Welcome to part 2 of our exploration, with Rob Cooper, of the first 90 days in a new role.

You have had your first month or so, done a deal of sussing out around what’s happening in your organisation and made some key contacts. How should your focus change in the next 30 days of your new role? In this second pod, Rob explores how to take your initial findings and observations and turn them into a coherent plan off action. The expectations on yourself, and expectations of others on you, will now shift towards where you expect, or be expected, to make a difference.

In this pod, Rob explores these five areas: 

1. Creating an action plan out of your observations and discoveries from the first 30 days.
2. How to deliver quick wins and build confidence in your own ability to make a difference in this organisation.
3. Team development - especially how to prepare for inevitable conflict within the team once the initial honeymoon period is passed.
4. Wider communications with those key stakeholders who have their eye on you.
5. The content of a conversation with your coach as you review the first 60 days. Rob discusses the value of focusing on your leadership style and behaviours, how close you are to being the person you set out to be in your first 60 days, reviewing specific times when you felt either successful or compromised, and your levels of confidence and self-esteem in the role.

Discover: 

• How to use the Balanced Business Scorecard to identify an individual business’s priorities. Whilst this will vary from business to business common areas include customers, operations, your own team, and finance.
• Where to find quick wins to make an immediate and tangible difference to the wellbeing and success of the business.
• Why it’s usually better to look for these wins in the second 30 days rather than the first 30, and the risk of trying to make change too quickly.
• Application of the Tuckman Model of team development, particularly how you will deal with conflict and onward team development. 
• Kim Scott's Radical Candor Framework for handling conflict and the difference between what it means to Care Personally and Challenge Directly, and behaviours that can be described as Obnoxious Aggression, Ruinous Empathy and Manipulative Insecurity.

You can contact Rob through his website 2B People of via email at [email protected]. Follow Rob on Linkedin.

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The first 90 days in your new role job are crucial. They set the direction of your influence, impact, and leadership. They can be the difference between getting on a roundabout, falling off the edge of a career cliff, or setting out on the direction to success - for you, your team, and your organisation.

So how do you make the most of those first 90 days?

In the first of three podcasts, Rob Cooper takes us on a journey of three stages - each of 30 days - to help you navigate this formative period in your new role. Rob draws on over 20 years of consultancy and coaching in a variety of business areas, specialising in outplacement - where people are leaving a job compulsorily or voluntarily. Rob shares his experiencing of supporting people into new roles to enable them to make a really successful transition, particularly into a new leadership role.

In this pod, Rob explores four areas: 

1. Orientation and Onboarding (getting familiar with the organisation’s culture, policies, values and key internal and external stakeholders.
2. Assessment and analysis (the state of the business as you begin to discern immediate challenges and opportunities).
3. Building relationship (how to focus these to build success in the future, avoiding the danger of losing credibility in the long-term by over-promising in the short term).
4. Setting exceptions (being clear about your leadership style and how you will need to flex it over time, and aligning your goals with the organisation’s strategic objectives).

Discover: 

• The value of the Johnson and Scholes Cultural Webb Tool to explore company culture, 
• Tips to understand organisational values,
• How to conduct yourself in your initial stakeholder conversations,
• What to look out for in your assessment and analysis activity,
• How you think about the kind of leader you want to be in this organisation,
• How you navigate around the agendas of other people who want to engage you in their agendas,
• The impact of applying straightforward coaching skills in this first 30 days.

You can contact Rob through his website 2B People of via email at [email protected]. Follow Rob on Linkedin.

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“Who’d have thought there was so much in a thank you?” Jeremy J Lewis.

Who indeed. 

What do you say when people say to you: “Thank you”? Do you say “You’re welcome”? “It was nothing” or something else? And what are you trying to convey with your response? Do you get embarrassed when people thank you, do you receive it as a gift, or do you see it as an opportunity, further to build a relationship with someone? Have you thought that the way you respond to Thank You can be a way of valuing yourself, and valuing the person who is thanking you? Have you considered that your response could have the exact opposite effect? 

So let’s explore that. If you thought that saying “Thank you” was nothing more than a way of ending a conversation or social interaction, think again. Instead of politely closing a door, your response could be a way of keeping the door open and giving you a path to continuing the relationship in the future. 

Jeremy and Geoff reflect on how their own responses to people saying to them “Thank you” have changed over time, how they respond now, and what they are seeking to convey when they do. They explore their standard responses to being thanked and also more context specific responses - consciously changing what they say, for example, at the end of a coaching relationship. Since such relationships usually end with the client saying “Thank You” what you say in response will form part of the client’s memory of that relationship, and form part of the basis of any future relationship you may have. 

How might you change your own response to Thank You when a relationship - collegiate or business - reaches a natural and convivial conclusion?

They also explore how a considered response to a Thank You can be part of your business relationship strategy, reflecting on a celebrated approach from Robert Cialdini, professor emeritus at Arizona State University. 

Thank you, for your support for the Coaching York podcast! 

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Let’s be honest, we all mess up from time to time. And usually we want to clean up our mess with a good apology. But what constitutes a really effective apology and how do you craft one? Jeremy and Geoff draw on the wisdom of Stephen Covey, Tony Stolzfus, and Christian sacramental tradition to show you how you can confidently, authentically and sincerely craft a really great apology, and how a coach can support you when you have done all you can to put something right and the other party refuses to respond.

Here are links to Tony Stolzfus’s GUESS acronym,

Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and

Simon Western's Book, Coaching and Mentoring a Critical Text

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When is an apology, not an apology? When it comes with an if, a but, or a deflection. It’s highly likely you have been on the wrong end of someone giving you a faux apology, crafted more for the benefit of the person giving it than for the benefit of the person they have wronged.

So what do you do when faced with a fake apology? Geoff is joined again by Jeremy Lewis for the first of three short pods looking at how coaching can help us respond in common life situations. In this episode they explore the more benign and charming aspects of British behaviour around apologies, before sharing some robust practical approaches to responding to people who try to reverse the roles of victim and perpetrator, and who try to avoid the need to face up what they have done, and to repair the relationships they have damaged.

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Steve Page : Coaching Through Covid.

“The Coaching Through Covid programme.. changed my own perception of my persona as a coach.”

In the second of our two podcasts with Steve, we explore his experiences and reflections on coaching as a volunteer during the pandemic.

• The similarities and differences between coaching clients on a voluntary as opposed to contractual basis - in particular how to set up the relationship, what to expect from from the client, how to define success, and how to decide when to introduce appropriate flexibilities into the coaching arrangement.
• The unique challenges of coaching during the pandemic - especially clients with management responsibilities in care homes - and how Steve’s therapeutic experience combined powerfully with his skills as a coach to meet these challenges.
• What it was like coaching people in structures that were “crumbling before their eyes.”
• How Steve came to a new appreciation of, and confidence in, his skills and practice as a coach in addition to his skills and experience as a therapist and leader in organisations.
• Steve also shares some ideas, from his perspective as a coaching supervisor, on how to make a voluntary offer an integral part of your personal development and coaching practice, as opposed to a short-term offer.
• In conclusion, Geoff and Fiona share some reflections on the first year of the Coaching York podcast and trial some forthcoming episodes.

We hope you have enjoyed listening to these podcasts. Please like, share and comment on Apple Podcasts and Linkedin - this will give more people the chance to listen to the content. Please comment with suggestions for further material.

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The gift of coaching as a volunteer. Part 1 with Steve Page

“The people I have spoken to are awesome.”

In the first of two episodes we meet Steve Page, who has had a long and distinguished career in therapy, coaching and university support services. He is also a fine sculptor.

Steve and Fiona discuss:

• the idea of voluntary coaching as “gift” when both parties experience benefits from the relationship;
• their respective motivations for voluntary coaching (in Fiona’s case with the Prince’s Trust); and
• what motivates them to engage in the various voluntary coaching opportunities they have chosen to invest time in.

Geoff discusses with Steve his continuing experiences of working with Colleagues Across Borders, an organisation that works with refugee organisations. Many of the workers are trained by the UNHCR and they are themselves refugees. 

Steve shares about:

• the challenges of working with people whose life experiences are vastly different to his own;
• how to find points of contact with his coachees (including common interest in the Liverpool footballer Mo Salah (!));
• his growing cultural knowledge about different African cultures and how they perceive each other;
• what to do when you don’t know anything about a subject the coachee shares;
• the value that Steve was and is able to share through this work; and
• the various “gifts” Steve has himself received from his experience in working in this context.

Next week we explore Steve’s experiences of Coaching through Covid.

Steve is a published author. He is the author of: The Shadow and the Counsellor: Working with the Darker Aspects of the Person, the Role and the Profession, (1999), London; Routledge,

and co-author, with Val Wosket of Supervising the Counsellor and Psychotherapist: A cyclical model, (3rd edn 2014), Lonodon; Routlege.

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“I approach life differently now.”

In the second of our podcasts on ADHD Helena shares her own experience of living with ADHD and how her life changed after she received her diagnosis.

She goes on to explore how coaches can support leaders who manage people with ADHD, including taking the opportunity to promote neurodiversity in the workplace, and other sources of support - such as Access to Work – which are readily available for organisations and their employees.

Helena explores in greater detail ADHD challenges, such as memory and time blindness, and the insights we can apply when we understand the difference between an “interest driven” brain, and an “importance driven” brain.

To contact Helena for coaching or coach supervision, resources to understand ADHD better and other sources of help, visit her website HATCHED coaching. 

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What does it mean to be neurodivergent in a neurotypical world? In this first of two podcasts, Fiona and Geoff are joined by Helena Territt, an Executive Coach with a specialism in Neurodiversity. They explore coaching people with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) - a growing trend in our society today.

Helena describes ADHD as not so much a deficit of attention, as much as having too much attention with the attendant challenge of regulating where it all goes. In adults the ‘hyperactivity’ tends to me more internal than external. This results in the twin challenges of managing the internal and external flows of data. It’s like having a Ferrari brain with bicycle brakes. 

Helena outlines the challenges of prioritisation, regulating attention and emotion, working memory, and managing impulses (where we find out about the marshmallow test). We also begin to explore typical strengths found in ADHDers - creativity, the ability to hyper focus to achieve results, endless curiosity, excellent system thinking skills, and the ability to take in a lot of information at once. 

They explore how ADHD coaching works with the internal and self-defining stories people tell themselves, the particular ways strengths assessments can be used with this client group, and the combination of factors that the coach needs to be aware of, and actively working with, as they journey with their clients.

Helena refers to The AFEEMA model which is a useful, (if somewhat deficit focused) way of understanding ADHD. And here’s a great article which highlights ADHD strengths and summarises some of the key points Helena makes about working successfully with ADHDers.

You can connect with Helena at her website HATCHED coaching.

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Where’s the boundary between coaching and therapy? As a coach, how can you spot when you might be straying into a territory for which have neither a passport nor travel insurance?

As we continue our conversation with David Britten around coaching and therapy we explore what coaches need to consider when they think they are at the boundary of their experience or competence, before considering a fascinating example of how coaches and therapists worked together as a team to support better mental health in a particular community. 

We reflect further on how coaching can support better mental health through its focus on strengths, values, and ability to inspire hope in a better future or vision of oneself.

David concludes with some next steps for coaches looking to explore this area further, and questions that a client would be wise to consider when looking for a therapist to work with.

To contact David, go to https://rb.gy/qmiev

Some further reading recommended by David: 

Andrew and Carole Buckley (2006), A guide to coaching and mental health. Routledge 

Francine Campone (2014) At the border: Coaching client with dissociative identity disorder. International Journal of Evidence-Based Coaching and Mentoring, 12 (1), pp. 1-13

Julia Vaughan Smith (2019) Coaching and trauma. Open University Press – David writes: “I have some reservations about this one as it broadens the notion of trauma more than many in the therapy world would agree with, but it’s interesting nonetheless.”

Nash Popovic and Debra Jinks (2013) Personal consultancy: A model for integrating counselling and coaching. Routledge.

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