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International speakers and well respected coaching authors and practitioners, Professor David Lane (UK) and Dr Michael Cavanagh (Australia) ran two workshops in Auckland during March. The NZ Coaching and Mentoring Centre hosted the workshops and it was a privilege for us and our clients to be a part of the conversations and learning that emerged. Some of the practical coaching strategies and advice shared by David and Michael for individuals and organisations were:

What are the realities for managers as coaches in New Zealand organisations in 2009?

A recent Chartered Institute of Personnel Development survey in the UK reported that most workplace coaching is delivered by managers. If that is the lay of the land overseas, what is the current situation in New Zealand?

To identify what are the realities for managers as coaches in New Zealand organizations, the New Zealand Coaching & Mentoring Centre are conducting a research survey.

If you are a manager/team leader or in a role where you are responsible for other staff we’d appreciate you contributing to this research by taking a five minutes to complete the short survey of six questions.

The NZ Coaching & Mentoring Centre welcomes International Associate, Professor David Lane to New Zealand for his 3rd visiting expert series in March. David is both an academic, an author and a senior practitioner of executive coaching in the UK.

On his last visit in 2007 he was the keynote speaker for the inaugural Mentoring & Coaching Forum (Building Momentum) held in Auckland where he presented the results of his case study research on the realities of coaching in UK organizations.

Forum attendee, executive coach Una Ryan said: "David’s wealth of knowledge and passion for coaching contributed to an in depth learning experience that was both conceptual and practical. The day delivered more than I expected."

This is our ninth year of providing specialist coaching and mentoring services to organisations throughout Australasia and we have started 2009 with a name change to better reflect the nature of our work and the future of the industry.

We are now the New Zealand Coaching & Mentoring Centre and have lots of good material on our new website www.coachingmentoring.co.nz that will be of interest to workplace learning professionals as well as details of all our major courses and events.

NZMC director Patti Gwynne is presenting at 3 coaching related conferences in New Zealand and Australia in late 2008. The common thread running through the 3 seminars is the emergence of, and need for, mental toughness and wisdom intelligence in the coaching domain.

On 16 & 17 October, Patti is presenting at the Kiwi Coaching Retreat in Queenstown, NZ, where she will be talking about 'Emerging Paradigms of Mental Toughness & Wisdom Intelligence in Leadership Coaching.'

November sees Patti in Australia at the Inuagural European Coaching Institute Australasian Coaching Conference, presenting a session entitled 'LOOKING AT THE HEALTH OF THE INDUSTRY - A Case for Resilience and Wisdom in Coaching for the Future'.

For the 3rd year running, the New Zealand Mentoring Centre in association with Unitec Institute of Technology have certificated graduates of its 5 day 'Professional Mentoring & Workplace Coaching Skills' training course and released them in to the wild.

The 2008 graduates are a mix of managers, workplace coaches and independent practitioners from all over New Zealand and all are committed to developing their skills and becoming part of the ever expanding coaching community in New Zealand.

The New Zealand Mentoring Centre took to the skies in September and ran a 'pilot' training for The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia in Queensland. The training, entitled Supervision Skills for Health Professionals, was trialled with a group of 16 staff from a range of disciplines including indigenous mental health workers, psychologists, nurses, social workers and of course, doctors.

Australian health-care provider Queensland Health is rolling out the New Zealand Mentoring Centre training course The Power of Peer Supervision to 2000 employees in 2 districts over 5 years.

After running peer supervision training for the last four years for Queensland Health, the NZ Mentoring Centre has just completed its first train the trainer course. This will enable QH trainers to roll out the peer supervision model throughout the state for allied health staff including occupational therapists, mental health nurses, psychologists, indigenous workers, speech pathologists and physiotherapists - all professions that need the chance to review their practice in order to develop their professional competence.

In June New Zealand Mentoring Centre directors Aly McNicoll and Wendy Baker travelled the USA to present a workshop at the  ASTD 2008 International Conference in San Diego on 'The Power of Peer Mentoring Groups - tools for learning in the connected organisation'.

This conference attracted 12,000 delegates, and as workshop leaders they are standing alongside Ken Blanchard, Marshall Goldsmith and a host of other leadership legends.

British expert will help NZ firms develop a mentoring culture, writes Steve Hart

New Zealand organisations are increasingly embracing mentoring and coaching as being essential to their organisation's toolbox of learning and development strategies, says Aly McNicoll.

The New Zealand Mentoring Centre training director says the benefits of mentoring include helping to develop leaders, drive change and address management and human resources issues. While mentoring staff and grooming them for advancement may be all well and good, McNicoll says showing the benefits on the bottom line - generating a return on investment - is something some firms struggle with.

But help is on its way in the form of a mentoring expert from Britain.

"Britain is about five years ahead of us in terms of where mentoring and coaching sits in organisations," says McNicoll. "One survey found that 86 per cent of organisations [in Britain] were using mentoring and coaching as part of their day-to-day performance management practice.