This week on the Coaching Café we speak with Ian Scott, a distinguished leader with 36 years of experience in the Royal Australian Air Force to explore the intricacies of building a coaching culture across very different environments and the remarkable impact it can have.

In this inspirational Coaching Café, Natalie interviews Ian Scott. Ian Scott’s career journey is nothing short of impressive. He has spent 36 years in the Royal Australian Air Force, holding diverse roles in operations, strategy analysis, development, policy implementation, and command of different squadrons.

However, what sets Ian apart is his transition into various roles beyond the Air Force. He has become an accomplished facilitator, workplace and business coach, and a licensed mental health first aid practitioner. Ian has also taken on the role of developing leadership coaching programs for commanders in the Air Force, as well as executives and managers. His extensive work, both locally and globally, with Rotary International further exemplifies his dedication to community service.

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Best practice suggests that the implementation of a Leader as Coach or Manager as Coach program into organisations, provides the essential catalyst for the rollout of coaching.

Air Force call it the ‘force multiplier effect’.  Coaching a group of people to go out and implement coaching conversations in the workplace.

So this week on the Coaching Café join Natalie and Paula as we continue our discussion around implementing a culture of coaching by looking at a very important element – the implementation of Leader as Coach or Manager as Coach programs.

In particular, we will share the ‘top 5 coaching tools’ that are included in the programs to achieve maximum results across everyday conversations.

Transcripts can be found here: 

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This week in our Coaching Café we kick off a series of looking at best practice in building a culture of coaching within our organisations. 

Many of us across the Open Door Coaching Alumni are involved in introducing coaching into teams, business units and into the organisation, with the view of creating a culture of coaching in the workplace.  However, some people ask: 

‘is it even possible’ or 

‘is that what we should be aiming for?’ 

and ‘if that’s what we want…well how do you go about it?’

In this webinar, Natalie and Paula take us back to the Coaching Culture FrameworkTM which is being used as the best practice framework to underpin the implementation of coaching in many organisations, and is featured in our Diploma of Organisational Coaching (10835NAT) program.  

Join us as we explain: What is a coaching culture? Why is it so important? And share the Framework for implementation.  It is also a good chance to review what’s happening in your organisation against best practice.

Get ready to be inspired! 

Transcripts can be found here: 

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I’m juggling so many things (mental health conversations in the workplace)

‘I’m just juggling so many things’, is a common comment that we hear in coaching conversations.

We are all juggling work commitments, on top of looking after our teams, home, family, physical and mental health and the list goes on.  Add the pressure of competing deadlines and priorities and the juggling becomes even more challenging.  For some, there is a feeling of not even having 10 minutes of time for myself.

And we hear: ‘I’m looking after everyone else…who’s looking after me?’

Join Natalie and Paula and wider Open Door community as we continue our discussions about mental health in the workplace.  We will take a break from the juggling, to discuss coaching strategies and a positive mindful approach to focus on ourselves.

We can almost guarantee that you’ll feel a lot better after this webinar!

Transcripts can be found here: 

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‘I’m not sure it’s my role’, was a comment we received recently during a presentation on mental health converastions in the workplace.

We may notice that a work colleague or client is not their normal self. Perhaps their behaviour has changed or the language they are using and their demeanour is different.

But the person in the workshop was worried that they didn’t really ‘feel it was their place’ to approach the person.

It’s not uncommon to wonder whether it’s your job to start a mental health conversation or actually how to do that.  Alternatively, whether you should get others involved, for example HR.

In addition, as a manager or coach, when do you take off your coaching hat, and focus on a mental health conversation?

During our Coaching Café this week join Natalie and Paula as they focus on mental health in the workplace and talk about the role we can play, including what to say, what not to say.

Transcripts can be found here: 

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Research suggests that when managers focus on strengths during performance this can lead to an uplift of 36.5% in performance. In addition, engagement increases, productivity increases and absenteeism decreases.

When we first heard these statistics many years ago now, we simply said, ‘tell me more!!!’ and it opened the doors (pardon the pun) to developing our strengths-based approach to coaching.

Today, a strengths-based approach to coaching has never been more important. There’s a lot of fatigue happening in our workplaces; people are feeling under-valued and tired.  And this is where coaching really comes in handy.  Particularly when it comes to the annual performance review and ensuring that people are feeling energised by the conversation.

There is a lot we can do to coach our managers and team members to have successful strengths-based performance conversations. And to create a real and lasting positive impact. So join us for this Coaching Café where we will share how the strengths-based approach really works for the annual performance conversation.

Whether you are involved in developing annual performance systems, coaching managers, a manager embarking on the performance season, or getting yourself ready for your own performance review, this is a webinar that we are all going to benefit from.

Transcripts can be found here: 

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We continue our focus on getting ready for annual performance reviews during our Coaching Café this week.  Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve looked at key tips and a framework to set those conversations up for success.  This week we turn our attention to the trickier performance conversations.

We were recently asked by a frustrated manager:

What do you do about the people who think they are meeting expectations, but they aren’t?

Or they don’t have goals? Don’t really care? Aren’t prepared or are just working out to retirement?  You have to write something on the form!

We hear you! And this is where coaching really comes in handy.  At Open Door we want you to get on the front foot. So in our Coaching Café this week Natalie and our Resident HR Specialist, Paula-Jones Hunt will turn their attention to the trickier conversations and how a coaching approach can work.  We will also share another of Open Door’s coaching tools for performance conversations that works in these situations.

Whether you are involved in developing annual performance systems, coaching managers, a manager embarking on the annual performance review season, or getting yourself ready for your own performance review, this is a webinar that we are all going to benefit from.

Transcripts can be found here: 

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This week we continue our Coaching Café series on coaching for successful performance conversations.

There is a lot we can do to coach our managers and team members to have successful annual performance conversations. Performance conversations that lead people to feel proud and energised about their work; rather than dreading this time of year and for some thinking about all the extra work that it may involve – on top of everything else in your plate.

And we know that success during this time comes down to preparation. Preparing a good set of questions that we can ask is important, but providing these questions to the team member ahead of time is even better.

At Open Door we want you to get on the front foot with performance conversations.

So we have asked our Resident HR Specialist, Paula-Jones Hunt to join us for our Coaching Café to share with us how a coaching approach really works for the annual performance conversation.  This includes a good set of quality questions that we can ask during the performance conversation. And most importantly questions that your team member can prepare.

Transcripts can be found here: 

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For many people getting what you need out of a performance conversation can be really challenging. Especially if those conversations are linked to salary increases. And let’s face it, given the gender pay gap, the challenge is greater for women.

So we’ve called in the expert to assist us with this conversation.

Join us for the Coaching Café this week, where we interview Anneli Blundell, author of The Gender Penalty: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities for Women at Work.

Anneli will share highlights from her new book including the 5 gender penalties and how the performance conversation season can either exacerbate the penalties, or we can coach to overcome these gender penalties.

Whether you are involved in developing annual performance systems, coaching managers, a manager embarking on the performance season, or getting yourself ready for your own performance review, this is a webinar that we are all going to benefit from.

Transcripts can be found here: 

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The change of season from Autumn to Winter brings the cold, rain and dark nights here in the Southern parts of Australia and it’s also about this time that organisations enter the performance review season.

But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom for performance conversations this year (especially if you’ve implemented our ideas from last year!).  At Open Door we are bringing back our most popular set of Coaching Cafes to help you coach your team to set up and deliver successful annual performance conversations this year.

The annual performance review season means trying to schedule in appointments with the team; meeting the demands from HR Managers to submit reviews by deadlines; and for many people, assisting managers to have good quality conversations.

This is where coaching really comes in handy.

There is a lot we can do to coach our managers and team members to have successful annual performance conversations. Performance conversations that lead people to feel proud and energised about their work; rather than dreading this time of year and for some thinking about all the extra work that it may involve – on top of everything else in your plate.

At Open Door we want you to get on the front foot. So we have asked our Resident HR Specialist, Paula-Jones Hunt to join us for our Coaching Café to share with us how a coaching approach really works for the annual performance conversation.


Whether you are involved in developing annual performance systems, coaching managers, a manager embarking on the performance season, or getting yourself ready for your own performance review, this is a webinar that we are all going to benefit from.

Transcripts can be found here: 

Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed the podcast please leave us a 5 star review wherever you listened to us! It helps promote the podcast to streaming services and other listeners. Also drop the podcast a follow! 

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