How to get a Fabulous Workday

It takes just as much effort to have a wonderful day as it does to have a miserable one. Why not enjoy yourself?

Want to have the best workday ever?  Day after day?  It’s not as difficult as you think.

 in Inc.com hese 10 tweaks to your everyday behavior will virtually guarantee you a day that’s not just enjoyable but allows you to get more done than you ever thought possible.

Read the whole article here: http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/have-a-fabulous-workday-10-tricks.html

More powerful questions

A coach  was taught by her boss 3 powerful questions which she use to guide herself and coach her staff, after certain event or project or even appraisal

1) what have you done well
2) what can you improve
3) what have you learn

 

Another coach shared a simple but yet big questions:

«Only you know what you want and what is stopping you, are you prepared to share that with me?

 

 

More favorite questions

In July 2010 someone post this question on www.linkedin.com and the subgroup Training&Development, people still post their question after 2 year. And their questions are really good, I will post more of them here.

Here are a women`s  favorite coaching question, but she admit, identifying just one favorite is difficult. But in the plethora of questions, the four below – or some variation – consistently rise to the top, so she offer them here.
1. What does success look like?
2. What is ONE thing you could do today to move in the direction of the outcome you want to achieve?
3. What are you practicing? What might be possible if you practiced {something different} instead?
4. What emotion is most natural for you when you consider {the current situation, barrier or goal}? What would you like to experience instead {or what would serve better you in moving in a different direction}?

More will come…

7 steps to getting the most out of your vacation

I am now on my vacations in France, and have the best time with good weather, good food and good friends. But it is also a time to reflection and recharging the batteries, so I have always wondered if I am doing the right things. Am I doing the right things and will be ready for yet another working load.

Michael Hyatt has a podcast where he will tell you 7 steps to getting the most from your vacations.

Listen to it and maybe you will learn something and you will get more out of the vacations than before.

Listen here:

how to make the best out of your vacation

Mentoring combined with training…

Every no and the I see different statistic all over the world, this one is from USA and from mentoring point of view it´s very, very good.

According to a study by the American Society for Training and Development,
training alone increased managerial productivity by 24%.

When training was used in combination with mentoring and coaching,
productivity increased by 88%.

Mentor Resources – No. 3 on The Best Mentoring Blog 2011 list.

Over the past 10 years, Mentor Resources, a San Francisco-based executive and management leadership center, has created and managed partnerships, matching thousands of mentoring pairs to provide growth opportunities for the development of tomorrow’s corporate leaders.

 
The ability to match mentees with appropriate mentors, combined with their training programs, means that their mentees consistently overachieve – most reaching five year goals in only one year. This outcome is largely due to maximized learning and the mental and emotional information transfer by mentors. They invite us to see the world of mentoring through their eyes and they will show us a world that really works.

 

 

Mentoring Peers – No. 2 on The Best Mentoring Blog 2011 list.

«Some people spend a lifetime attempting to live according to cultural images that never quite fit them. Whenever a knight of the Grail tried to follow a path made by someone else, he went altogether astray. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s footsteps. Each of us has to find our own way.»

Peer work in business, university, school and community settings. Links to and descriptions of peer associations, services, and programs. Lists of workshops, seminars, and peer conferences, and criteria for National Peer Trainer Certification. A who’s who of peer work.

Why reinvent the mentoring wheel? Let us do it for you. You get the benefits and features, and we do the work. Consider joining the Peer Resources Network. Access to the best documents, manuals, training materials, and mentor program details.

This is a fantastic website and a database full of materials for people who work with mentoring, be a member for a small sum of money and get access. To read more on their website, click here: http://www.peer.ca/mentor.html

Mentoring Works – No. 1 on The Best Mentoring Blog 2011 list.

Mentoring Works is devoted to developing and supporting mentoring.

 

Ann Rolfe is internationally recognised as Australia’s leading specialist in mentoring, and is available for speaking, training and consulting.

At here blog Ann shares her knowledge and allows you to ask your most pressing questions about mentoring.

 

The website assist us in:

  • Training and learning mentoring skills
  • Planning your workplace mentoring strategy
  • Managing your mentoring program

She is also the winner of:

 

These are the best of the best within everything from «Best Talent» to «Best Services» and  «Best Mentoring/Coaching Program»,
with her client NSW Department of Community and Family Services for their Aboriginal Management Mentoring Program.

 

Click here to view here blog: http://mentoring-works.blogspot.com/

or here to view here website on Mentoring Works: http://mentoring-works.com/

The 4 Steps to Finding Your Voice

“One word expresses the pathway to greatness: voice.
Those on this path find their voice and inspire others to find theirs. The rest never do.”
Stephen R. Covey

 

I read an article on Stephen R. Covey`s blog and wanted to share some of the wisdom from him about mentoring. Read this short story and learn from one of the best.

I think if you care about people genuinely, you listen to them and observe them; because this is more than just hearing them speak, it is observing them-observing where their excitement is, where their enthusiasm is; observing where you sense they have potential. Sometimes it is very powerful just to say to them in sincerity, “I believe you have great potential in this area. I see real strengths in you that you may not see in yourself, and I would like to create an opportunity for you to use those strengths and to develop this potential. Would you be interested in that?” Most people are so flattered by someone who sincerely cares for them and affirms their work and potential that they are moved and inspired by that kind of input. It’s very powerful and it can make all of the difference, particularly with people who grow up with a confused lifestyle, bad modeling, and basic education. Often they have no clue as to what life is about or what they are about until someone becomes a teacher to them-a mentor, a confirmer, and a coach. This kind of mentoring is becoming increasingly important in education, in relationships, and in work environments. It can make all of the difference as to whether a person takes a higher road to his or her own voice or a lower road to where he or she is swallowed up by the priorities and voices of others.

With unemployment at current levels, why would any manager focus on mentoring? Why spend money on current employees when they should be happy to have their job?

Guest Blog: Kim Wise, the founder of Mentor Resources

As an observer of the business environment, I find myself startled at the short-sightedness of managers who make comments like these.  These questions are short-sighted and reflect the commentator’s own fears.  Any company that expects to stay in business for the long haul needs to be constantly monitoring and upgrading its skills.

It is well documented that an outstanding manager (or employee) will contribute significantly more than an average employee in the same position to the firm’s bottom line.  Thus, it should be obvious that leveraging your best employees impacts the bottom line in a meaningful way. Today especially, every manager needs every one of his or her employees to be a better than average employee.  Rather than taking employees for granted (“since there are no jobs out there”), managers should be focused on increasing engagement, efficiency and proficiency at the job.

The impact can be meaningful: In a Harvard Business Review article on Employee Engagement, BestBuy shared that a 0.1% increase in average employee satisfaction within a store increases revenues, at that store, by $100,000 per year.

Mentoring is the fastest way to share the perspective, insights and knowledge of the outstanding employees.  Tacit knowledge is the counterpart to classroom learning.  It’s the subtle lessons of experience and observation over time.

When an employee who has been successful in the organization agrees to mentor a less experienced employee and they click – creating a good mentoring experience – the perspective of the successful employee is leveraged and magnified.

There are software tools that can help the mentor matching, to cost effectively maximize the mentoring program.  The market leader is Mentor Resourceswhich provides software for the administration of formal mentoring programs. WisdomShare™ is a proprietary algorithm which matches Mentors and Mentees to create a good match, where the pair share personality traits. This software is often supplemented by Mentor Training by a consultant like Thor-Erik Gulliksen.

Kim Wise is the founder of Mentor Resources, a premier provider of tools for formal mentoring programs, using WisdomShare™ an artificial-intelligence matching system. The software has been selected by a number of European-based multinational corporations because it generates the best possible match for the Mentor/Mentee pair, with clear guidance and measurable goals which are strategically aligned with the organization’s long-term goals.