Notion Blog and News

Congratulations to Laura Ashley-Timms, Coaching Director at Notion on her 2018 Top 50 Coach award. This prestigious honour was presented by Corporate Vision Magazine for her services to the coaching industry. 

The World Economic Forum predicts that in the next two years, 5 million jobs will have been lost across 12 developed nations as a result of increased automation and robotisation. But, the International Labour Organisation is less conservative in their estimation; they state that across places like Cambodia, Indonesia, The Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand, 137 million jobs will be lost as a result of the robotisation of the garment industry alone. That equates to an epic 56% of the workforce.

Deloitte’s Global Trends research in 2017 identified that 80% of organisations recognise that they need to develop more agile and diverse leaders and managers.1 Indeed, ‘agile’ remains a much talked about topic well into 2018. Although it is a relatively new term for most, it was actually coined by a group of industry leaders in 2001 as part of their agile manifesto to make software development more responsive to business needs. Now, appropriated by mainstream management, the term has spread into almost every aspect of organisational life. Consequently, most managers have probably heard about it, many will incorporate the phraseology into their everyday language, but do managers really know how to be agile?

Everyone has heard the proverb ‘curiosity killed the cat’ which warns of the dangers of unnecessary investigation and experimentation. The phrase, despite being over a century old, is still commonly said and is often used to stop people from asking unwanted questions. Interestingly, this notion is reflected in the management models of many organisations across the globe, where information and instructions flow from top to bottom; managers are expected to hold all the knowledge and employees who ask too many questions can be perceived as an irritant.

Recent news reports reveal that business confidence, across all sectors, is at its lowest in 15 months, as a result of the Brexit negotiations and low wage growth. Despite signs of business growth in some industries, optimism is still falling, suggesting that organisations don’t feel confident about future trading conditions.

The impact of slumping levels of business confidence, not only affects what happens in local and international markets, it can also have a dramatic effect on people working inside organisations. The people costs of low business confidence can be substantial and shouldn’t be understated or ignored, because, helping people to sustain high levels of optimism during these volatile and uncertain times, might be a key factor in whether organisations survive long enough to prosper. 

 

The coaching industry has grown at a remarkable rate over the past decade, with people from an array of occupational backgrounds entering the profession. As a result, it has become essential to establish high standards of competence and professionalism in an industry that has few barriers to entry. 

Thankfully, many coaches undertake training and qualifications to set themselves apart from untrained individuals who call themselves coaches. However, it seems that after the initial enthusiasm for training, many coaches are not taking their professional development seriously, with reports indicating that only 50% of coaches undertake coaching supervision post-qualification.