“My name is Michael. I can hop. Do you want to see me hop?” That’s how I introduced myself to bemused strangers at the supermarket when I was three. Not much has changed, although my mum is (maybe) a little less embarrassed.
Here’s the formal bio—you can tell, because it’s written in the 3rd person. Michael Bungay Stanier is at the forefront of shaping how organizations around the world make being coach-like an essential leadership behavior and competency.
His book, The Coaching Habit is the best-selling coaching book of this century, with over 750,000 copies sold and 1,000+ five-star reviews on Amazon.
In 2019, he was named the #1 thought leader in coaching, and was shortlisted for the coaching prize by Thinkers50, the “Oscars of management”. Michael was the first Canadian Coach of the Year and has been named a Global Coaching Guru since 2014. He was a Rhodes Scholar.
As coaches, we're in the business of behavior change. And, wow, it's really difficult. We are all, literally, creatures of habit. Our role in helping our clients have the courage and discipline to change the way they act is significant and tricky.
You undoubtedly know about the power of habit building (and if not, you should). But we've all had the experience of trying to build good habits ... and for all our best intent, having them nonetheless wither on the vine.
The step before habit building is understanding the difference between Easy Change and Hard Change. Until you do that, you and your clients will perpetually struggle to make the changes that matter most.
Even though we know the power of curiosity as coaches, we also know the temptation of our Advice Monster.
That hunger to "add value" to our conversations by having the brilliant solution, helping our clients out of a tough spot, and staying in control of the dialogue ... it's a temptation that's hard to resist.
There's a time and a place for advice, of course. But for you to most effectively share your insights and solutions, you MUST learn to tame your Advice Monster!
1. The three personas of the Advice Monster
2. How to understand the "prizes and punishments" of having your Advice Monster on the loose.
3. Why giving advice is an important coaching tool
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