The next reporting date for the EMCC Coaching & Mentoring Standards Project is June 15th at the 3rd Annual Standards Workshop to be held in Oxford. The EMCC will now be collecting data in preparation for this next important industry wide event until May 31st, so if you have not yet taken part in this consultatative research process you now have another opportunity to do.

Existing project participants also now have the opportunity to review and modify previous responses, or to be upgraded to the next level of involvement.

To give you an idea of what is involved, there are 200 ‘core’ standards and these relate to competencies that are ‘core’ to all types of coaching and mentoring practice. Everyone who participates in the project is given a username and password that allows them to go online and rate these standards via an online ‘questionnaire’.

For those who are interested in going to the next level, this would involve rating an additional 200 statements relative to your area of practice. These additional statements and indicators cover specialised areas that touch upon a range of professional domains, these include leadership development, systems thinking, psychological models and artistic and creative skills.

If you would like to take part in this consultative research project contact pauline.willis@lauriate.com

There has been phenomenal response from the professional psychological community to the proposed Special Group for Coaching Psychology.

More than 1200 Psychologists who offer professional development services under the branding of ‘coaching’ have registered their intent to join the SGCP if it is formed.

Voting papers have now been sent out to all BPS members with GBR or above so provided that 400 BPS members vote in favour of the Special Group being formed then the SGCP will become an official subsystem of the BPS later this year!

If you are a Coaching Psychologist and have registered your intent to join the SGCP, it is now very important that you look out for your voting papers in the post this week!

Data collection for the European Mentoring & Coaching Council Standards Project will close on August 31st. If you need a login/password reminder to complete your competency maps, please do get in touch.

Final work in compiling a set of Draft European Standards, Assessment Guidelines and an extensive Competency Bank for Coaching & Mentoring practice will be conducted during September/October and presented at the EMCC conference in Brussels by Project Leader, Pauline Willis.

If you have not yet booked a place at the conference you can send an application via The EMCC website

This month the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) launched the Coaching and Buying Coaching Services guide. This comprehensive guide to finding, selecting and managing coaching resources is avalialbe free of charge from the CIPD website.

Written by Jessica Jarvis, the content for the guide was informed by a select panel of leading experts drawn from the Coaching & Mentoring community including Lauriate director and coaching psychologist Pauline Willis, David Lane and Mike Van Oudsthorn from the professional development foundation, David Megginson from Sheffield Hallam University and David Clutterbuck.

Download the Coaching & Buying Coaching Services guide from the CIPD website

At the AGM of the Coaching Pscyhology Forum held this month at the British Psychological Society central office in London, Lauriate Director Pauline Willis was elected to the role of Chair for 2004. The key aims of the Coaching Psychology Forum are to lobby the BPS for the creation of a Special Group in Coaching Psychology and also to make the services of Coaching Psychologists more accessible to businesses and the general public.

Lauriate has been contracted to provide a range of advanced modules focussing on aspects of Coaching Psychology in association with specialist coach training provider CFM consulting.

CFM have delivered coach training programmes accredited by Strathclyde University within large organisations since 2001. The Coaching Psychology modules have been designed to support non-psychologist coaches who undertake the accredited programme to develop a greater awareness of Coaching Psychology principles and become more effective as business coaches.

One of the first modules to be delivered in 2004 focuses on the knowledge and skills required by coaches to manage the boundary between coaching and professional psychology services. Additional modules will focus on key areas such as Emotional Intelligence & Critical Thinking Skills for business performance. All Coaching Psychology modules delivered through CFM are to be lead by a BPS Chartered Psychologist.

For more information about Lauriate’s coaching psychology programmes

Lauriate is currently finalising the development of a new assessment tool that will provide a means of assessing Cross Cultural Negotiation and Communcation Style.

This instrument is designed to be used within coaching programmes and workshops that are focussed on developing individual competences to optimise the effectiveness of negotation and communication across both national and organisational cultures.

We are now moving into a validation stage and are seeking individuals and organisations to complete the new questionnaire as part of this process. The questionnaire can be completed either in paper and pencil format or online. If you are interested in completing the questionnaire free of charge as part of the validation process please contact us at info@lauriate.com for further information and application details.

Professor Robert Hare a Canadian expert in the assessment of psychopathy gave a talk entitled ”snakes in suits – when psychopaths go to work” to a packed lecture theatre in Cardiff last week, reported Joanna Hill-Tout from the BBC whose full article can be found on the BBC website under the title The Psychopaths in Suits

In this article, Joanna summarises Robert Hare’s brief guidelines for identifying psychopaths in the workplace as follows:-

How to spot a ‘snake in a suit’ in your office
They are manipulative
They lack specific goals
They have superficial relations with people
They are impulsive
They are irresponsible
They crave power and prestige
They lack empathy
They lack remorse
They lie easily
They have predatory instincts
They are cool under pressure
They seek excitement and thrills
They take credit for the work of others
They fly into rages

Professor Hare argues that psychopathic tendencies in the workplace may be associated with serious anti-social behaviours that are very damaging, but does also note that in some business environments, like the used car industry, some of these traits may be perceived as being desirable to organisations.

Whilst some people may consider these traits to be useful in certain contexts, for organisations (including those in the used car industry) that are values driven and committed to long-term sustainable success, it is important to select and develop leaders whose needs for power and achievement are balanced with empathy and personal integrity.

An assessment tool developed by Professor Hare called the Business Scan (B Scan) to provide a reliable means of measuring psychopathic tendencies within organisations will be available in the UK from February 2004. This tool can be used as part of a broader assessment process within organisations either before ‘high potential’employees are promoted to leadership roles or large investments in their development made through interventions like Executive Coaching

Other BBC news items relating to this topic
Is your boss a corporate psycho