Tom Watkins Coaching

Leadership Coaching | Self-Management | Capacity Development

Incorporating EncourageMentors and Thriving Workplace.

Join 1,317 other subscribers
You are here: Home / Archives for Tom Watkins

Articles by Tom Watkins

Browse the Full Archive for Tom Watkins Coaching.

post

Aim to heal, not hurt

By

We can heal or hurt people simply by the judgements we make about them. When we extend healing to others, we also heal ourselves. The ability to choose between the discomfort of becoming aware of our judgemental habits of mind and the discomfort of being ruled by them, is a vitally important self-management practice. The small, tight-knit specialist peer group I belong to learned that one of us, (I'll call him Andrew - not his real name), appears to have committed and confessed to a repugnant … [Read more...]

post

Choose how you respond to pressure, disruption and uncertainty | Tom Watkins

By

Struggling to accept what we are sometimes faced with is a normal part of being alive, like a tax on being human works-in-progress. Our battles with reality are usually won, in the end, by reality. But have you noticed that for very many people, reality increasingly involves relentless pressure and frenzy? Three inescapable societal trends are behind this. Being overwhelmed by them is optional. I was with a friend for one of our regular discussions we have, over coffee or during a 30-minute … [Read more...]

post

Leadership – what’s new?

By

Given the extent of research into and writing about the practice of workplace leadership, it's remarkable that so many organisations, groups and teams perform with no better than average efficiency and effectiveness. Theorists disagree about causes and remedies but unite on the need to continue their research and publishing, adding to the plethora of conflicting approaches, mismatching "key principles" and "essential steps". Alluring promises of breakthroughs abound but there's much more … [Read more...]

post

IN and ON the business, misunderstood

By

Organisational progress, success and resilience are more likely when work in the business (doing the work) is sufficiently balanced with work on the business (improving how we work). But in reality, that balance is rare. This discussion describes common signs of that imbalance, its common causes, and what might be addressed to resolve them. Work in the business focuses on the Primary Task - the matters necessary for the organisation to stay in business. Work on the … [Read more...]

post

The best and simplest goal: get better

By

Can most of us, with enough persistent effort, get pretty good at anything? Probably. Effort, as psychologist Angela Duckworth has shown, counts twice:  talent x effort = skill, and skill x effort = achievement.  And though both talent and our willingness to exert persistent effort may be at least partially genetic, only a minority of our personality is inherited. High performers  don’t rely on either nature or nurture, but on a combination of the two — and they are really good at nurturing … [Read more...]

post

Sharpen-up priority management (2)

By

So, you've clarified your purpose and now use a methodical approach to priority-management. What could possibly go wrong? The wheels will fall off a personal priority management system if we believe our worth and integrity depends on what other people may think of us;  if we're not able to set and hold boundaries with people; if we tend to lose it (freak out, spin out or lash out) when we're under pressure; or if we have difficulty confronting and negotiating … [Read more...]

post

Sharpen-up priority management

By

The foundation of effective priority management is the ability to clarify purpose and hold our focus on it. Both steps can be challenging. The first, because purpose is easily confused with current activities, dealing with agenda or completing to-do lists. The second, because we get caught up in our attitudinal compulsions (to be constantly busy or needing to be liked by others, for example), and effortless distraction is almost always a nanosecond away. There's no perfect approach to getting … [Read more...]

post

First, step off the treadmill

By

If we paused regularly and often enough to reflect on how we approach what we do, we'd soon improve our efforts and their results. That's a self-management no-brainer. But how and when can we get off the workplace treadmill for this?  For many people, that's a serious dilemma. Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful. [Margaret J. Wheatley] When I first ask coaching clients to add periodic self-reflection … [Read more...]

post

Like a clock during a thunderstorm

By

We are shaped by what gains our attention and occupies our thoughts. To limit unhelpful fight, flight or freeze reactions to adversity, we must develop some voluntary mind-control over our attention. We should know how to put it where we want it, whenever we need to. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm. [Robert Louis Stevenson] Acquiring this ability should never become a matter of … [Read more...]

post

The very common denominator

By

When the Operations Manager, my mentoring client Julia, met two of her team to address a complex performance incident, I was present in an observer role. She'd estimated the meeting would take 15 to 20 minutes. Ben and Allen (no actual names used here) responded well enough to Julia's genuine curiosity, her clarifying questions and occasional paraphrasing to test and demonstrate her understanding. 10 out of 10 for that:  she'd been working with me to improve those practices and was doing … [Read more...]