Love your work more in 2024

by Renewal Associates

My first Sufi spiritual teacher always said – “You can always love more.”  By this he meant more in terms of depth and breadth.

What would you need to do, to love your work more in 2024?  For too long we have talked about work -life balance in ways that portray work as a burden we then have to recover from.  In contrast I aim to leave each week of work more energised, alive and creative than when the week began.

So, what have I discovered enables this to happen?

  1. Discover the deeper purpose in your work. Work out who and what your work serves, for whom your work creates value and benefit. Love what you do and love those who benefit from it.
  2. Being in love with learning. Every person and team I coach and every person I train and/or supervise, I see as my next teacher. I have made a commitment that if I ever teach a course or workshop and do not: a) learn something new; b) teach something new; and c) upgrade the program, it will be the last time I teach that course.
  3. Teach what you are learning. I believe that we do not learn by being taught, only when we turn what we have read or heard into our own enacted practice. Also, that we learn most by teaching what we are learning to others, as then we need to be clear in understanding the learning and have to embody it.
  4. Always be curious. Be fascinated by everyone you meet; they all have an interesting story to tell.  Also be curious about new places, their history and culture; new subjects and ways of working different to yours.
  5. Surround yourself with great colleagues and partners. When I was in my mid-twenties and running a therapeutic community, I realised that my boss could not supervise my work, so I formed a peer supervision group and recruited people from many different organizations. My learning and love of the work quickly multiplied. Create a group of great colleagues, compatriots with a shared purpose.  Help those already in your team, by discovering their passion and helping them to develop it more fully at work.
  6. Treat every difficult person and situation that you encounter as a ‘generous lesson life has sent you.” Our most difficult clients, colleagues, bosses or teams are potentially best teachers, so rather than getting frustrated by them, ask yourself what they need you to learn.
  7. Work from source rather than from effort. Each summer I run advanced retreats at Barrow Castle near Bath UK and we explore how to work from source and renewable energy, rather than ego effort and energy that is not renewable. This entails letting go of believing it is you doing the work, and having to perform and get it right, and realise you are always working in partnership and just a channel for the work happening.
  8. Create teams that are synergistic and are more than the sum of their parts. Teams that enjoy being together, but even more love what they are collectively and collaboratively achieving together for the benefit of those they serve. Teams that have a collective purpose, remembering it is the purpose that creates the team, not the team members who create the purpose.

 I invite you to think of three easy ways you could love your work more in 2024.

I will be starting the year by teaching a Systemic Team Coaching 3-day training in Houston USA 22-24th January 2024, assisted by Steliana van de Rijt-Economu and meeting up with as many of our North American alumni who can join us on the evening of the 23rd January. I will love learning from each new trainee and how our alumni are taking the work into new worlds.  If you would love to learn with me visit https://www.renewalassociates.co.uk/stc/stc-certificate-houston/


David Clutterbuck’s and Peter Hawkins’s Best Reads of 2021

by Peter Hawkins

David Clutterbuck and I both enjoy an eclectic mix of books and have enjoyed many wonderful titles this year. Here are our top 10 reads across a number of topics.

As always, we have both enjoyed an eclectic mix of new titles this past year. Here are our top 10 reads.

First, three books about how we think and make decisions

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The author brings together the teachings of her Native American heritage, her life as a single Mother of two girls and being a professor of Botany to gently help us see the world more ecologically and indigenously.

Think Again, by Adam Grant & Noise, by Daniel Kahneman and colleagues. Two tours de force by giants in the field of human cognition, taking different perspectives on how and why individual and collective decision-making is so often flawed.

Thinking the Unthinkable by Nik Gowing and Chris Langdon. Explores how and why we tend to avoid dealing with difficult issues and what to do about it.

Next two books on systems and systemic thinking

Coaching Systemically by Paul Lawrence – explores systemic thinking from multiple perspectives.

Upheaval by Jared Diamond draws on case studies of how nations coped with crisis to draw conclusions about how organisations and societies can learn to adapt and thrive.

Two on aspects of awareness

The Body in Coaching and Training by Mark Walsh – a useful overview for anyone working with Gestalt, ontology, or mindfulness; or wanting to use themselves more in their coaching practice.

Supersenses by Emma Young. If you thought there were just five or six senses, you’d be wrong. Young identifies and explores 32 human senses. I found it broadened my mindfulness dramatically to experience consciously such a wide range of sensory inputs.

One general title on coaching

WeCoach by Passmore et al – the biggest collection yet of coaching tools and techniques in one volume.

One on teams

Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff – “being human is a team sport”. Rushkoff argues cogently that the impact of much technology has been to undermine our instinct for collective endeavour. He helps us in ’Understanding humanity as one big, interconnected team.’

And three intriguing outliers

The Handshake by Ella Al-Shamahi. The handshake is something we take for granted, but the meaning and impact of handshaking varies dramatically from culture to culture. A gripping read (yes pun intended!)

Becoming Mandela by Trevor Waldock.  Trevor moved from being a UK coach to developing young community leaders across Africa.  These are letters to his sons and a great guide in how to be an Elder, rather than a Leader.

No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings (Netflix founder and CEO and Erin Meyer Instead Professor.  Not an exemplar for others necessary to follow but many provocative ideas for how to run a company like an elite sports team.

And also this year we both enjoyed reading new updated editions of each other’s books on Team Coaching:

Coaching the team at work. (Second edition, 2020) by David Clutterbuck

Leadership Team Coaching: Developing Collective Transformational Leadership (fourth edition, 2021) by Peter Hawkins

What books have you enjoyed reading this year and can recommend to be added to our 2022 reading list?


A unique opportunity to join Peter Hawkins 3 day Virtual Systemic Team Coaching Course 15th-17th Dec 2021

by Peter Hawkins

AoEC
Systemic Team Coaching Course
15th – 17th Dec 2021
Virtual

(replaces the face to face event in London)

BOOK NOW

SYSTEMIC TEAM COACHING BROCHURE

Systemic team coaching drives powerful change at individual, team and organisational level. This 3-day experiential programme explores how to coach teams to consider both their internal dynamics and external stakeholders working with the connections and influences within and outside the team. Examining both internal and external aspects, the programme provides a valuable way of supporting teams to improve their productivity, performance and realise their full potential.

Those completing the Certificate/Foundation programme will be awarded the Academy of Executive Coaching Certificate in Systemic Team Coaching and which carries ICF credits: 19 CCEUs: 3 Resource Development & 16 Core Competency.

The Systemic Team Coaching Certificate includes training in the unique Team Connect 360 diagnostic, through which you’ll be licensed to use this powerful online 360 tool with your own clients – only Certificate participants are able to do this.