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Research suggests that our intelligence (our IQ) might account for just 20 per cent of our career success. The rest is down to our personality, (preferences, attitudes, postures, etc.) and, of course, emotional maturity. This is great news because, although personality and IQ remain fairly fixed over time, our emo-tional maturity is something we can always work on, to develop and improve.

Emotional maturity-a key to coaching

It is important to recognise that we do not always occupy one fixed place: metimes, we are relaxed and resourceful; sometimes, we are uptight and crit-al. To be an effective coach, we want our general levels of emotional maturity most circumstances to stay healthy. By 'healthy', I mean that our behaviours d responses create a mostly constructive effect over time.

Even in the growth mindset, failure can be a painful experience. But it doesn’t define you. It’s a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from.

We mythologize the idea of poverty, and it’s easy to do because there is always someone who has less than us. As long as there is someone with less, we imagine ourselves in the middle, doing just fine. “The Poor” in our cultural mythos are Dickensian paupers, wretches of the earth, one morsel of food away from complete starvation

Coach the person, not the issue

In coaching, remember to focus primarily on the person in front of you, rather than their issue. Sometimes, we can get so involved in the engaging challenge of a situation that we forget that our role is not to solve some-one's issues for them. By using behaviours such as silence, summarising and questioning, we support the coachee to find their own solution. Of course, at times it's

Keeping things simple

Simple questions often have the greatest impact because they allow your coachee to use their energy to form their response, rather than to try to under-stand the wording of the question. In addition, simple questions often get 'to the heart of the matter' more easily, because of their direct (straight-talking) nature: for example, 'What's important about that?' or 'What causes this?' We obvious

Relationship factor: openness and trust

A successful coaching relationship is built on a foundation of openness and trust between the coach and the coachee. As a coach, you encourage this by being open with your coachee and demonstrating that you are someone they can trust.

At a Glance

Watch my feelings!

It is okay to mirror positive feeling words

Sometimes, we need to acknowledge someone's feelings as a way of empathising with them, or to demonstrate we understand what they have said. Here, it usually works best to use the exact words or phrase they use.

But

avoid embedding negative feelings...

BELIEFS WE OPERATE FROM

Once skills are acquired, it's not like riding a bike - we coaches do forget! These skills are more like muscles; they must be used regularly to keep them strong.

Fundamental skills of coaching

Building rapport and relationship

Constructive feedback

Focused levels of listening

Asking effective questions

Use of intuition

BELIEFS WE OPERATE FROM

Once skills are acquired, it's not like riding a bike - we coaches do forget! These skills are more like muscles; they must be used regularly to keep them strong.

A collaborative coach needs to temper the basic human instinct to be right about something. By giving up an attachment to finding a solution to a coachee's problem, we are actively encouraging them to find their own solution. Collaborative coaching encourages someone to be more powerful, more creative, and more in action around situations, by helping them to find their own ways forward.

What does non-judgement feel like for a coach?

Put simply, to be in non-judgement feels like nothing, because there is nothing going on! During a coaching conversation, you are not having an internal dia-logue along the lines of "That's not right, that's an awful thing to say, etc. Instead of being distracted by your own thoughts and views, you are really listening, and present, to the flow of the conversation.

As

When we do not regard someone with an open mind, we are less likely to understand them. This lack of understanding has a direct impact on our ability to relate to the individual and how things are for them. At the same time, we diminish the warmth and openness in the relationship, and reduce our ability to influence the other person.

• Being supported to think in different ways and to consider other viewpoints provokes ongoing learning in the mind of the coachee. As if the conversation is a pebble being thrown into a pond, questions are the catalyst that sets off a reaction. The ripples of a coaching conversation often reach beyond the actual conversation itself.

"s mnohými obdobiami našich dejin sme sa nikdy nevyrovnali. Priznaky złoby sme schovali hlboko do studni, na dno jaskýň a zľadovatených jazier, do nepreskúmaných útrob zrúcanin, odkiaľ sa teraz pomaly predierajú na povrch. Slovenské dejiny, ktoré nás učia v škole, sú podľa nej veľmi zjednodušené. O mnohých udalostiach sa deti dozvedajú len v skratke, pretože sme vlastnej zlobe dostatočne neporozumeli"

Funerals are the one time when humour-or at least any humour beyond that which raises a wry, sad smile would be disrespectful and out of place. Without it, we are left naked, unprotected, our social inadequa- cies exposed for all to see.

"This kind of indirectness just comes naturally to us. We are accustomed to not saying what we mean: irony, self-deprecation, understatement, obliqueness, ambiguity and polite pretence are all deeply ingrained, part of being English. This peculiar mindset is inculcated at an early age, and by the time our children go to primary school, they have usually already mastered the art of the indirect boast"

Unless you fully appreciate this peculiar mindset and its implications you will never truly understand the English. Try repeating the above mantras to yourself every day for about twenty years, and you'll get the idea. Recite them in a resignedly cheerful tone, adding the odd 'mustn't grumble' or 'never mind' or 'better make the best of it', and you will be well on your way to becoming English.

Everyone is always highly surprised: "Really? You mean there are cultures where people don't believe that alcohol causes violence How extraordinary! and politely determined to let nothing shake their faith in the evil powers of the demon drink. It's like trying to explain the causes of rain to some remote mud-hut tribe in thrall to the magic of witch doctors and rain makers.

the English get great vicarious pleasure from our pets' uninhibited behaviour. We grant them all the freedoms that we deny ourselves: the most repressed and inhibited people on Earth have the most blatantly unreserved, spontaneous and badly behaved pets. Our pets are our alter egos, or perhaps even the symbolic embod- iment of what a psychotherapist would call our 'inner child'

You see, the English really are quite capable of Latin-Mediterranean warmth, enthusiasm and hospitality; we can be just as direct and approachable and emotive and tactile as any of the so-called 'contact cultures'. It is just that these qualities are only consistently expressed in our interactions with animals. Unlike our fellow Englishmen, animals are not embarrassed or put off by our un-English displays of emotion.

Restraint, inhibition, reserve, shyness, embarrassment, indirectness, hypocrisy, gritted-teeth politeness - all very English, and, you might say, not particularly surprising. But think for a minute about who these Big Brother participants are. The people who apply and audition to take part in this programme actively want to be exposed to the public gaze, twenty- four hours a day, for nine weeks, with no privacy.

The concept of compromise seems to be deeply embedded in the English psyche. Even on the rare occasions when we are roused to passionate dispute, we usually end up with a compromise. The English Civil War was fought between supporters of the monarchy and supporters of Parliament - and what did we end up with? Well, er, both. A compromise. We are not keen on dramatic change, revolutions, sudden uprisings and upheavals

"prudent and responsible?' they said. 'Why do you find this so depressing?"

My concern is that these largely commendable tendencies are also symptoms of a wider and more worrying trend: our findings indicated that young people are increasingly affected by the culture of fear, and the risk-aversion and obsession with safety that have become defining features of contemporary society.

When I make critical or even damning remarks about some aspect of English culture or behaviour, everyone nods gloomily in agreement, sometimes even providing supporting examples from their own experience. But praise, however mild and anxiously qualified, is always challenged: I am accused of wearing rose-tinted spectacles, and bombarded with counter- examples - everyone has some anecdote or statistic that contradict

"The English do suffer from a sort of 'nostalgia isn't what it used to be' syndrome. The belief that the country is going to the dogs, that things are not what they were, that some cherished bastion or emblem of Englishness (such as the pub, queuing, sportsmanship, the monarchy, courtesy) is dead or dying, seems to be endemic."

Our typical responses are closer to what psychotherapists would call 'passive-aggressive'. The same psychotherapists, reading this, would probably recommend that the entire nation be sent on one of those assertiveness-training courses. And they might well be right: assertiveness is clearly not our strong point.

All cultures practise both forms of politeness, but most incline some- what more towards one than the other. The English are a predominantly 'negative-politeness' culture, while the Americans, for example, tend to favour the more warm, inclusive 'positive-politeness' mode

"In typically English fashion, we channel our anger into endless clever jokes and ritual moans, reams of print and hours of airtime, but fail to address the real source of the problem."

the Importance of Not Being Earnest rule is really quite simple. Seriousness is acceptable, solemnity is prohibited. Sincerity is allowed, earnestness is strictly forbidden. Pomposity and self-importance are outlawed. Serious matters can be spoken of seriously, but one must never take oneself too seriously. The ability to laugh at ourselves, although it may be rooted in a form of arrogance, is one of the more endeari