Coaching vs Command & Control style of Management
Leaders have only two jobs: 1) Getting work done 2) Growing the people Coaching as a leadership/management style achieves both. With Command & Control approach, managers may get the work done in the short term, by force. But that might have negative impacts on the team in terms of : – Lack of ownership – […]
Questioning and Asking Questions – what is the difference?
A speaker finishes a great speech – at least, HE thinks it is great! He then asks, “Any questions?” What does he expect? If I were him, I would expect the audience to demonstrate a level of understanding of what the speech was all about and ask meaningful questions – clarifying the ground covered and […]
Journey of a coach – theory & practice (Part I)
This article is part of the series on “Journey of a coach” covering my experiences as a performance coach. You may have the read an earlier article in the series on “Journey of a coach – the beginning”. The journey continues here… Yogi Berra, New York Yankees baseball player (arguably the best catcher of all […]
Networking – when and how to begin?
One is never without a network and if you are reading this – it may be more to know how to grow it and/or to overcome obstacles, often due to one’s level comfort with so called “networking”. If you look at how you: you will see that a network – formal, informal or virtual (internet […]
Working long hours…
Years back, I was working on a project and putting long hours, my boss noticed this and asked me to meet him first thing the next morning. Next morning when I met him, he said “if the work requires long hours, see that you work late only alternate days say Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. If you […]
Coaching for Performance – Discovering Whitmore
Several years ago, when I was getting started on becoming a coach, a good friend recommended the book “Coaching for Performance” by Sir.John Whitmore (JW). Although I did not pause to ask the question then, I do now: “Can one learn swimming by reading a book?” So, what is the point of reading about coaching […]
Journey of a coach – the beginning
The motivation for this series of articles is to share my personal journey as a “performance” coach for software project managers since 2006. These days, one sees a number of professionals in their late career starting out as coaches – former CEOs, senior HR professionals, operations executives and so on. I hope that this series […]
Project Management – Non-Profit vs For-Profit Sectors
Project Management is an art (with some science mixed in), the practice of which needs to change slightly depending on the sector (government sector, non-profit sector like charities, for-profit sector like corporates etc.) that it is applied in. The command-and-control approach that may work well in a a for-profit organisation may not work well in […]
What are typical benefits of a Business Excellence Program?
A common question that many organizations have is related to the business benefits in terms of top-line, bottom-line or risk management and mitigation. Would an initiative on a path of Business Excellence be helpful? A study conducted by the National University of Singapore in 2009 found that, over a four-year period, the productivity of leading […]
What should be the scope of a Business Excellence initiative?
This is a question that I get asked frequently. In my close to 20 years of association with some national Business Excellence Award programs, I would stress on just two aspects. To ensure that the growth of any organization is balanced and that results are caused by intention – and hence sustainable. With these two […]
