I think one of the seminal skills in life is learning to be honest. From a very early age, we learn to deceive mom and dad. We learn to hide the food we didn’t want to eat, we deny that we called someone a name, we exaggerate on our accomplishments and swear we […]
The use of testing and feedback speeds up the process of change by many times. How would a mechanic diagnose a automotive problem without a way to test? A physician uses tests to determine what an ailment is and decide what the best treatment might be. Tests are valuable in so many […]
I generally just write what is currently on my mind each day. The feedback I get is that people seem to like most of the entries but I’d like to know what you would most like to hear about. Is there any particular entry that interested you and you would like to know […]
It seems that many people don’t understand the concept of positive and negative reinforcement of behavior. In misunderstanding the concept they unintentionally create problems through their own behavior. Positive reinforcement means doing something that will increase the likelihood of a behavior recurring or continuing. Negative reinforcement is doing something that decreases the […]
In my view there are four different levels of testing for an organization.
1. Executive/manager testing
2. Coach level testing
3. Team level testing
4. Individual testing
For each of these levels there are appropriate instruments to capture the information needed to guide that person or group. I will go through these in detail over the next […]
I work with many international companies. In any given meeting of managers I will often have people who were born on four or five continents in the same room. Many team coaches have team members who come from several different countries, may speak several different languages, have several different religions and much more. […]
I love to rollerblade and am about the only 54 year old man I know that is crazy enough to do it. I wear all the appropriate gear of course, but still take a tumble occasionally. Yesterday I went out in 101 heat to rollerblade in the beautiful streamways park system we have […]
The internet has made testing both easier and more dangerous than in the past. There are any number of tests on line that teams and coaches can take, many are good, a lot are poor or worse. Even the good ones can be seriously misused. What are some guidelines for tests and […]
This was a pretty dramatic case in some ways, but in other ways, it was pretty normal. Time after time I hear and see people change their behavior rapidly when they are given reliable and accurate information about themselves. As a coach, I believe people can change more easily than they realize. […]
When I next saw him, he looked like a different person! The scowl was gone, there was no anger in his face, he was relaxed, smiled a lot, spoke easily and positively. I asked him, “How have you been since we talked?” He broke into an amazing story of how he had […]
This is a case study but some of the facts and details have been changed to ensure confidentiality.
Coaching a manager recently I used a 360 instrument that gets feedback from nine coworkers in a very well developed easy to understand format. Reviewing the results with him we looked at his current strengths […]
I work with organizations that want to create a performance culture. Many have tried to create change in the past or have created change but did not get as far as they liked. I have studied these organizations to understand what prevented the change or impeded it in the past. While there […]
Tools of the Coach Part III
The key to using coaching tools is to learn them well and use them regularly. With exposure and practice the coach will learn how to use the information the tools reveal to them. As a clinical psychologist many years ago I learned that regular use of a set of tools in counseling helped […]