The essay was a critical review of executive coaching and what I wanted to say never really came out right.  I know some of my readers are either executive coaches, or clients of executive coaching, so here is a more heartfelt description.

I am often called an executive coach and I don’t always know why.    I don’t mind though because it almost always means I am going to be paid more than for some of the other work I do.  This is not meant to sound critical, or like gloating, it is just the way I see it and it got me thinking about the word ‘executive’.

Executive pay is like any other sort of pay, except in most cases the numbers are larger.  An executive briefcase is pretty much like any other sort of briefcase, with some additional features and a bigger price tag.  So is executive coaching just like any other coaching except with larger numbers and a bigger price tag?  Or are the ‘additional features’ unique to this form of coaching?

My own coaching practice is based on a humanistic philosophy that we are all unique individuals, with our own hopes, fears, dreams and flaws,  In that sense all my work seeks to focus on the fellow human in front of me, regardless of whether they are a CEO, payroll clerk, sales director or young offender.   Part of the reason for my struggle with the essay is that it felt inauthentic to be revieweing executive coaching when I was not sure if it really existed.

I have a strong sceptical streak running through my core, which makes me wonder if executive coaching is more a constructed marketing device than an actual function.  Certainly the number of books published, together with the massive growth in executive coaching in the last 20 years, leads me to question some of the motives in play.

However, it all started to make sense when I thought about the organisations that exeucitve coaching takes place in.  It often feels to me that, in order to succeed, people in large companies have to sacrifice or compromise a great deal, their work-life balance, their vulnerability, their collaboration, their openness; in short their humanity.

As you may know I am not a massive fan of the current capitalist, free-market, pseudo-democratic hegemony.  However I accept that no-one has come up with a better way to run the world and so have made my peace with (some would say sold out to) the system.  Companies that flourish in this system require a great deal from their people, and more each year, and that to me is where executive coaching makes more sense.  People at, or near, the top of these organisations need help in achieving their goals or tackling their challenges, and yet they can be isolated and very pressurised.  The issues they have to grapple with are becoming increasingly complex and the support structure they have to help them is often fragile or even non-existent.  A capable, credible, supportive, resilient coach is, in these circumstances, an obvious and compelling option. 

That, to me, is what executive coaching is.

We also realised that, humble as we may be - well Sally is! - we had a range of experience and skills between us that might be of some use to this community.  so we took the bull by the horns and designed an event. 

Invigorate! pdf - please click to download

The attachement in this blog is a leaflet for the event.  Please contact me if you have any questions or would be interested in coming. 

Finally, for those of you that are wondering whether this is a shameless piece of marketing instead of my usual ramblings…you are correct!

I can’t remember how the concept of biorhythms appeared in my psyche but I often feel that they might apply to me.  I have noticed patterns, and my noticing has become more acute since I started meditating 2.5 years ago, that sometime I feel I am on fire (not literally!) and that everything is easy, whilst at other times everything seems a real struggle and that I really have to try hard just to get the basics done.

So I finally decided to look into the concept of biorhythms to see if I could learn something.  Little did I know what a hornet’s nest I was kicking up.  So what are birhythyms?

The basic concept is that we are in a flow on three levels, as per the above diagram.  There are mathematical formulae for these rhythms, which conclude that we have cycles of 23 days for our physical self, 28 days for our emotional self and 33 days for our intellectual self. 

There is acres of material on the origins and complexities of this, which I won’t bore you with and there is an equally vocal denouncement of all this as pseudo-science by a broad range of scientists and academics.  I subscribe to the view that there is something in this, based purely on my own lived experience but I could not testify to the model and I do not have the inclination to research further at this point in time.

The mathematical element of the cycles is fascinating; for instance the cycles as a whole only repeat themselves every 58 years!  It seems to me to be a very complicated way of explaining why I feel that some days I can take on the world, whilst on others I have no inclination to get out of bed in the morning.

Where I find it useful is in developing a more compassionate or forgiving view of myself.  This week I feel I am in a physical trough, heading down to the bottom of the cycle emotionally and raising to about half way intellectually.  Just knowing that is enough to prevent me from beating myself up for not getting as much done as I would like.

Perhaps one day I will develop the energy and skill to be able to track my self against these three cycles.  For now I plan to relax in my trough and wait for my cycles to take me to a more productive place

As I sat on the packed train I noticed how many people seemed to be elsewhere; in a book, on a PC, watching DVDs or trying to sleep.  There was virtually no conversation; it felt like the epitome of adaptive individualism.  It was soulless.  I imagined if the carriage had been filled with children, or monkeys! (My imagination was obviously having a wierd one).  It made me realise that it didn’t have to be like it was and that the individuals had, probably over years, decided that this environment was the one best suited to coping with the journey.

Just as the train was about to leave a woman and her young son, aged about 4, got on with several bags and a scooter.  There were no seats available and she was agitated at the prospect of having to stand for her journey to Southampton (1 hour 15 mins).  No-one offered her a seat (including me) and I was amazed that no-one seemed to notice her at all, despite the fact she was a large and noisy presence.  She retreated to the corridor at the end of the carriage and proceeded to phone someone and download her anguish at her plight.  Inside the carriage the silence was defeaning, punctuated only by her conversation from one end. Still no-one did anything.

As we pulled into Woking a few people got up to leave.  It was clear to me that there would be some seats available, but unlikely to be two together.  I asked a man now occupying two seats if he could move to an individual one nearby so the mother and son could sit together.  It was clear from his shocked reaction that I had punctured his protective  bubble and, after composing himself, he said he could not move as he was ‘getting off at the next station’ (Winchester 30 mins later). 

I went to the end of the carriage, offered to take the ladies bags and find her and her son a seat together, which I eventually did at the other end of the carriage.  Another man brought the scooter.  The people where we put her seemed affronted that their journey had been disturbed in such a way, before returning to their book/pc/sleep.   The carriage settled and we moved on.

This is not a particularly significant story and I am guessing similar ones take place every day on many trains.  This makes me sad.  Are we really so asleep?

Let’s start with a definition; what is honour?  It seems to be a virtuous thing, and the honours system reinforces that, and yet I have some reservations. For me, honour has connotations of vanity or pride at being recognised for achievement.  It offers motivation for acts that need the term ‘honourable’ in case they are viewed more sceptically.  Shakespeare’s Falstaff denounces honour as a means to drive soldiers towards violence during his diatribe at the Battle of Shrewsbury in in Act II Scene V of Henry V:

“What is honour? A word. What is in that word “honour”? What is that “honour”? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ‘Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon” (a scutcheon is a cover or a shield).

Then there is the wonderful ancient ritual of ‘honour killings’ whereby male members of a clan or family were allowed/expected to kill female members of the same clan or family if the said clan or family’s honour had been besmirched, in order to restore the honour.  Today this ‘honour’ is still bestowed on an estimated 5000-20000 women per year

The royal honours system in the UK is over 650 years.  I grew up believing that the monarch chose people to get honoured, as was the case for much of the system’s history.  I was then led to believe that the prime minister picked the lucky recipients, followed by the government.  As I got older I realised that civil servants and subject-matter experts in committees were driving the honours bus.  And now, following Fred being relieved of his honour as a result of ‘overwhelming public opinion’ I am expected to believe that we, the masses, are the key stakeholders in all this.  Well I don’t know about you but I feel no sense of accountability or ownership for this dubious system.

Perhaps a couple of examples might illustrate my point:

Sir Bruce Forsyth:  Brucie already had an OBE and CBE when, in 2011 and following a long campaign which included 73 MPs signing an early day motion, he was made a knight of the realm for services to entertainment and charity.  I don’t know much about his charity work outside of the golf events but his ’services to entertainment’  seem to involve being paid millions of pounds to sing, dance, present and tell corny jokes whilst swanning round the world receiving industry awards and marrying increasingly young models.  I have nothing against Brucie, in fact Play Your Cards Right is one of my all-time favourite game shows, but I am struggling to see the need for him to be honoured.

Sir Mark Thatcher:  Mark became Sir Mark in 2003 via a more circuitous, and arguably incestuous, route. It started in 1992 when his father, Denis, was made the 1st Baronet of Scotney in Kent by the queen on the recommendation of the prime minister, a Mrs M Thatcher.  This hereditary title (the last hereditary title given to anyone outside the Royal Family) passed to Mark in 2003 when Denis died.  So Mark is being honoured for being the son of the husband of a former prime minister, and has retained this honour in spite of his admission of guilt in a case involving an attempted coup in Equatorial guinea in 2004, not to mention allegations of extortion in South Africa and racketeering in Texas.

Finally, it is worth noting that Fred Goodwin joins a small illustrious group of ex-knights, including Lester Piggott, Nicola Ceaucescu and Robert Mugabe.

PS - bang goes my chance of a gong!!

As you may know from previous blogs I enjoy running and aim to get out 2-3 times per week.  We have beaustiful countryside round here and it is a joy to plod round, either alone deep in thought or with a friend (we are slow enough to be able to chat whilst running).  So why did I pay £10 to enter a formal event, involving a 20 mile round-trip in the car, the hassle of pinning a number on a shirt and clever timing gadget on my shoe, and standing around in the cold waiting for a start for 20 minutes?  I don’t know, but here is a selection of self-reflective possibilities

1. I have a need to test myself in a competitive environment.  It is ridiculous really as I didn’t know any of the other competitors and the field was made up of a vast spectrum of ages and capabilities.  I came 213th out of 374th.  And yet there were a few mini-contests throughout the race and in the final half mile three of us were competing for 211th with an increasingly fast and tiring sprint finish.

2. I know that I run faster in these conditions, which is satisfying.  I am not a big one for timing myself or measuring the distances I run.  However I know I usually run between 9 and 10 minutes per mile.  Yesterday I completed the 5 mile course in 41 minutes 14 seconds, which means 8 minutes 15 seconds per mile.  This makes me feel good about myself - sad isn’t it!!

3. Running with hundreds of other people creates a sense of belonging and bonding with my fellow humans.  There is something very inspiring to be in the throng on the start line and then to be part of a tide of lycra-clad movement that slowly thins out.  As the race proceeds there is occasional conversation with people and a general supportive feel of well-being.  The range of people might be enormous, but we are all there with a common purpose.

4.  Variety is the spice of life.  This race was in Broadlands estate in Romsey.  The scenery was fantastic and different and the course much flatter than I am used to.  Also there is something about punctuating the sameness of running with events like these that helps maintain my commitment to the sport.

5.  Finally, and this is the point of my blog, there is much to be learnt from whatever we do.  Even the simple act of running round a private estate with 373 other people can offer opportunities for self-observation and discovery.  I noticed the way I reacted to the course, my body, the other runners, the spectators, the distance markers and particularly the workings of my own mind.  There was much to be gleaned.

If you think I am being self-obsessed in this blog you are probably right.  I am realising that the work I do on my self in terms of consciousness and psychology is an important part of my life.   Whilst this might sound narcissistic, there is a paradox here that by focusing on myself I feel I can appreciate better the connectedness of us all and be of more use to others.

This week I was working with someone on some personal development and we noticed that these things always seem to be ‘journeys’.  People go on a learning journey, or a journey of discovery, or their life is a journey.  We talked about this and I started to wonder about this in relation to some of my studies on consciousness and mindfulness.  I remembered a model from college and pieced together the following model - I hope you find it useful.

The journey starts with no-sight.  This is stuff that other people may know about you but you may not be aware of. The johari window calls this a blind spot.  For example I was working with someone (let’s call him Dave) who didn’t notice that he often cut people off before they had finished a sentence.  Dave could have gone through his life without ever discovering this - permanent no-sight.  However he got some feedback from his boss one day about it which he struggled to accept - this became part of the reason he asked for my help.

During our first meeting I noticed Dave cut me off a few times but didn’t bring it to his attention.  At our second meeting he mentioned the feedback from his boss and questioned whether it was fair.  I told Dave I had experienced this myself with him and this intervention moved him into hindsight.  We were then able to discuss something that had happened in the past , which firstly enabled him to accept the issue, secondly help him to think about the impact it might be happening and why he was doing it and thirdly to get him working on what to do about it.

Part of Dave’s work involved hime becoming more of cutting people off in the moment, i.e developing now-sight.  This took some time but after a while he was able to notice what he was doing while he was doing it.  This meant he could apologise to the other person and sometimes even stop himself at the point of interruption.  Either way he learning a lot more about what was going on at that moment.

Over time Dave started to explore the underlying causes for his interrupting and what situations were triggering it. He realised that the he was more likely to cut people off in conversation when he became stressed by what they were saying.  It was almost like he couldn’t bear to hear it and need to to get a defensive or attacking response out immediately.  Dave developed enough foresight to be able to be more resilient and also to spot likely stressful conversations and consciously work on not interrupting.

I have a pathological need, apparently from birth, to stand out from the crowd.  One of the ways I achieve this is by playing devil’s advocate.  This means that, no matter what position someone may take on any given subject , I manage to instinctively and intuitively take the opposing view.   What I have come to realise is that this can really wind people up, particularly within social settings where norms dictate that people make small talk harmlessly and receive encouraging support for whatever they say.  I am often seen as opinionated (which is ironic given I am prepared to sacrifice most opinions for my devil’s advocacy) and mouthy, as well as a pain in the posterior/neck.

Having woken up to my hitherto unconscious, habitual behaviour it took quite a while to appreciate the virtue in this. It turns out that my customers appreciate my devil’s advocacy more than my friends.  My ‘talent’ for offering a different perspective appears to offer creativity and help people who are stuck.  And so this flaw in personality turns out to be a bit of a money-spinner!

My studies require me to analyse stuff so I have taken the cocept of ‘devils advocate’ apart to find out what it is made of.  There seem to be 4 main ingredients contained in me that combine to create this feature:
1. Scepticism: a dangerous poison that needs treating with utmost care in case it degenrates into it’s more toxic sibling, cynicism
2. Optimistic non-judgment: an aspirational virtue drawn from Atticus Finch that allows for free-thinking  ”even Hitler had his virtues”
3. Creativity: A wild, scary catalyst that unlocks stuck thinking by living on the edge of anarchy
4. Extroversion: A habitual propensity to speak first and think later

Apparently the term “devil’s advocate” dates from the late 16th century.  It was a job created by the Roman Catholic Church to test out the authenticity and credibility of candidates being proposed by ‘god’s advocate’ for sainthood.   His job (of course it was always a man) was to question the validity of the miracles being attributed to the prospective saint or to challenge their character and integrity. 

Unfortunately for my career the role was abolished by Pope John Paul II in 1983, although I suspect my protestant upbringing and subsequent lack of faith may also have counted against me!

The day after I wrote the last blog I was reading a book on coaching (not for pleasure I might add; it is part of my studies).  I came across the following:

“People who seek coaching are usually doing well; they want to realise even more of their potential and they know that they do not have to be sick to get better.  Happiness is not just the absence of misery, in the same way that health is not just the absence of illness” (How Coaching works by Joseph O’Connor and Andrea Lages)

Leaving aside the co-incidental nature of this and resisting the temptation to explore the coaching and happiness elements of the quote, it struck me as a very pro-active approach to health.  This made me think about how passive we tend to be about our health (or is it just me?) and, in turn, how ineffective this can be.  How many of us are in a cycle of diet - stop - diet? Or we joined a gym in response to our fitness and then soon gave up going?  Or made a health-related new year’s resolution that did not survive through January?

My Uncle Jack was forever looking after his car; he never waited for something to go wrong.  As a result his car seemed to run reliably and last forever (White Austin 1700 Maxi).  As a drinking smoker with a sedantry life-style he would arguably have benefitted considerably if he had applied his philosophy on cars to his own health. As it was he died at 70 after a long battle with poor health.

The other side of this coin is the impermance of life and the thin thread by which we all cling on to existence.  Last year a fit, non-smoking friend died aged 42.  I have lost a 38 year old friend to a road crash and a 25 year old college mate to a freak gas-leak in a caravan.  None of these people reaped the rewards of a pro-active approach to their health. 

So the case for good health cannot be only about living a longer life, although it will improve our chances.  Good health for me is about waking up with the motivation, energy and resilience to live each day fully and sustainably.  This is a more holistic aspiration for health that includes physical, emotional, mental and (god forbid) spiritual elements.  It is a worthy intention as well being very ambitious and more than a little sanctimonious!!

When I was growing up, Christmas was about family and New Year more about friends.  New Year was a celebration of what it was to be alive and amongst people I had chosen to build my life around.  (Being brought up in a pub it was also perhaps the most alcohol-fuelled night of the year!)

The only problem I have with New Year is that it is followed by a couple of months of winter, which feels like hanging around waiting for Spring.  I would have preferred new year to start at the end of March, as it did until 1751 when we officially switched from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar.  The new year would be accompanied by the spring equinox and a feeling of a real fresh start.  It would tie up with the tax year again, be more synchronous with nature and create a much healthier gap between Christmas and New Year.

One of the features of New Year is the resolution and for the first time ever I actually completed one last year.  I resolved not to have a reoccurrence of previous back/neck problems during 2011 and made it with a regime of daily exercises, regular visits to the chiropractor and a greater focus on posture.   What I learnt is that ‘resolution’ was the wrong word because I did not have control over the outcome.  It was more of an intention, underlined by hope, with some commitments in support.  So this year I am going with a similar theme of an intention to stay healthy this year.  I realise this is risky territory as I am getting older and the only thing I can be certain about is that life is uncertain.

However I have a an intention to stay healthy and a strong hope for it.  My commitments towards this intention were inspired by a young lady I worked with in 2011 who noticed that when she combined exercise, good eating and meditation she improved her wellbeing and maintained mometum and equanimity.  With that in mind I intend runing 500 miles, meditating for 100 hours and losing 1 stone in weight during 2012.  If I can manage these things I reckon I have a good chance of being healthy for the year.   …There are plenty of people who believe I have jinxed any chance of staying healthy in 2012 by making such a bold intention.  Let’s see if they are right…  

I wish you health and happiness in 2012, as well as success with any resolutions or intentions that you make.