Guidebook

“Purpose can propel you to achieve your best, live more fully, and be of service to others. Purpose fuels people and people fuel our organizations. Many team members put a lot of effort into organizational purpose (mission, vision, and values) but individuals should spend as much time (or more) defining their own personal purpose and its relationship to their work.”

For many, the last few years have been a crucible, pushing us to question our choices in life. Mental duress, fatigue, and more are leading people to question the relationships between their work, life, and their sense of personal purpose. Because of this, Dan Pontefract has updated his CoachingOurselves topic, “Building Purpose at Work and In Life”. 

A sense of personal purpose can act as your North Star, keeping you on track, guiding your behaviours, choices, and alerting you to when you have gone “off path” in your life. It can also help you recognize and amplify meaning, especially when work and life become challenging.

But discovering your sense of purpose is not a one-time event, it is something you must continually refine throughout your life as circumstances, and you, change.

“Building Purpose at Work and In Life” asks you to explore deciding, developing, and defining what you are about, how you are going to show up at work, and what you are going to do about it. It also asks you to look at how you can support other team members in their own efforts to live more purposefully.

Get in touch with us to learn more or to get a preview of the topic!

This topic invites you to:

• Explore a declaration of purpose.
• Establish how you can craft a purpose while thinking simultaneously about life and work – thus your personal and role purpose.
• Appreciate how you can help your team members achieve greater purpose at work.

Dan Pontefract is the founder of the Pontefract Group, a future-of-work consulting firm that helps organizations enhance corporate culture, leadership, purpose, learning and collaboration practices. He is on the Thinkers50 Radar, has presented at multiple TED events, and writes for Forbes, the Harvard Business Review, and the Huffington Post. He is the author of four books, including The Purpose Effect.

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CoachingOurselves is pleased to announce a new peer learning topic for your organization, “Dealing with Delegation” by David Creelman.

“One of the basic conundrums of good management is that you must become less involved in the daily activities as you take on increased managerial responsibilities. Inherent to effective management is the skill of delegation. Yet delegation can prove to be a perennial problem for new and experienced managers alike.”

Delegation is the transferring and entrustment of a task to another person. It is not just a short-term solution to a problem but a consistent strategy of communicating effectively and supporting the development of your peers. Skillfully delegating will not only increase your own leadership capacities but those of your team members. This topic asks you to dig into where you may be challenged when delegating.

 This topic will:

• Introduce you to the three most common reasons for delegation problems;

• Present classic steps for effective delegation;

• Ask you to reflect on where you can improve.

CoachingOurselves topics help all team members, regardless of level, develop deeper awareness of themselves, their peers, and how their organization gets things done (or how it doesn’t). With CoachingOurselves, participants always benefit from expert content written by leading thinkers which helps shine a lens on a specific aspect of organizational life. Share strengths, go beyond personal challenges, and as a group create coordinated ways forward. We’re sure you will enjoy “Dealing with Delegation” by David Creelman.

David Creelman is CEO of Creelman Research and writes, researches, and speaks on the most critical issues in human capital management. His clients include think tanks, consultants, academics and organizations in Japan, the US, Canada, and the EU. He also advises organizations on human capital management issues. He has sat on many thought leader panels with the Human Capital Institute including Global Talent Management, Learning Strategies, and the ROI of Talent Management.

Do you have doubts as to whether your L&D programs have resulted in enduring changes for employees back on the job?  As an L&D professional tasked with the responsibility of developing and empowering employees, you need to know that your programs will nurture and sustain real growth.

With our new topic “Impact Presentations and Friendly Support“, learning professionals now have a simple and effective way to ensure and support change from their programs.

CoachingOurselves is thrilled to have collaborated with Professor Martin Brigham of Lancaster University and the Worldwide Academic Director of the International Masters for Practicing Managers (IMPM). This new discussion guide is inspired by the IMPM, where experienced managers from around the globe come together and support one another to enact positive change back at their organizations.

The word IMPACT implies having a strong effect on someone or something. In our case, an IMPACT project incorporates a call to ACT with a PACT or promise between participants.

“Impact Presentations and Friendly Support” can be added to any existing program. Your participants will have the opportunity to effect a specific change in the organization and to receive the insights and support of their CoachingOurselves peers throughout the process. Our Friendly Consulting topic further supports their actions.

The goals of this session are to:

• Present your IMPACT journey to date and in doing so, further integrate your experiences for IMPACT in the future;
• Listen with intent to your peers’ IMPACT journeys thus far;
• Reflect on the role of collaboration in creating change and how to create your “Support Ecosystem” going forward.

To sustain real change, you need to create the proper conditions. We can help you do this.

Dr Martin Brigham is Worldwide Academic Director of the International Masters Program for Managers and an Associate Professor at Lancaster University Management School, UK. His current research interests are focused on reflective practices for management education and organizational development, the role of meetings in shaping business decision-making and governance in relation to corporate sustainability, and he has been the director of two university research centers. Martin is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.

If you are interested in creating IMPACT and our new discussion guide for your organization, contact Warren at info@coachingourselves.com.

CoachingOurselves is pleased to collaborate again with Marilyn Laiken, formerly of the University of Toronto, on our newest leadership development guide, “The Key to Organizational Agility: Managing Paradox”. This topic is suitable for advanced leadership training and new manager leadership training.

“Organizational agility requires two conditions — one is a dynamic capability, the ability to move with speed, nimbleness and responsiveness, and the second is a stable foundation of things that don’t change. Agility represents a set of paradoxes which are the key challenges for organizations in today’s context. “

This topic will help you:

• Understand the concept of “Organizational Agility” as a set of paradoxes;
• Reflect on your own workplace within this framework;
• Determine actions you can take to move your workplace towards becoming an increasingly agile organization.

Clarify which aspects of your organization need to provide stability through established structures and processes, and which aspects will enhance organizational effectiveness through innovation and speed. Assessing these organizational paradoxes from time to time will allow your organization to keep up with turbulent, volatile conditions, in addition to greatly enhancing your employees overall work experiences.

If you are interested in using this topic as part of your leadership training program for new managers or for advanced leadership training, and to combine leadership development and coaching, contact Warren at info@coachingourselves.com

CoachingOurselves is delighted to publish another topic by Beverley Patwell, President of Patwell Consulting and one of our long-time partners: “Building Resilience: Taking CARE of Ourselves and Others through Crisis and Beyond”.

“When most people think of leadership, taking care of ourselves and others may not be one of the skills that immediately comes to mind. But effective care of self is a critical leadership skill that provides the foundation to help ourselves and the people at home, in our workplaces and communities to be resilient through crises and beyond.”

Bev has spoken with more than 700 people around the globe about their experiences living and leading through the ongoing global pandemic. They have told her about the strategies that they are using to be their best selves, and what they are doing to take care of themselves and others. Bev’s research has evolved into the CARE model. CARE stands for connect, adapt, routinize and exercise. This provides a framework for building resilience while bolstering your ability to be your best selves, as you lead and manage in your families, workplaces, and communities through any type of difficulties.

“How can we show up for our families, colleagues/team, and our communities when we ourselves are feeling disconnected? Are running on empty? When our lives are disorganized? When we are challenged to flow with change?”

The CARE model asks you to make an honest check in with yourself to identify what you are doing well, and what you can be doing better to take CARE of yourself and others. Take the time individually and collectively with your peers to review your routines and processes to get what you need to be resilient and adaptable as you work through change together.

This topic is designed to help you:

• reflect on your approach to building and sustaining resilience in yourself and others;
• identify the areas where you are doing well and where you need more focus and exploration;
• discuss opportunities for supporting each other.

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Beverley Patwell, President of Patwell Consulting. As an experienced leader, consultant, practitioner, coach, teacher, and author, Bev has worked around the world inspiring people to live, lead, and manage meaningful change. She has taught at some of the leading universities in the western hemisphere and served as a senior associate and executive coach with the Niagara Institute. Bev is the author of the book Leading Meaningful Change: Capturing the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of the People You Lead, Work With, and Serve. She has also co-authored a book, and published many articles and tools on leadership, change, and coaching.

CoachingOurselves is excited to publish the new topic “Inquiry Into Organizational Role” by three generations of Goslings: original artwork by Veronica Gosling and co-authorship by Jonathan Gosling and Miriam Gosling-Gage.

Professor Gosling and personal development Coach Miriam Gosling-Gage have crafted a thoughtful exploration into the complexity of taking up roles within organizations. Beyond the obvious tasks we perform, there are numerous expectations from others in addition to possibilities for self-expression, power, and the occasional moments of high drama. This topic invites participants to reflect on how they self-manage within their roles and explore the potential opportunities.

Collaborative exercises, which highlight the role of listener, are designed to deepen the participants’ capacities for role-relatedness. Group reflections guide participants to engage with others and more skilfully respond in ways that modify mutual expectations within roles.

Veronica Gosling started and runs an informal gallery, Studio 36, in Exeter, UK, inviting other artists to show imaginative and experimental works. She was the founder and ran The Barn at Hay Farm Gallery. She has published five books.

Jonathan Gosling is Emeritus Professor of Leadership at the University of Exeter. He is author of 9 books and many academic articles. He is lead faculty at The Forward Institute, and a co-founder of CoachingOurselves.com.

Miriam Gosling Gage works as a Coach specializing in Personal Development challenges. She runs large scale events and programs on behalf of international NGOs, creative arts organizations, The International Leadership Association, and Pelumbra.