Thoughts
Here you will find articles on the five types of service I offer organisations and the people in them. These will hopefully give you a flavour of how I work and what inspires my approach. If you have any questions about these services please contact me.
Filters
- About Still Waters 7
- Accept Change 9
- Coach 7
- Consultant 4
- Dream Big 10
- Facilitator 6
- Help & Advice 5
- Make Small changes 10
- Mentor 3
- Mindset 9
- Personal Stories 11
- Principles 1
- Published Material 7
- Support Large Changes 7
- Teacher 3
- Tools 7
- climate crisis 1
- eco-coaching 1
- ramblings 16
- reflections 39
- resources 17
- reviews 29
- service 1
The Benefit of Paying Attention
Like a lot of people during the pandemic I now work predominantly at home. And often when I am working at home, I like a coffee in the morning. And often when I like a coffee in the morning, I treat myself to a couple of biscuits (especially if I have earlier been for a run). It was on one such morning, with coffee and biscuits procured and on my cluttered desk and several things on the go in my head and on my computer, that it happened. I lost the biscuits.
Rebrand and Recipe for Resilience
How did that happen? One minute resilience is the panacea for all ills. An aspirational virtue featuring centrally in my and many others’ professional practice. Now I hear tales of it morphing into a shadowy, corporate act of manipulation, designed to load ever more work on to individuals. What’s going on?
From Chess Boards to Ice Fields
If you are of my generation you would probably have been brought up on concepts like Total Quality Management (TQM), Projects In Controlled Environments (PRINCE2) or something similar like Kaizen. These change methodologies, while all valid, were born out of industrial-age thinking, which I’d argue is no longer serving us quite so well.
The Future of Coaching
In a world that’s increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, what is my role as a coach and does it need a rethink? How might my coaching practice be no longer fit for purpose? What might be needed of me, as a coach, that is beyond my current model? These and other questions have been occupying me since the start of 2023.
Aging and Retirement
A few years ago at a work meeting a colleague concluded his ‘check-in’ by saying, in the most casual way that, at the age of 52, his best years were behind him. This sparked a variety of reactions including, in me, an emotion I have no word for but is something like a sad anger. Perhaps I was railing against my own mortality or just I didn’t fancy spending the day with Eeyore.
Is It The Hope That Kills You?
Will Monday 9th August be the day the world finally woke up to the probable/inevitable impact of climate change on our planet and the lives of everything and everyone living on it? I’ve asked myself this sort of question many times in the past, a heart filled with hope. Each time I ask, my hopes end up being dashed and the nausea in my stomach grows. But perhaps this time will be different…?
Being A Citizen
In using the term eco-citizen as part of Still Waters I am tapping into a long-running and not entirely resolved debate about what it means to be a citizen. Scholars can’t even agree when the concept of citizenship began. The modern interpretation, based on a legal definition applied to being a member of a nation-state, is different to the more classic Greece-invented idea. For Still Waters I am going more with the Greek definition.
Honouring My Work
It was with a large dose of curiosity, and a small pinch of trepidation, that I agreed to my friend and colleague Jeremy Keeley’s suggestion that we ‘honour my work’ in a recorded Zoom conversation. Below is the result of this, or you can click here. It was a strange experience, a bit self-indulgent, but I thought I’d share it because it covers a lot of the thinking behind Still Waters.
Joining The Green Party
Although it may not seem to have an immediate impact, one of the small changes you might consider is joining the Green Party. You can be a fully paid up member for around £10 per month. Membership means you get access to loads of useful information on the environmental movement (as well as all their other policy areas, such as social justice). You also get the chance to participate locally, vote on policy and people and go to their conference. And psychologically you get to feel like you are part of something that is part of the solution.
Grappling with being green
I first got interested in the environmental movement in the run up to the 1987 election. It was the second time I could vote in a general election and already I had become sceptical about what the mainstream parties were saying. The Green Party in those days were very much a pressure group with electoral ambitions and I didn’t agree with everything they stood for. But in their environmental policies they spoke in a way that resonated with me. In essence, the way we were carrying on as a global human species was unsustainable and no-one was doing anything about it.
Facing Your Fear
I’ve been facing my fear for about a few years now. Prior to that I had 50 years on the planet not even knowing I head this fear. How can that be possible? Well my coaching supervisor said I had ‘complex defensive structures’. When she said it I was rather pleased because it sounded cool. But then after going through some seriously painful learning it turns out it is not so cool after all.
Letting Go Of Outcomes
Whenever my children used to ask me what I would like for my birthday or Christmas I habitually reply “world peace”. This small exchange became something of a ritual in our household (oh the fun we had!!). I think I made this request for over ten years, and yet there were no signs of world peace on the horizon, or even a move in that general direction. It became clear to me that it may take a little more than a request to my children for this goal to be achieved…
Collecting Elastic Bands
A few months ago, just before Christmas, I had need of an elastic band. I realised we had none so added them to my shopping list (it’s a wild life I live!). On the way to the shop I found one on the pavement and so picked it up – problem solved, money saved, happy days.
Being On Strike
She already had tears in her eyes as she rose to explain to us what was going to happen next. The day before we had walked out an hour early as a show of solidarity to fellow workers who had been suspended. So now we had to sign a form ensuring we would not do that again. It was Anne’s job to explain this and get us to sign. We already knew we would not sign and so did she. We already knew the consequences of not signing and so did she. And so the puppet show began…
Using Honour To Maintain The Status Quo
Of all of the things we humans have constructed in order to try to control each other and the world in general, the concept of ‘honour’ seems to me to be one of the more bizarre. It’s a term that has often snagged me in the past and it did so again a few years ago with the reburial of King Richard III in Leicester.
One Thing Can Change Everything
One of the guiding principles in Still Waters is the idea that everything is connected, which comes from on a belief I’ve held for as long as I can remember. In the absence of traditional ‘proof’ for this belief, I’ve found solace in quantum theory and also the writing of Charles Eisenstein.