Today is a special day.  Through the post arrived copies of my new book Resilience: A Practical Guide for Coaches (McGraw Hill).  The title makes  clear what it is about and who it is written for.  I obviously hope it will help coaches do good work with their clients, but ...
Read More

Recently  I sat in a presentation by a major supermarket. The audience of business leaders listened with sceptical curiosity as the speaker claimed resilience as  a core organisational skill, and explained how they had introduced resilience training to thousands of  employees, many of whom work at checkouts . The question ...
Read More

In the 'old days' it was obvious what you wanted a mentor for - to help you up the corporate ladder.  Being associated with a more powerful person who could open doors, drop your name into conversations and position you for opportunities was a key element in many stories of ...
Read More

A 60 year old man came up at the end of a  presentation.  I had been talking about one of the markers of resilient leaders being their  ability to go beyond comfort.  Expecting a conversation about his  leadership, I was surprised when he began by confessing, "I have never learnt ...
Read More

Entering any new role there is an acknowledged transition period: a time when it is OK to say 'I don't know'.  For a hotel receptionist that period may be days, for senior executives it has become commonplace to talk of the first 100 days.  A report by McKinseys based on ...
Read More

We all know we should exercise, eat healthily, get enough sleep and take regular breaks from the pc. And yet . . . the things we know we should do are the very things we don’t do when we are feeling pressured. The thing that goes first for many of ...
Read More

Neuroscience and gene mapping have confirmed what many of us have suspected – some people are hardwired to be resilient, and some people are hardwired to experience the same situation as more stressful than others.  However, it is also confirming that genetics only explains 30% of our variability , the ...
Read More

You feel tired, you can’t wait for the pressure to reduce but are you really burnt out, or just in need of a break. The distinction is important because burn-out is recognised by psychologists as a very particular condition, which is the result of the toxic combination of individuals who ...
Read More

Hearing of Maya Angelou’s death reminded me of a trip to Chicago 20 years ago. As I wandered along a main street, I saw a queue of people outside a bookshop. There was a sense of excitement about the crowd that drew me in. I squeezed through the mass, curious ...
Read More