by Saiyyidah Zaidi-Stone (MC11)

We are all seeing an increasing number of professional articles and academic journals regarding happiness in the workplace, but does it really matter? Well, when the Harvard Business Review is writing about ’The Economics of Well-Being’ and independent research confirms that firms with a higher level of happiness amongst employees experience a higher level of profitability we pay attention.

The problem is that while money is easy to count, happiness is a tricky thing to measure. In many ways the impact is like the change from black and white TV to colour- it can be revolutionary. Embracing workplace happiness may require a leap of faith but from working with corporate and public sector clients it’s a pretty short leap and provides the basis to nurture a stronger bond between employee and organization. Imagine the impact of knowing that what some of your employees really want is fruit bowls in the kitchen rather than a monthly night out? A small intervention which saves money and gives staff what they want rather than what you think they need. Research confirms that companies which provide genuine emphasis on not just making a profit but also on positivity increase loyalty; reduce attrition; enable higher creativity, motivation and confidence whilst increasing productivity. It’s a no brainer to me!

As a business coach how do you take this new knowledge and apply it in the coaching context to enable your coaching clients (and their teams) to maximise performance and productivity?

As a positive psychologist I am familiar with many positive psychology questionnaires used in the workplace and for me one of the best is that created by Jess Pryce-Jones and her team at iOpener. The People and Performance Questionnaire is easy to grasp and provides results framed around the framework of the 5C’s: Contribution, Conviction, Culture, Commitment and Confidence. On 18 April 2012 on behalf of Meyler Campbell I hosted a coaching fishbowl where we were privileged to witness Jess coaching with the tool. Without going into too much detail lets just say that the insights created for the coachee through the use of this tool were incredible. The attendees were mesmerized and many had questions relating to the use of the tool and the impact on the coaching session. The use of questionnaires in coaching sessions increases insight and awareness for the coachee and enables the coach to serve the client better through the rich information available for discussion. Given that many of us are already using personality and strengths tools within the coaching setting I see the iOpener tool as a significant addition.

Following on from the success of the coaching fishbowl Jess has made an extraordinary offer to Meyler Campbell Business Coach graduates. The full accreditation for the use of the iOpener tool for organization development, team and individual coaching usually takes 2 days and costs £1500.

In recognition of the calibre of Meyler Campbell business coaches Jess has offered a one-off online webex to accredit anyone wanting to use the iOpener People and Performance Questionnaire on a 1:1 basis only. This will take place on 14 June 2012, 5pm. You’ll get 3 credits to use the tool and be asked to do a small write up to achieve accreditation as a coaching practitioner. The cost would be a minimum £100 donation to the Art Room, a charity which offers art as therapy to children to raise their self esteem, self confidence and independence www.justgiving.com/theartroom. Once the donation is made business coaches are then asked to email Racheal.butcher@iopenerinstitute.com with the name in which the donation. You will then will receive information on how to join the online event. There is limited availability and donations should be confirmed by 7 June 2012 to secure a place.

Assessing well-being can serve many purposes beyond merely enhancing well-being- it can be used to re-craft jobs, negotiate development challenges and build relationships with colleagues and superiors tools like this often play a central role in business coaching- my advice is for you to take up this offer as soon as you can!

To find our more about the People and Performance tool go to www.iopenerinsitute.com. There’s a free mini report so you can see what you’ll get.

Saiyyidah Zaidi-Stone
Dip Arch, RIBA, FILM, FAPM, MSc (Dist)

www.mcleanstone.com
saiyyidah@mcleanstone.com

The following is the speech given by Jules during the  launch of, “Uncommon sense and common nonsense: why some organisations consistently outperform others”. I hope you enjoy it.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————

by Jules Goddard

The best moment in my academic career was an email from Stephen about a month ago, beginning “a very very handsome book has just landed on my desk”. I don’t think Stephen could have understood the weight of emotion that this simple statement released in my mind.

I first conceived the idea for my book in 1978 when I wrote a short essay called “A minimal definition of strategy”. My argument then was that what separates success from failure is not goals, or intentions, or values – but assumptions and beliefs. I thought at the time that this essay might be expandable into a book.

Now 34 years later, the result of this idle speculation is upon us.  The book has finally come out.

34 years.

This works out at 3 words a day.

To say that I was suffering from writer’s block would be like saying that Russell Brand was a confident young man or that Stephen Hawking was good with numbers or that John Prescott was sometimes irritable.

On a typical day, I would start to construct the first word of a new sentence over breakfast.  By lunchtime, the second word of the sentence was beginning to form in my mind.  Imagine the excitement as the third word came into focus just before bedtime.

I remember one day in 1984, a whole sentence came to me in a flash and the rest of the day was spent joyously writing it out in full, leaving the details of spelling and punctuation till the following day after a good night’s rest.

The breakthrough was 2003 when Tony came on board as my co-author. Immediately, the ideas became clearer and the pace quickened.  On one occasion, we had written three full sentences before elevenses.

Clearly, the tempo was killing us.  There was nothing to do but to step out for lunch in St John’s Wood and recover from our exertions.

In the time it took us to write a chapter, Mozart’s whole life could have been lived.

If Tolstoy had written at the same speed, we would still be waiting for Napoleon to be at the gates of Moscow.

Dostoevky could have written about not just the brothers Karamazov, but the sisters, the mothers, the nieces and the God Parents Karamavov as well, with time to spare.

Wagner’s Ring Cycle was composed in the time that Tony and I were rephrasing a particularly tricky paragraph on key performance indicators.

I worked out that if Cherry had done her line drawings for the book at the same pace that Tony and I were sculpting our immaculate prose, she would be drawing lines at 2mm a day.

Penny’s copy editing would be spotting grammatical errors once every three months.

And the printers would be churning out a copy of the book every 47 days.

So please buy this book.

Thrillingly relevant to the issues confronting the country in 1979, you will relive the excitement of the Callaghan years and the winter of discontent.

And by buying it, you will encourage us to write Part 2, so that in 2034 we can re-assemble to celebrate a pithy reminder of what life was like in the year 2012.

If you don’t buy the book, we will assume that you felt we’d rushed it into print without giving the ideas the attention they deserved.

This could radically slow down the speed and confidence with which we write the sequel.

So, my thanks to Tony, my co-author, for his patience, his intellectual companionship, his wisdom and his help.

We’re actually rather proud of the book and we think you will find it a refreshing antidote to most books on business.

When you read it, bear in mind that we had agreed long ago a straightforward division of labour – he would write the sense, and I would write the nonsense.

And finally, a very big thank you to Stephen, our extraordinarily kind and compassionate publisher, to Penny, our unfailingly optimistic copy editor, to Sue, the brilliant designer of the book and to my daughter Cherry, for her lovely illustrations.

And just as important, thank you all for coming this evening to pay homage to the speed with which the right words have been put together in the right combination over the course of a third of a century.

To buy please go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Common-Nonsense-organisations/dp/1846686016/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337067223&sr=8-1

Sarah Fenwick

CPsychol, AFBPsS, AC Accred, MSCP

Specialist in High Performance Thinking and Behaviours

«  Executive/Business Coaching

«  Leadership Development

«  Sport Psychology

«  Psychometric Profiling

«  Motivational speaker

sarah@sarah-fenwick.com

www.sarah-fenwick.com

by Stephen Newton (MC04)

I have just read this book by Dr John Reed called ‘Pinpointing Excellence‘.  I raise this only because I feel that it may be the way that the coaching market is going and that buyers of coaching may seek to use what is proposed as a selection process, without necessarily thinking it through, which will therefore impact on MC graduates.

Reed makes the point that the Executive Coaching (his term) market is fragmented and that there is no widely agreed / common standard for admission or certification to a profession that has the power to change lives for good or ill to a tremendous degree.  As you may know, he proposes a toolkit for buyers of coaching that evaluates coaches by allocating points in four dimensions:

• Coaching expertise
• Business expertise
• Psychological expertise
• Ethics (which he seems to equate with certification by e.g. WABC, ICF etc.)

A reasonably high score would be gained by a combination of Business Coach Programme, WABC certification, Master’s degree in psychology plus some clinical practice and 20+ years of “C Suite” experience in a Fortune 500 company plus a Harvard MBA….

Whilst what he proposes is arguably better than nothing and is a way to push qualification rigour into the coaching market, it seems to miss the point that qualifications alone do not necessarily mean that an individual can coach successfully.  It seems similar to the investment management industry which has been heavily and increasingly regulated for a generation.  Has investment performance improved as a result?  No; there are still only a handful of managers that can consistently beat the relevant market index.  The difference now is that the rest can explain in agonising detail and with mathematical precision why they failed and how.

Just a view.

by Moray McLaren (MC12)

I have been speaking to Anne and other Meyler Campbell friends about the possibility of organising an annual retreat for the community. Anne has kindly agreed to circulate this exploratory note.

The idea is to host a weekend retreat – where we can catch-up with friends, recharge batteries and have some interesting conversations – while enjoying the great food, wine and autumn sun in Barcelona.

I live in Spain and when Anne told me that 2012 is the 10^th Anniversary of the first Meyler Campbell graduates, it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.

At the same time, I know how busy everyone is and that our personal time is very precious. Before putting this into action, I would really welcome some feedback on what would make this a success, our annual social and learning weekend together in the Catalan countryside.

More specifically:

• What are the hot topics we should be discussing?
• Who are the inspirational people we would like to hear / get to know?
• How best to relax and spend time getting to know each other?

(I am also tempted to ask, should we bring along our significant others – my wife hears so much about Meyler Campbell that she would be curious to meet you all).

No surprises that the suggestions I have received to date have been the fun stuff… hill walking along the coast, morning yoga / mindfullness, wine tasting, long lunches and great company.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to hearing what you think. My e-mail address is moray.mclaren@iberianlegalgroup.com. Please copy my secretary Paula who will be coordinating the responses (paula.brienza@iberianlegalgroup.com).

Best wishes,

Moray

OVERVIEW

What?

 Meyler-Campbell 10^th Anniversary Retreat

Where?

•  Sitges, the upmarket resort of Barcelona
• A 20 minute taxi ride from Barcelona Airport
• Dolce Sitges, a 5 Star, purpose built hotel spa and education centre on the beach
• www.dolcesitges.com

When?

•  Late September / early November 2012
• When England gets cold and Barcelona is still enjoying the autumn warmth
• We will circulate potential dates to those who are interested in attending

 Contacts?

•  Moray.mclaren@iberianlegalgroup.com
• Paula.brienza@iberianlegalgroup.com

Further information?

•  Hotel: http://www.dolcesitges.com/photo-gallery/photo-gallery
• Sitges: http://www.gositges.com/photo-gallery/photogallery.html
• Barcelona: http://www.barcelona-travelguide.com/pictures/barcelona-photo-gallery.html

By Anne Scoular

Business Coach Graduate Emeritus Professor Mary Watts (BC08) has been appointed to the Chair of the British Psychological Society (BPS)’s Special Group in Coaching Psychology. Mary has many different streams of experience which will flow into this role. She is herself a practising coach and supervisor of coaches. She was in there at the very beginning of coaching psychology in the UK, indeed she was Chair of the conference at City University that got the field off the ground in 2004, and has a wealth of theoretical and practical experience of psychology, having earlier been one of the key founders of the fields of health psychology and counselling psychology in the UK as well. She was for a long time Professor of Psychology at City University, the university of the City of London and the professions, and was accorded the honour of Emeritus Professor on her retirement in recognition of her work over many years there. Importantly for her leadership of business coaching, she is herself an experienced leader and manager: as Pro-Vice-Chancellor at City she led a major change programme, and is fascinating to talk to about how she drew on her psychology and coaching daily through that process! And we are privileged that she has another connection with Meyler Campbell: she is our External Assessor, so subjects the the Faculty’s work to a searching review once a year to make sure we stay right up to the mark.

Mary is also utterly delightful, warm and totally down to earth – she will be a great asset to the BPS, congratulations Mary!

For more, see http://www.sgcp.org.uk/sgcp/publications/international-coaching-psychology-review/sgcp-%26-igcp-news-updates-march-2012$.cfm.

By Anne Scoular – Managing Director, Meyler Campbell

Hi everyone, as some of you know I am passionately keen to help our Graduates succeed post-Programme, whether internally or as freelance/portfolio-ers. People have been consistently asking for more and deeper help in building your business. So we are making some pretty big investment in this to support you even more. First biggie for 2012:  Build your Business Bootcamp on 3 July.

Bootcamp ran for the first time last year, people said it was a real boost, but the piece that scored overwhelmingly was the 2 hours with Stephen Newton – it was so hugely real-world and practical, and so clearly based on stuff that works, that he was surrounded in every possible break, poor man didn’t get coffee or lunch people were so determined to keep picking his brains. So we can take a hint, this year we’ve dropped everything else, and it’s ALL Stephen, to give him space to get through not just the practicalities (in first session in a.m.) but also get stuck right into the tough stuff of sales, marketing, how do you persuade people, how do you demonstrate value, what do you charge, what do other people charge, etc. Gold dust!!!

So I’d urge you to come and make the most of Bootcamp if you possibly can, I’ll be there too so if you want to pick my brains this is a great chance – we didn’t go into coaching to make money, it’s hugely fulfilling work, but once a year let’s do a really deep dive into the business aspects of it and come up turbo-charged for the rest of the year!

I really hope you can make it.

For details how to book click this link  http://www.meylercampbell.com/programmes/business-bootcamp.html

By Anne Scoular, Managing Director, Meyler Campbell

An absolute gem of an Economist special issue this week (more below) takes me back to an ongoing question that has vexed us in Meyler Campbell Faculty Meetings for years. On the one hand, if we believe in “pure” non-directive coaching, then there should be, strictly, no requirement for the coach to know anything about the client’s context, or background, or industry etc. This is one of the earliest battles for many people joining the Business Coach Programme – (temporarily) giving up the expertise base that has done them proud for decades. Whether they are a senior lawyer, HRD, business school Professor, international strategy consultant, private equity whizz, etc etc, their whole business success to date often seems to them to have been based on downloading information.

Indeed, for some people it has gone further than that and become a part of their very ego identity – so even harder to let go. So for the first half of the Programme, we push them hard on non-directive – NOT because we think it’s the best or only way to coach, but usually because the great people who make it onto our Programme, have usually most, ah, shall we say, upside potential, in that area! They can already tell, have been doing so for decades, but we want them to explore the furthest reaches of ask, and listen. And often they are astonished how powerfully it works – often they try it very dubiously, but then come to the next Tutorial practically blinking in amazement at how powerful it was when the client tapped into their own deep wells of insight/practical ideas/ingenuity etc.

But on the other hand it wouldn’t be the Business Coach Programme if we left them there – it would be a criminal waste of talent and a lifetime of experience if we turned people out at the end of the Programme who just sat with eyes wide open and their head cocked on one side, murmuring sympathetically, “and how do you feel about that?…!” To be a credible business coach business you need to be business-savvy. So about halfway through the Programme – once they’ve got non-directive in their bones, and can flick it on and off at will – we take the chains back off, and let the “tell” piece back in – but used judiciously, when that’s what seems to be best for the client right now, rather than as the default. It’s fun seeing all the differences emerge as each person blends what they brought into the Programme, with what they’ve learned on it. It’s the basis of their USP, whether they’re wanting the deepened coaching capability as part of their leadership toolkit, or to have coaching as part of a portfolio career. And it’s what the people they’re working with, are often initially attracted by – we go and see the boss because we think he/she has answers we respect and can use. Or the freelance coach is hired for their industry sector experience. In both cases, the real value might have nothing to do with that content, but their ability to dig the real answers out of us.

But then again it might. A coach who is familiar with the client’s sector, can challenge better – they know the jargon and the territory. So lawyers like to be coached by lawyers, and CEOs by people who’ve been there and felt what it’s like. (Or not – sometimes people seek difference! ) But this week’s Economist (April 21st) made me think about how we all need to keep up too with changes in the meta-context. Its cover story is on what they have termed “the third industrial revolution”. The big story in the 14-page Special Report (highly recommended) is that as manufacturing goes digital, it will change out of all recognition, and the business of making things will return to rich countries. So this affects not just our direct manufacturing clients but everyone around them – their financiers, their lawyers, their business coaches. It’s happening already: tools to human body parts are being built by 3D printers where the cost of individual customisation is just the cost of some computer keystrokes, not retooling an entire factory. The new means of manufacture enables unimaginable new products – as Rolls Royce’s Director of Engineering and Technology, Colin Smith, says, “you can’t make some of this modern stuff using old manual tools… the days of huge factories full of lots of people are not there any more”. That doesn’t mean mass unemployment: “factory floors today often seem deserted, whereas the office blocks nearby are full of designers, IT specialists, accountants, logistics experts, marketing staff, customer-relations managers, cooks and cleaners, all of whom contribute in some way to the factory.” This of course has knock-on implications for people we are coaching in the education sector as well. ((And charities. And for those in the property sector, private equity…) The Economist Special Report is stuffed with reference to game-changers – mass-individualisation of drugs; third-generation nanotechnology; new materials, new nickel-salt batteries, batteries made of viruses, (yup), hydrophilic glass. New – old – locations: Derby for instance – near where the first industrial revolution started, then nowhere while China was sexy, and now unheralded but at the heart of the third.

I think this is one of those rare “must-read” articles. I’m still quoting to people that amazing special issue of Legal Business in November 2006, about the psychological contract between associates and law firms being broken and the leverage model based on their extreme hard work hence endangered with it. They were right, and years ahead of anyone else. This week’s Economist I think is another wake-up call to adjust all our mental maps.

by Anne Scoular

In a macabre sense it’s a sign coaching has arrived – we’re being targeted by the Revenue, I see in this weekend’s FT: “Time is running out for tutors and coaches to alert the tax man about outstanding tax bills. HMRC’s Tax Catch Up Plan, which was launched last year, gave people employed in these professions until January 6 to own up to any irregularities and until 31 March to pay any outstanding amounts. It might be too late for the first deadline, but the terms will still be better for people who own up and pay what is owed (including any penalties), according to accountancy firm Menzies. HMRC’s approach is that it is always better for taxpayers to own up rather than being found out. Those that it catches up with later may pay stiffer penalties – up to 100 per cent of the tax owed – and a criminal investigation”. (Financial Times, 24-25 March, Money section, p. 35.)

But before we get too excited about the backhanded compliment of HMRC recognising our existence – and calling us a profession, even better – the clue is in the phrase “tutors and coaches”. I assume they’re out to get people tutoring and coaching children for exams, and being paid small sums in cash. Although some of the core skills of “life” and business coaching are similar, I’ve always felt strongly that business coaching is very different. One clear reason is, if the client is the organisation, then the contracting is immediately another order of magnitude more complex: the client is not the person sitting across the table from you, it’s the organisation – and in business coaching there are often one or two or three more stakeholders involved too – the line manager, HR, L&D, another dotted line on the matrix somewhere. Now there’s another reason: our clients are organisations, hence all monies go through proper channels, and the tax hence properly paid too. (Am not for a moment suggesting coaches working in fields other than business are fiddling their books – people are usually drawn to the field for reasons of authenticity and the chance to live a slightly less mad life, and in recent years we’ve seen other cases where the Revenue get bright ideas to go hunting for alleged malfeasance and find none when they get there.) The transparent nature of the way we need to work within organisational procedures, procurement policies, etc, means decent business coaches needn’t fear the knock on the door in the middle of the night – but for many coaches, the “admin” isn’t the most fun part of the work. Times like this though, that care in getting a complex invoice just right, the money dished out to work with decent accountants, and the hassle getting all the documentation together, etc, turns out to be time and money well spent!

By Stephen Newton (MC03)

Robert Middleton at Action Plan Marketing, based in California, has just posted an article of mine on his blog.  It is on the topic of business referrals.  It can be found at http://www.actionplan.com/blog/241-referral-errors.  The article links to the website for my forthcoming book “The Professional’s Guide to Business Development” (www.professionalsbusinessdevelopment.com). I hope you find it useful.