Coaching is the dialogue that focuses on the point where observed behaviours meet thinking, values and beliefs with an intent to change a future outcome.

Coaching takes place when there is a commitment by the individual being coached to a better future and the coach exhibits, selflessness and expertise.

Coaching progress occurs when change in the cognitive and behavioural patterns of the individual are established, developed and embedded, with enhanced self awareness enabling the individual to better influence outcomes in life, relationships and business.

So in choosing a good coach you look for someone with the bravery to look for the values and beliefs that really matter, a person who can set aside self interest and pride yet who is knowledgeable in techniques that uncover the truth and possibilities about and for you that you could not see for yourself.

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Sustainability is now part of our individual and collective reality.

Given that politicians of all points in the political spectrum, the world over seem to be on side with the idea that sustainability is an issue that is not only real but one that is and will impact all choices and decisions made at national, regional and local government levels I would suggest that sustainability is now in the realm of the apolitical.

Having recently worked with the Carbon Trust in the UK, I have first hand experience that it is individuals who have been at the forefront of taking action in changing habits and behaviours around climate change and sustainability. We have had in fact a societal values shift.

Corporates have been quick to react and barring some greenwash have embraced CSR for both commercial and altruistic purposes.  Disappointingly governments have moved much much more slowly. Some governments are still dragging their feet as bemoaned by the UN Secretary General recently.

So our clients whether as individuals or corporates are likely to have sustainability as a growing personal issue underpinning a realignment of values and beliefs. How they relate this to future business and personal goals and their concept of purpose in this world is a very valid area requiring coaching support.

Coaching is recognised as the management intervention best suited to support individual leaders, managers and businesses in what is a dynamic and certainly difficult economic environment. 

I believe this also holds true as we approach a couple of decades that will determine the degree of change resulting from the environmental impact on the world economy and how we face up to the key challenges that business and societies must address.

I agree that as coaches we should not lead our clients but I do not think there is any need to. We do however need to be prepared as coaches to work with clients in a societal shift that is likely to be even more impactful (is that a word?) than this economic recession.

Sometimes we can live with the results.  Others may haunt us for the rest of our lives.

In the end these must be personal judgements though influenced by personal values, cultural and religeous beliefs and societal needs.

You would have thought that over the millenia, regardless of the different pace of civilisation and moral sophistication, we humans as a race would have been approaching an ethical norm.  Diversity, free will, creativity and socio/economic/environmental/philosophical influences aside…..

Why is it that we can experience such a range of feelings in reaction to the moral and ethical diversity of fellow humans.

I feel sick about

Leadership should be ethics based

I feel curious about

I feeel angry about

I feel frustrated about

I feel ambivalent about

I feel nothing about

Are we progressing to a higher moral and ethical plane. 

What can we do to exert the moral ascendency that our humanity, ability to think, to imagine, to design and to collectively achieve should demand of us?  

Can we create our future and shared destiny with a sense of common rightness.

The internet and social media may just provide an answer to these questions.  I have just read a blog questioning the ethics of the Thai media to publish the death photo of David Caradine.  It was the comments and philosophical exchanges that caught my attention.  Points of view from people of different cultures, with different beliefs and values putting their case in a non destructive or aggressive way.  A sharing and learning experience that rarely occurs outside of academia.

May be, just may be we can earn the the rights and responsibilities mankind has grasped and that fulfil our highest understanding of what is humanity. 

Dare to be human  play your part in creating a shared ethical ethos that we are proud of.

Yet in the midst of an economic crisis it would seem folly to argue that these tried and tested business regimes are fit for purpose.

I would contend that in business, as in life in general, it is fool hardy to always be looking to solve the problems of yester year instead of seeking the best way to address the challenges of the future.

Greed may have been a key constituent of the problem that has brought us to this point.  A reflex response to cut out the fat, the excess and the non performing, should not be confused with unchecked cost reduction, down sizing and a blind hurtling down the path of never ending efficiency.

When you squeeze every last drop out  of the people who remain they have very little ability or appetite to think beyond the restrictions of process and the constant overhanging pressures of performance targets.  What room then for the sources of competitive advantage that might just haul a business out of the pit of recession.

People need to believe that they are more than just automatons.  They need to be treated as humans and given the space to do what humans do best which is to evolve, find new solutions, be creative and think the unthinkable – to dream.

Certainly greed has been a key factor in creating this economic crisis but I believe that stifling our individualism and spirit, chasing the last cent of profit, was a contributing process.

So as we look forward to how we will best pull through these difficult times, I urge business leaders to rediscover trust in people,  in their resourcefulness and creativity.  Yes spend money on marketing but also look to understand and make provision for personal development.

Without people business is a hollow shell with no purpose.