Managing our Biases

We define coaching as being nonjudgmental. Yet we know that we do have judgment, biases and filters that pop up as interference from time to time as we are acting as thinking partners with another. The first step in managing our own biases, filters, judgments, and assumptions is to recognize that we have them and…

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Focus On What You Want

Recently, I arrived early for the final day of a four-day Leadership Coaching for High Performance Seminar. On top of one of the RCG seminar notebooks were two drawings by one of the participants who had captured two critical points dealing with leadership and coaching. Both the SCARF and TARP ideas come from the work…

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What do you want in your life in 2018?

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie February is the time of year when our minds turn to hearts, love, and gratitude. We’ll focus on the value of the last one – gratitude. What is it? Here is one of the multitude of definitions…

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Advice

In absolutely every seminar we have, someone, sometime, somewhere, says, “Isn’t it okay, sometimes, to just tell people what to do?” It’s such an important question and it circles us back to some key beliefs and the core purpose of growing people. So, for this month, let’s just briefly examine those beliefs and answer that…

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Options – Including Those for a 5%r

Earlier I shared my favorite response to advice, “You’ve got options!” How cool that the impact changes the brain. Options, choices, autonomy, control. Besides the fact that you know there is always more than one way to do anything. With that time to think, the pause… You’ve got options! What are they? Consider these things:…

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Significant Moments that Lead to Long-Term Change

Chip and Dan Heath’s new book, The Power of Moments, offers four elements that are present in memorable or defining moments in our lives and work. Examples directly connected to schools offer powerful evidence of the impact of such defining and transformational moments. These elements are: Elevation—experiences that rise above the routine. Pride—commemoration of people’s…

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Creating Insight via Moments

Moments of insight offer the opportunity for realizations and transformations. In coaching, paraphrases that reframe or questions that challenge offer moments of potential realization and transformation. In addition, coach leaders may create experiences or situations that cause others to “trip over the truth” (Chip and Dan Heath, 2017). Here is an example of a created…

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The Positivity Project: Making a Difference in the Lives of Students

In one of our recent seminars, one of our participants, Andy Camarda, principal of Lemon Road Elementary School in Fairfax County, Virginia, spoke about his school’s association with the Positivity Project. The Positivity Project is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to empowering America’s youth to build strong relationships and to understand, appreciate, and exemplify the…

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