I think there are only two options: make progress or make excuses.
““Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses, and start making changes.””
Know your worth
Once you understand the power of your words, you won’t just say anything.
Once you understand the power of your thoughts, you won’t just think anything.
And once you understand the power of your presence, you won’t just be anywhere.
Never break the silence
The STOKeRS Model is new to me, so I did a little research and found out that it’s a coaching framework designed to facilitate effective conversations, particularly during the goal-setting phase of coaching sessions. Developed by Claire Pedrick, this model helps coaches ensure that key elements are covered during their interactions with clients.
• Subject – What should we focus on today?
• Time – Given we have “X” minutes today, what about that do we need to focus on?
• Outcome – What would you like to be different at the end of our time together?
• Know – How will you know you have got what you need out of this time?
• Role – How are we going to do this?
• Start – Where shall we start?
Building a new team
In any team project, the journey to success often involves navigating through distinct stages:
1st Stage: Forming, when the team members come together and start to understand each other's roles and strengths.
2nd Stage: Storming, this phase is often marked by conflicts and challenges as different opinions and working styles clash.
3rd Stage: Norming, where the team begins to resolve differences, establish norms, and work more cohesively.
4th Stage: Performing, the final stage where the team operates at its highest potential, efficiently and effectively achieving its goals.
At what stage is your team? Contact me via email if you would like some guidance on your journey.
““The only skill that will be important in the 21st century is the skill of learning new skills. Everything else will become obsolete over time.””
Fine-tuning our minds
The words you use to frame your current situation will change your mindset and elevate your mood. A positive mindset allows you to stay open to new possibilities where others see barriers, and a positive mood will lift your spirits and attract people in your life who will help, support, or hire you. I think successful individuals in any field used positive words to frame an outcome. It's an imperfect world, and despite hours of practice and years of experience, the ball won't always bounce your way, you'll be dealt a bad hand, or an unprecedented pandemic will shift your plans.
““We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the secret sits in the middle and knows.””
Setting a compelling vision
As a leader, you need to maintain the right balance between distance and closeness. When giving instructions, be clear and direct about what needs to be done, and when explaining how to accomplish the tasks, be approachable and supportive. I think it's also essential to provide your team with a clear understanding of both the tasks at hand and the underlying purpose behind them. This clarity helps them see the value in their work and understand why it matters, motivating them to fully commit to the goals you set.
Build a culture of respect
Everyone has an inherent desire to feel recognised, competent, and accepted, and to be admired for their contributions. This is why it’s crucial to approach challenging feedback with careful consideration and sensitivity. I think when providing feedback, it's important to protect the "status-need" of your colleagues by directing your focus on the work or behaviour at hand, rather than making it personal. By critiquing the work and not the individual will help to engage your colleagues in a collaborative dialogue, encouraging the discovery of shared solutions which fosters a sense of partnership and teamwork.
Diversity benefits
Why is it so hard to capture the benefits of diversity?
When we meet someone new, we usually look for things we have in common with them, such as sports, TV shows, education, children, or country of origin.
Try a new challenge: the next time you're interacting with someone new who looks different from you, instead of looking for similarities, embrace your differences. Talk about what makes you unique and different from the other person. Ask them about their life, their story, and the experiences they've gone through that you can learn from. Don’t focus on how you are alike; focus on how you are different. Try this for five minutes.
I guarantee you that the environment you create will be one where differences are normal. No two individuals are the same, and you should not expect people to be just like you. I think you should expect everyone you interact with to be different. And if you can create this kind of environment in your organisations, schools, and families, you will find that the value of diversity is there for you to capture.
Make a better argument
Diverse groups have to think harder about the problem because they tend to disagree with each other and therefore, have to have better arguments. I think you can compare diverse groups to going to the gym. When you go to the gym if you stand still then nothing happens. You have to push yourself, use your muscles and then you’ll see that the pain that you feel in your muscles is going to lead to some benefits, and these are the benefits that you want. This is the same thing as diversity, the discomfort that you feel when you’re interacting with someone who looks different from you – who has a different accent than you, who’s a little harder to understand. The hard work that you’re doing will pay off.
Learning about yourself
Insights about yourself or the situation at hand lead to actions and behavior changes. Positive behavior changes create an impact, which in turn generates new insights and awareness, perpetuating the cycle. When coaching one has to park our ego and let our coachees' achievements shine, amplifying their successes. I think it’s important to find the right balance between helping others and helping yourself.
““A rising tide lifts all boats.””
A lifetime of consumption
It’s important to find and face the truth, meaning to see the gap between where you are and where you want to be. A capitalistic society requires all of us to have a sense of incompleteness for it to survive, and that’s what keeps the wheels turning. Without this sense of incompleteness, we wouldn't be buying as many products or consuming as much. When we start looking at the environment or climate issues, addressing them requires us to live more sustainably. This, in turn, requires us to look at ourselves and ask: Why do we have the desire to possess so much? What do we really want to do, and why do we want it?
Self-care is the key
What does success mean to you?
S - See you goal
U - Understand the obstacles
C - Create a positive mental picture
C - Clear your mind of self-doubt
E - Embrace the challenge
S - Stay on track
S - Show the world you can do it
How do you think?
Before you start speaking THINK
T – Is it true?
H – Is it helpful?
I – Is it inspiring?
N – Is it necessary?
K – Is it kind?
Tailor-made solutions
Our tailor-made coaching for performance solutions aim to foster a culture of respect and inclusivity, which effectively enhances teamwork, communication, and productivity. Research has shown that creating a positive work environment boosts productivity, promotes teamwork, reduces turnover rates, and improves employee satisfaction. By investing in coaching for performance, you can help your employees develop the skills they need to perform at their best and contribute to the overall success of your company. Contact me via email for a free 30-minute discovery call.
““Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.” ”
Word salad
I think faith and doubt are both beliefs. Most people think faith is belief and doubt are the absence of belief. Faith is the belief of the outcome I desire, and doubt is the belief of the outcome I don’t desire. When I have more belief in the outcome, I don’t desire than in the outcome I do desire, I have doubt, and I don’t have faith. And both of them are a belief.
Frames create focus
You will control your life when you learn how to control energy, and you will not control energy unless you control yourself and your emotions. I think the first steps to spiritual advancement and increasing your strength involve self-control.
Everything has a positive and a negative side. It’s impossible for anything to exist with only one side. For example, have you ever seen a one-sided coin, a one-sided piece of paper, or a one-sided piece of bread? If something exists and has a negative aspect, there must be something positive about it at the same time, and vice versa.
““When we are no longer able to change the situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Hope and positive energy can turn challenges into triumphs.””
Building a solid baseline
Have you looked at your end-to-end customer journey and figured out how to win?
To effectively win in today's market, it is crucial to examine your end-to-end customer journey. When consumers hear about a product, their first reaction is often to search online. This initiates a journey of discovery about the product, service, issue, or opportunity. In this context, you're not just competing with other companies but also keeping pace with advancing technology and the evolving expectations of your consumers. There are two key players in this scenario: the end-user, who conducts the research, and the sales/marketing team, which must be strategically present and prepared to engage with the end-user at the critical moment of their search. I think success hinges on being able to build a relationship with the customer exactly when they are looking for you.
It’s a cognitive process
Drawing from my own life experiences, I believe we can benefit greatly from the diversity around us. I think about diversity as both the social categories people bring, such as religion, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and age, and also the characteristics we use within organisations to identify similarities and differences among individuals. These characteristics might include job functions like marketing or finance, or aspects of seniority, such as when someone joined the organisation or under which CEO. We often use these differences to make predictions about people. Are we taking advantage of the diversity that we have?
Examining assumptions
When you are born and raised within a culture where people look alike on the surface, in a homogeneous environment, how do you react when you meet people who don’t look like you? Is there really a causal relationship between having some surface level differences in a group and the ability of the group to actually benefit from the different perspectives and ideas that they have? Not everybody in the group knows the same information or have had the same experiences, values or background as yourself. It's been proven over and over again that diverse groups outperform homogeneous groups. Diverse groups are more likely to share their unique information and perspectives that they have in their heads when they see that there’s some surface level differences amongst them.
Think differently
We use social characteristics to determine who is similar to us and who’s different from us. What are their values? What are their perspectives? What are their experiences? What is it they bring to the table? There are surface level differences and deeper differences, and due to our biases, we use what we see on the surface to make predictions about people. To make predictions about what they think and how they feel. Diversity is also about what people actually think.