Tom Watkins Coaching

Leadership Coaching | Self-Management | Capacity Development

Incorporating EncourageMentors and Thriving Workplace.

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The purpose and wisdom of teams

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When I accompany my coaching clients to team meetings I often observe not teamwork but business-as-usual conducted in a group setting.  Any actual teamwork achieved is a matter of luck. Although participants may leave with good feelings because we had a good discussion, got through the agenda on time or made decisions, those outcomes do not, in themselves, indicate teamwork. Team functioning differs from group functioning, is capable of different outcomes and has different applications.  Teams … [Read more...]

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

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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...]

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IN and ON the business, misunderstood

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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...]

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That’s the problem, right there

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His opening gambit was, What do you do?   Not my ideal subject for small-talk during a short flight, but Oh well . . .  I spoke of coaching leaders to lift their game through a systematic focus on developing their own and others’ capacity for effectiveness . . . how this saves an extraordinary degree of otherwise wasted energy and . . .   As his eyes began glazing over, I invited him to talk about his work. Although my companion  spoke enthusiastically of recent developments in his (very … [Read more...]

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13 Ways to encourage the heart

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Whatever we think of our leadership, management, other services or products, success depends on meeting our customers' needs. For that reason alone it's wise and necessary to methodically gather feedback from customers including those within our organisations we exist to serve – our staff, our teams, colleagues and managers.   However, I strongly advocate shifting the balance of feedback away from the everyday preponderance of negative judgements, to observations that acknowledge and support … [Read more...]

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Leadership lessons in a merger

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A merger-in-progress of two large service organisations is struggling to achieve its intentions. What’s happening has important lessons for everyday leadership and self-management practices.  The distinctly different organisational cultures are not a natural mix; each has a long history of operating idiosyncratically in separate areas, serving distinctly different demographics with strong local loyalties and attachments, and of growing their own unique responses to local problems over many … [Read more...]

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Stop talking about values!

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Values are measured by what we do, not by what is said. Whatever we may want an organisation’s culture to resemble, its nature and character are determined by the approach its members consistently apply to their roles and duties. That's the difference between proclaimed or espoused organisational culture (professed or declared as existing or intended) and applied (functional, actually experienced) organisational culture. An organisation's or team's leadership should identify and clarify the … [Read more...]