When I started working in corporate in 1994, one of the first three books I bought was Edward de Bono’s Thinking Course, the source of his Direct Attention Thinking Tools (DATT). Three decades on, it is still on my shelf, still underlined, and still one of the frameworks I reach for most, both personally and in my coaching work. I have [...]
A practical, science-informed guide to staying resilient, motivated, and mentally steady in a difficult job with poor management, shift work, low morale, or constant stress.
Executive coaching is widely used, but does it actually work? A meta-analysis of 20 randomised controlled trials shows that coaching delivers measurable results, particularly in behavioural change, strategic thinking, resilience, and goal achievement. Here is what the best available research reveals about the real impact of executive coaching.
Stop fighting human nature. Discover how to use Kurt Lewin’s B = f(P, E) formula to remove friction, align your team, and make behaviour change inevitable rather than forced.
Behaviour change in organisations rarely fails because of strategy. It fails because the environment makes the right behaviour harder than the wrong one. This guide explores fifteen behavioural design strategies leaders can use to shape motivation, reduce friction, and make high performance the natural path for their teams.
Behaviour change often fails not because leaders lack insight, but because they lack a practical framework for turning intention into action. This guide explores the Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy and shows how leaders can use evidence-based strategies to improve performance, shape culture, and make organisational change stick.
Coaching becomes powerful when the coachee treats it as an active craft, not a passive conversation. These are the ten practices that consistently turn coaching into real change in work, behaviour, and leadership.
I have joined Patagonia Action Works (Catchafire) as a volunteer and will be offering executive coaching and leadership support to organisations working for environmental impact. This is a way of giving back through my craft, helping mission driven groups clarify thinking, strengthen decisions, and make progress on what matters.
In today’s leadership culture, speed often masquerades as competence. This article explores why constant urgency narrows judgement and how senior leaders can restore reflection, clarity and performance through simple disciplines, including executive coaching. Slowing down may be the most strategic move a leader can make.
Executive coaching gives senior leaders a confidential space to think, challenge assumptions, and act with greater clarity. This article explores how coaching helps leaders navigate complexity, improve decision quality, strengthen resilience, and align culture and strategy for lasting impact.
www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_redquadrant-the-left-hand-column-exercise-activity-6767713555874742272-M8yo Classic exercise based on similar in Senge's Fifth Discipline. This is by Benjamin Taylor.
An overview of Grawe's Consistency Theory
Video on "MA" the art of Japanese silence
Link to an interesting article on productivity.
Link to an article on falling asleep fast.
Link to the free self assessment to support reflection on career
Notes written as I listened to Tuende Erdoes on "Integrative presence: Debunking the myths and realities around coaching presence and goal attainment"
Notes written as I listened to Teresa Pool on "Get off your Coaching Couch!"
Notes written as I listened to Judith Duhl on "Conscious Competence to Unconscious Competence: The leap into mastery"
Notes written as I listened to D Ivan Young on "Creating intimacy and trust with your client. The Empathetic path toward the Generational Moment"
Notes written as I listened to Ihab Badawi on "Coaching Wholeness: Creating Deeper & Sustainable Impact"
Notes written as I listened to Fran Fisher on "Calling Forth Greatness: Who I am Being Empowers My Coaching"
Notes written as I listened to Diana Ideus on "No One Listens Like Coaches Listen"
Notes written as I listened to Cherie Silas on "Introduction to systems coaching: What is it and how is it different than coaching individuals"
Notes written as I listened to Dr Ben Koh on "Transcendent - Coaching in the Moment"
Link to Big 5 test by Jordan B Peterson and supporting resources
The Recovery Star developed by the Association of Mental Health Providers (formely the Mental Health Providers Forum), is an outcomes measure which enables people using services to measure their own recovery progress, with the help of mental health workers or others. Recovery Star | Mental Health Partnerships:
This is the fourth, in an occasional series, of articles around key concepts that have had a signifiant impact on me as a business leader, person, coach, trainer and facilitator. I originally came across the concept of the inner game and the performance long before I even knew what coaching was and far before I got trained as a professional coach. [...]
This is the fifth in a series of articles around key concepts that have impacted me personally and professionally over the course of my career. I cam across the phrase of comfort zone early in my career when working at Plas-Y-Brenin, The National Centre for Mountain Activities in Snowdonia North Wales. All instructors were asked to stretch course participants out of their [...]
A practical introduction to Edward de Bono’s Direct Attention Thinking Tools (DATT), explaining how they support clearer thinking, better decisions and more deliberate problem solving.
This is the second of ten blog articles around concepts that have had a significant on me as a manager, leaders, coach and facilitator. “Stop, Challenge and Choose” is a powerful concept that I learnt back in 1994, when working with a client to deliver an 18,000 person training programme in 18 months. The programme was based around the work developed [...]
This is the first of a series of blog pieces around what I consider to be the most essential concepts I have come across in the course of my 20 years as a manager, leader, trainer, coach. The first of these is attributed to the great author Stephen Covey, and comes from his book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. [...]
An overview of my online / remote service offering in a simple PDF.
This hub brings together practical feedback models and resources to help leaders give constructive feedback, handle difficult conversations and improve performance without damaging trust.
Feedback is one of the most powerful tools a leader has, yet it is also one of the most misused. The AID feedback model offers a simple, practical framework for giving clear, respectful and effective feedback that builds ownership, reflection and real performance improvement.
Yesterday (Wednesday 3rd July 2013) I completed my ChangeWorks ChangeGrid Certification. What is ChangeWorks®? ChangeWorks is a system that applies the principles, insights, tools and techniques of “Tension Management” to supporting the change process at the individual, team and organizational levels. The focus of ChangeWorks is measuring, monitoring and managing the levels of "productive tension" the individual or population is [...]
A brief overview of Social Styles Model
THIS is a sample of business coaching tools I developed in 2013 that I have used over the course of my coaching practice. They can be used outside of Business Coaching, but this is my primary are of work. Coaching does not have to be pure conversation. As a coach I often ask people to draw, culture and doodle. The activities [...]
Welcome to the new blog! I am in the process of transitioning my old website to here and so this is the first post of what will I hope be my professional home for the next 20 years or so. I am still in set up mode, so apologies for the messy site. Today I was thinking about the concern [...]
