Month: December 2023

Categories
Book Review Coaching Leadership

2023 – Top 5

Winner Every Time text on top of teddy bears
Photo by Robert Linder on Unsplash

It’s time for the annual top 5, and it’s tools and books taking top spot once again:

  1. Radical Candor
  2. Coaching Spectrum
  3. Coaching Tools – Scaling
  4. Tech Debt
  5. All Good

Two new entries from this year’s posts, all about Tech Debt (and good news for followers of this story, I’ve got my new windows coming in the Spring), and All Good, how only positive feedback can be limiting!

A big positive is the continued overall growth of the site, doubling the number of visitors since last year. I’m super happy that people are finding value in this content, and that they keep coming back for more.

Here’s the top 3 from my LinkedIn Wednesday Coaching series:

  1. Is average good enough?
  2. What’s your default style?
  3. What’s another way to look at it?

If these resonate with you, then why not have a go at answering them for yourself? And if you’d like to see more, then join me over there and get involved.

I’ll be sharing some more book reviews in the New Year, and if there’s anything specific you’d like me to cover, just drop me a line at james@jamesosborn.co.uk or connect on LinkedIn, I’d love to hear from you.

Categories
Coaching Leadership

Can do anything

Lens held up by a person with a road coming into focus
Photo by Zachary Keimig on Unsplash

When we think about all the various ways we can say yes or no to a request, I sometimes find it helpful to think about it in the following way: We can do anything, but we can’t do everything.

It’s easy to say yes to any request, and end up overwhelmed. It’s equally as easy to say no, due to existing commitments, constraints we feel are currently in play, and other limiting factors.

If we open ourselves to doing anything, but not everything, then we can make sure we’re doing the overall most important thing. It cuts away those constraints of what we’re already doing, and it means that we’re also making sure we’re not just saying yes to dump something else on the pile.

When we’re clear we can’t do everything, we can make sure we’re bringing focus, and setting ourselves up to succeed. It balances the “can you just” type conversation, where we try to add more on to the pile, it protects you from “it should be easy”, and “it’ll be quick as well”. You can talk about the big ambitious highly important thing instead, and then set-out some clear trade-offs and decisions to make.

By being open to doing anything we break out of the limits of today. By being clear we can’t do everything, we give focus to be successful in achieving that big important goal.

Give it a go and see how it feels!