Give a team fish, or teach a team to fish?

As tempting as it may be to order the catch of the day at a fine dining restaurant from time to time, you will be able to eat fish every day if you learnt how to fish. This has been on mind a lot recently. First, I have been working in partnership with a consultant supporting a client through a team transition. My college’s approach is to serve a pan fried trout with all the trimmings. My approach is to take the team out to a stream, give them some rods and lures, and practice fly fishing together. And I think both have their place. Combined, we are meeting the clients short terms needs, and building capability for the future as well.

Second, I have been writing about my early experience as an internal team coach. Although I was taking the team fishing on a regular basis, I was providing them with an open seafood buffet on a day-to-day basis as well. Of course the buffet was easier and faster for the team to consume, so they picked that option. It took a lot of energy to encourage the team to fish for themselves and support their long term growth. I learnt a lot from that experience, and I think the leader and team did as well.

If you or your team would like learn more about fishing (and by fishing I mean high performance leadership and high performance teamwork), please get it touch. I have plenty of lure options to share with you.

#teamfishing#leadershipdevelopment#teamcoaching

Location, location, location part 3

Coming to you from Mangawhai (about 90 mins drive north of Auckland). I’m here on my third self-imposed writing retreat… and brimming with gratitude…

· to be living in one of the most beautiful countries in the world

· to have the opportunity and resources to be able to park life, hide, and do this

· to have had the most amazing experiences in my life, and more in progress

· to have the best and most caring friends and professional colleges I could ever wish for

· to have freedom and choice

And I could go on…

Reflecting and sharing personal reflections in a team context, is a great way to get conversation flowing, build trust, and create psychological safety. Try opening your next team meeting with a round table gratitude exercise. It is bound to reveal new information and generate smiles.

#gratitude#teamcoaching#psychologicalsafety#lovenewzealand

Put your won oxygen mask on first

… is the title of my contribution to Peter Hawkins most recent book, Leadership Team Coaching in Practice. I focus things I learnt about myself, the hard way, while working with a team. The EMCC Team Coaching Standards have something to say about this topic a well. “Develop and implement an appropriate process to maintain resilience and self-care and the active management of one’s own needs.” Note the words "active management" and "processes to maintain". Although the target audience is Team Coaches, the message here is of course equally applicable to every coach, every leader, every employee, every parent, every family member, every friend, everyone!

I was reminded last week how important self-care is for me too. And, thank you to my friends for reminding me.

Put your won oxygen mask on first – it’s not selfish, its a requirement!

#selfcare#selfcompassion#oxygen

If you or your team would like to talk more about "active management" and a "process to maintain" resilience and self-care, please get in touch.