Business Coaching is difficult to explain in words - like in sports, a coach helps improve your skills, which for Shirlaws client is their skills in business. Sounds simple, but often prompts the question that if you are the one improving, the one changing themselves and their business, then why is a coach required, what value do they bring?
 
In Chemistry, the Catalyst is a compound which is necessary for change to occur, but which is not changed itself. Without it - no reaction. And after the reaction has taken place - it can be removed, exactly the same, and yet the change remains. Sounds familiar?
 
My role as a coach in a business is to enable positive change - it's change that would not have happened without my involvement. I'm there to support the whole reaction. And perhaps most valuably, that change does not require me to change as well - I can step away, and you will retain the lasting impact of what took place.
 
Does that help you see business coaching in a different light? And if you're not changing as fast as you would like, have you thought about what catalyst may be required?

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Catalyst Coach
A quick Google search revealed that I'm not the first to think of the catalyst analogy - here's a business actually called 'Catalyst Coaching' with their vision about what coaching is, and the benefits it delivers. 

 
Visual Illusion of the Year
Speaking of vision, how's yours? Follow the instructions on this page (in the green box) and be surprised. It talks of a Baseball curveball - I wonder if there's a link to cricket's elusive 'reverse swing'.

 
Confusopoly
Not every business wants change, of course - some industries actually thrive on confusion and opaqueness. Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) asks 'Can the government help? No, seriously ... could they do better?' 

 
Why I don't Trust the Internet
Wikipedia might be more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica, and Googling 'the funny Jacob Aldridge' may provide 12,000 links, but I still don't trust the internet. Why - it's still too easy to prank, as Amazon.com and Time Magazine both discovered.

 

Intranet Joke of the Week
 
A small turtle starts to climb a tree very slowly. After long hours of effort, he reaches the top, surveys the view, then dives off a branch flapping his arms, gaining speed all the way to the ground.
Recovering consciousness, he heads for the tree once more, and very slowly begins climbing again.
At the top of the tree, watching his pain, are two pigeons. As the turtle jumps once more, flaps madly, and fails to fly, the male pigeon leans in toward the other.
"Darling," he says, "I think it's time we told Scott that he's adopted."

 

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