emilie Wapnick’s TED talk and related book, How to Be Everything (and you can be a ‘multi-potentional-ite’). I have always been interested in working (and thinking) at the intersection of different interests, different disciplines, and so the perspective Wapnick shares chimes with me.
27/05/2022
Exploring Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies

I was curious to explore this particular framework, especially as I sometimes listen to the Gretchen Rubin podcasts.

Four Tendencies described

There is a dedicated book that makes for interesting reading, however to get started, here is how Gretchen Rubin explore the concept:

By asking the one simple question, “How do I respond to expectations?” we gain exciting insight into ourselves. And when we know how other people respond to expectations, we understand them far more effectively, as well.
We all face two kinds of expectations—outer expectations (meet work deadlines, answer a request from a friend) and inner expectations (keep a New Year’s resolution, start meditating). Our response to expectations determines our “Tendency”—that is, whether we fit into the category of Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel.
Knowing our Tendency can help us set up situations in the ways that make it more likely that we’ll achieve our aims. We can make better decisions, meet deadlines, meet our promises to ourselves, suffer less stress, and engage more deeply with others.
https://quiz.gretchenrubin.com/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=homepage

Taking the quiz and what I got from it

Whilst you do need to provide an email address to complete the short quiz, it is free and has been taken by 3 million users. I always find myself choosing between options and feel a little that none of them really describe me particularly well, but it is not too long and the result feels authentic: My dominant tendency is to be an Upholder (“I do what others expect of me—and what I expect from myself.”) and that rings true to how I see myself.

The report I receive is four pages long and I find it helpful to read through it. It mentions both upsides and challenges of this particular tendency when it comes to communication, work and daily habits.

A new insight I take away from the quiz is that whilst there is a ‘relentlessness’ about this kind of person, which can be tiring for me and those around me (something I AM familiar with) there is also a suggestion that being good at keeping commitments to myself and a strong sense of self preservation helps protect me from burnout.

There are quite a few books by Gretchen Rubin that I haven’t read, including the Happiness Project, and the one that appeals to me the most is about daily habits, called Better Than Before. So that is going on my reading list 🙂

Explore for yourself

If you’d like to explore the quiz for yourself, head to the online quiz page and get started.

10/05/2022
Reflecting on different modes of working
As part of my work on the Leading Virtual Teams book, I have been careful to define what is meant by terms describing different ways of working. It’s taken me a while to bring the various terms together, and to reflect on their meaning not just now, but also before the advent of digital technologies and more widely available, reliable, high speed internet connections.

In my childhood days for example, selling Tupperware from your garage was a popular way for women to work from home alongside bringing up children, for example, and that didn’t involve Zoom calls or being online at all.

Similarly, there are many industries in which distributed working (i.e. across a number of different geographical locations) or working remotely (away from a central location such as a campus or corporate HQ) has been commonplace well before we had the capacity to take much of our “office” with us in the form of a laptop or even mobile device.

Graphic showing an overview of different Modes of Working – CC-BY by Dr Maren Deepwell, Leading Virtual Teams (2022)

One of the key themes of the work I have been doing is reflecting on how the way we work impacts on us. More specifically, I am interested in how different modes of working impact on particular aspects of our lives such as physical and mental health, work/life balance or a sense of connectedness.

Inspired by my coach training, in which our coach trainer recently asked us to practice with a coaching tool called Wheel of Life, I have adapted this coaching tool to explore different ways of working such as working from home, hybrid working,
distributed or remote working and working in virtual teams and reflect on how the way you work impacts on you and your life.

Here is one example focused on hybrid working:

Example of a wheel adapted to reflect on hybrid working

Each wheel contains eight sections, including one which is blank for you to add your own category. I have been experimenting with what categories to include based on the research I have undertaken, and the mix of what’s included changes for different modes of working.

For hybrid working, you could reflect on and score:
- Home working environment
- Work/life balance
- Physical and mental health
- Care and family responsibilities
- Socialising with colleagues
- Commute
- Office or campus work environment
- and… a category of your choice
Here is another example that I have completed for working as a virtual team:

Example of a wheel with scores adapted to reflect on working in a virtual team

In this example, I have added a lower score for “Virtual socialising with colleagues” and high scores for areas like “work/life balance” and “home working environment”.

Try out this resource

You can download this resource and use it or adapt it to better suit your particular needs.
- Download PDF
- Access Google slides version
If you have any feedback or comments, I would love to hear from you. Contact me.
17/04/2022
Coach in training
In January I officially started my coach training in order to become an accredited coach, an ICF Associate Certified Coach, via Katie Linder’s Higher Ed Coach Training. Having completed the first part of the course, I am about to start the next one, which will focus on coaching fundamentals in a deeper way.

The notebook pictured above is my celebration, a gift to myself for taking this next step along the path to getting formally credentialed.

The coach training includes formal assessment, and it’s been a while since I last had to write an assessed essay or undertake an exam! I found the experience really positive however, and appreciated that we had a number of assessment options to choose from.

One of the options I didn’t pick was to develop new coaching tools, and whilst I didn’t do it for the assessment, it has inspired me to start designing some new tools to try out and share with my fellow coaches.

Coaching practice

What’s most rewarding for me about coach training is working with clients. I really enjoy working together to reflect, set new goals and find out what the next step might be. Some of the tools I have been working with include writing a personal mission or vision statement (in one sentence), which is harder than it sounds.

I tried it out for myself, and it prompted interesting reflections for me. If you’d like to have a go yourself, start with your goal and values and try to express these in one sentence.

Curious about coaching?

I currently offer prop-bono coaching and discounts for paying clients as part of completing my coach training. All coaching with me includes:
- Exploratory conversation
- Coaching plan
- Six 1-hour coaching sessions (online)
- Coaching resources
If you are interested in coaching, get in touch to arrange a free 30 min conversation to find out if coaching with me is a good fit for you.

1-to-1 Coaching package: £210 for six sessions (normal price £420)
07/04/2022
Walking into a coaching mindset

In January I officially started my coach training in order to become an accredited coach, an ICF Associate Certified Coach, via Katie Linder’s Higher Ed Coach Training.

We are now in Week 7 of the course and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I have learnt a lot in the first few weeks of the training, met some amazing people and started to develop a whole range of skills. It’s been a very motivating part of my practice and I find myself looking forward to each Saturday night’s session.

Whilst the training is very comprehensive, the hours required fit well around my existing commitments, and I have been listening to readings on walks in the evening and at weekends.

Along the way, I have set up a summary page about the work I am doing, and as my first pro-bono clients start coming on board, I have started to share coaching information and resources .

Adopting a new mindset

One of the things I have found the most interesting so far, is adopting a new mindset – a mindset that is focused very much on whomever I am working with. It’s fascinating to focus on not knowing the answers, but to be curious about what we might discover together.

Curiosity is something I value highly and it’s an element of coaching that I find suits me very well. I like asking questions, and I always try to keep an open mind about what might be at the end of a thought process or a conversation, and the coach training helps me develop a new way of doing that.

Initially I was expecting it to be challenging not to give advice or offer answers because that is often what my work requires of me day to day. But I haven’t found it to be a problem at all, quite the reverse. Focusing on my clients priorities has helped me adopt a new, a coaching mindset.

Walking and coaching (literally)

One idea I have had that is inspired by my previous experiences of walking line management meetings is to offer established clients I work with sessions that enable us to walk and talk. Here is what I have in mind:

Walk with your coach

Sometimes a video call is not the best environment to get us thinking, so for established clients I offer coaching sessions whilst we walk. Usually, this would be coaching via a phone call, but if you are based locally, we could also meet in person. Walking coaching sessions are particularly suited to think together about difficult situations or to reflect on a particular problem or idea.

21/02/2022