Vertically Developmental Coaching

Celebrating the 14,000th Profile!

What might have happened if he'd chosen both?

' Having Faith in the Fire. The Art of Alchemical Transformation '. An article by Dr Dylan Hoffman.

I’m a Quaker, and one of the Quaker practices I seek to bring into my coaching/supervision work is to ‘answer that of god in everyone’

Working with thousands of current leaders and ‘soon-to-be’ leaders over the last 25 years... Harthill gets asked one question more than any other: "Where should I start?". The answer is easier, and harder, than you think. All the great leaders that we have seen quickly realise that that their #1 responsibility is to manage themselves, their personal discipline and their own personal growth. If you cannot lead yourself, then you cannot lead others. And, the leader you are going to be tomorrow, you are becoming today. What differentiates leaders on any day is not their personality, or style. Rather, it’s how they interpret their surroundings and respond. What differentiates leaders on any day in the future are the choices they made for their own development in the past. Relatively few people try to understand their own map of the world, and fewer still have explored the possibility of changing it. (Back to: 'If you cannot lead yourself, you cannot lead others!'). If you think you would like to develop your leadership capabilities, Harthill has a specific tool that you can use. It shows you the way to take a voyage of personal understanding and development to transform not only your own capabilities but also your team and your organisation. Please get in touch with me if you would like to know more about it.

What would happen if I let go? The coaching metaphor

Leaders and readers Part 2

We humans are entrapped by many cognitive biases, one of which is confirmation bias.  When we take a position on something and we decide that we ‘know’, we become wedded to our perspective and allow only data that confirms that perspective into our consideration. We then become blind to any disconfirming data because being wrong is not a comfortable place for us to be and we stop learning. In these situations we need to open all of our senses and notice what is happening. We can learn to appreciate that others notice different things to what we notice. We can then use this to recognise that we need to collaborate and share perspectives to deepen our understanding, reignite and accelerate our learning. In short, we must first recognise the situation we are in. I suggest 4 things that might be useful: 1. We need practices that build capacity for wisdom. 2. We need patience to allow this process the time it needs. 3. We need courage to experiment in the direction of what we think is progress. 4. We need agility to withdraw from that direction of travel if it starts to seem wrong or indeed accelerate the process if it seems right. What I believe is that we need to open all of our senses and notice what is happening. This is the reason Mindfulness practice is useful as it enhances our capacity for awareness. We learn to appreciate that others notice different things to what we notice and we then need to collaborate and share perspectives to deepen our understanding and accelerate our learning. That's why I love the Eric Hoffer quote: "In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." "In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists" Eric Hoffer