Do goals have to be financial?

I recently attended a training evening organised by the worthwhile business networking organisation BNI.

After an enjoyable dinner with pleasant conversation, the high profile speaker for the evening gave a challenging talk about what our expectations were of our businesses and of our BNI membership the purpose of which is to increase our turnover.

It's good to be challenged. It's good to have goals. However I don't believe that everyone is motivated by money, and research bears this out, although some people are particularly good at making it and such skill is valuable!

I felt that there was an underlying belief that everyone is in business purely to make money, and I found this approach limiting. Aside from anything else, I'd like to think that doing good work is a good starting point for business growth. Perhaps it was a useful focus for one talk, however in my coaching work I like to make less assumptions about people's values and motivations, spend time understanding their actual goals, and then help them to reach them.

Freemind

This week I heard some fascinating presentations about helping people to reach their full potential. The occasion was one of the regular get-togethers organised by the Institute of Business Consulting in South West Britain. The evening, yesterday, was hosted at At-Bristol by Veridian plc who wanted to tell us about their learning tool Freemind, designed by Tom Fortes Myer.

This is a collection of recordings on CD which individuals and organisations can use to get rid of the blocks to achieving their full potential. The underlying belief which Tom explained, and which I can agree with, is that performance = potential - interferences. So achieving potential is about getting rid of blocks. Before the talk I spoke to someone who had used Freemind. She spoke of how it had transformed her life since she started to understand that every situation she faced was an opportunity for her own development. That statement is, itself, transformative. by which I mean that it changed my own way of thinking.

The recordings are available on CD or by download from the Freemind web site, which includes some sample recordings free of charge.

Tom's talk was complemented well by a talk by Jan Childs of EQ4U about Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and how it is much more important in the development of leaders than IQ. I recommend her book "Understanding Emotional Intelligence in 90 minutes," which can be purchased from the web site.

Part of my own fascination is the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence. Spiritual Intelligence is to me about the uniqueness, connectedness, and vocation of human beings in creation - which embraces the growing desire amongst employees in particular and people in general for meaning and purpose in their work. I notice that Jan heads off in this direction in her book, particularly in the final chapter, and I see the Tom's approach to unlocking potential as drawing together the spiritual and emotional.

"spiritual?"

I recently attended a training session for coaches. The presenter was asking us about what gives us energy. Is it activity that is intellectual, emotional, physical, or spiritual? What fascinated me was that most of the coaches in the room struggled to engage with the word 'spiritual' - indeed some seemed strangely hostile to the word.

However there is growing interest in 'spiritual' things by which I don't mean religions but people's concern for meaning and purpose in their life and work, not to mention concern about the planet we inhabit together. Furthermore authors are writing about spiritual intelligence as an important area of development alongside IQ and EQ.

It seems to me that effective coaching requires some awareness of the different areas that affect people's lives. Even in business coaching, although the goal of the coaching will be business-related, effectiveness requires a whole-person viewpoint.

Easier to start your own business?

At the recent finals of the Wiltshire New Business of the Year Competition, the entrant who impressed me most (but did not win) was a nineteen year old from a local town who was fed up with being unemployed. She decided to set up her own dress shop because she saw there was no other shop in the town selling the kind of clothes she wanted to wear.

As I reflect on the support I give to those who are looking at making choices in their career, I find myself wondering whether it is easier at the moment to start a new business than to find employment. It's certainly one way for new graduates to delay paying off their student loan.

During a recession is not necessarily a bad time to start a business. It takes time to get everything in place, by which time potential customers may be feeling more confident.

Business Help

I enjoy coaching, and bring great encouragement as well as more tangible benefits to the people and businesses that I work with. I'm great at helping other people to step back from their business and be more objective. Yet I'm not much good at doing either of these things for myself, so I need to be on the receiving end of coaching too.

It's not easy to stay buoyant in the current economic climate, so I was pleased that my appointment with a business link adviser last week encouraged me and helped me to see the reality of my situation. He pointed out that the issues I'm wrestling with are typical for a business of the size and age of Finding True North; he reminded me that my turnover is growing!

Business Link advisers don't see themselves as coaches. They like to signpost business people to the services that they need. I found it a great help to go on their business start up course when I started up in business. Given that their advice is free, and an encouraging sign that government wants to support businesses, and even the course only cost about £100, it shocks me when I hear of people who have leapt into starting a business without ever making use of them.

Recommend them to your friends!

Technology - a poor master

I had a great evening yesterday, in the company of twenty or so colleagues from the Institute of Business Consulting of which I am a member because of my coaching and consultancy business. The occasion was the annual Chairman's Networking Dinner impressively hosted at Casani's French Bistro in Bath by our illustrious regional chairman, David Rigby, who has a real gift for these things. The enjoyable meal was interspersed by ten-minute speakers and there was the opportunity for much idle or deep and meaningful conversation.

I found myself talking to two people who, like me, have a significant background in Information Technology. The conversation with the person on my left was all about the problems of using computers today. This ranged from the way in which computer media or files from a decade or so ago cannot be read by today's computers, to how we are losing historical records because inks used for printing documents (and photographs) do not last well. I still intend to print out a lot of my digital photos to add to my traditional album - that may be necessary if my p.c. is wiped out by EMP or plagued by future incompatibility; but what is the point if the prints will not last? My conversationalist is still using a 35mm camera with traditional film.

After the main course I chatted to the person opposite me. Her work as a consultant focuses on helping teams of people in remote places to communicate with one another. She encourages the embracing of modern technology, taking people beyond mere web-conferencing to the on-line virtual world of Second Life. She sees such use of technology as essential in today's environmental crisis. She is the first person to have offered to help me sort out the wardrobe for my avatar. I have not accepted yet!

I am struck by the contrast between these two conversations.

I am very aware that as a personal and business coach I value working with people face to face: yet I use e-mail to arrange the appointments, and I am typing this on a computer now. It alarms me when I visit offices and see people glued unergonomically to their computer screens even to the exclusion of a lunch break.

It seems to me that in today's society we risk being turned into machines by the machines, that is to say we become dehumanised. What it means to be fully human is a bigger topic than I allow for in this one article however, as I attempt to think through the extent to which I should use automated e-mail newsletters (etc.) to promote my business, I feel that I first need to envision the way in which a healthy society makes use of technology, and be faithful to my vision. A challenge in Finding True North!

"Technology is a great servant, but a poor master." In times of technological change, and when "the market" wants us to adopt new technology for its profit, what values do we need to hold on to use technology to grow in our humanity rather than to be dehumanised?

I suspect that people have been asking similar questions since before the Atom Bomb, and maybe not enough during the Industrial Revolution. Paul Vallely impresses me with his writing, and I note his article in the Church Times of 6th November 2009. He comments on the row over the sacking of government scientific adviser David Nutt and concludes that the problem is not our contempt for science, but that scientists condescendingly do not (always) see that "science must be subjected to social values not be a substitute for them."

Stick to the basics

I like to give air time to people writing under the banner "Finding True North." Here's some good advice from Robert Goshen about sticking to the basics, remembering relationships, and staying humourous!