Ideas
Ideas are part of the work too.
Some questions stay with me long enough to become something worth sharing.
Questions about leadership.
Identity.
Teams.
Story.
Presence.
Change.
The roles we learn to play.
The assumptions we stop noticing.
And what becomes possible when we see something differently.
Questions about leadership. Identity. Teams. Story. Presence. Change.
The roles we learn to play. The assumptions we stop noticing. And what becomes possible when we see something differently.
This is where I gather some of that thinking. Some of it begins in coaching rooms. Some in conversations. Some in writing. Some in the work of trying to make sense of what it means to live and lead with greater intention.
Featured Thinking
Questions I keep returning to.
Narrative · Identity · Leadership transition
When a leader changes the story they are standing in.
What becomes possible when “I have been put into this” becomes “I can help shape what happens next”?
Identity · Character · Leadership
The role we learn to play can eventually become the thing that constrains us.
Leadership often asks us to inhabit a role. The question is what happens when that role becomes too fixed, too narrow or no longer fits the person we are becoming.
Coming soon
Teams · Systems · Relationships
Becoming a Team
How a newly constituted senior leadership team began to recognise inherited patterns, make better use of difference and author a more intentional way of working together.
Leadership · Human potential · Coaching
There is more richness in people than is usually visible.
Roles, habits and organisational expectations can narrow what becomes visible in us. Good work can help bring more of that richness back into view.
Coming soon
Narrative Coaching · Questions · Possibility
What needs to change for everything to change?
Sometimes the most useful shift is not another answer. It is a different question.
Coming soon
Change · Leadership · Sustaining transformation
Tending the Flame
Change is not only about starting something. It is also about staying alive to what matters long enough for something new to take root.
Coming soon
Published Elsewhere
Some ideas have already found their way into print.
Black lives matter: the catalyst for action
Written while Robert was Centre Director at Animas Centre for Coaching: a reflection on diversity, inclusion and the coaching profession, written during a period when questions of race, belonging and representation were becoming impossible for the coaching industry to avoid.
Read the article →contribution
Playfulness in Coaching: Exploring Our Untapped Potential Through Playfulness, Creativity and Imagination
Robert appears as one of the book's contributors and storytellers. The table of contents lists him among the contributors in section 1.5.14. His contribution connects to themes that continue through his work today: playfulness, story, imagination, embodiment and the possibility of seeing differently.
Robert is a contributor to this book, not its author or co-author.
View the book →Conversations
Some ideas need another person in the room.
The Coach's Journey · Episode 27
How to Say Yes and Become a Conduit for Change
Robert's route from acting into coaching, and his willingness to engage with difficult conversations around diversity and inclusion.
Listen to the episode →The Coach's Journey · Episode 41
The Scaffolding of Change (and When to Discard It)
A conversation exploring Robert's transition away from Animas, identity, change and what happens when an old structure is no longer needed.
Listen to the conversation →The Coaching Hub / Optimus
The Missing Piece in Leadership Development
Why leaders need coaching or a confidant, leadership loneliness, whole-person work, and Robert's route from theatre into coaching.
Watch the episode →Themes I Keep Returning To
Different questions. Connected territory.
Narrative & Story
How the stories we live inside shape identity, possibility and action.
Leadership & Identity
Who we become when responsibility grows or old ways of leading stop fitting.
Teams & Systems
What happens between people, not simply inside individuals.
Presence & Possibility
Attention, embodiment, choice and what becomes visible when we slow down enough to notice.
Change & Becoming
How people move from what has been to what might be next.
These are thematic signposts, not filters yet.
Keep Exploring
Some ideas are useful to read. Others are better explored in conversation.
If something here connects with a question you are carrying in your leadership, team or work, we can start there.