Keyword: Aly McNicoll

Aly McNicoll recently delivered the opening key note address entitled 'The Best in Social Good - what it takes to be a high impact Not for Profit organisation' at the 2009 Not for Profit Management Conference in Napier in March, .

Drawing on Jim Collins' Good to Great concepts, and the Forces for Good study - the 6 practices of high impact not for profits, the presentation summarised the challenges to becoming great and identified what it takes to make the leap.

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.

Val Leveson from the NZ Herald talks to NZMC director Aly McNicoll about peer mentoring groups.

When working for a company, people often have colleagues to turn to when they need advice on how best to complete a task or to make a good career move. Sometimes another person, even on the same level as oneself, may have a different perspective and an idea on how to make something that seems impossible work.

However, when you're self-employed things can be quite different. You can feel isolated and stuck with no one to turn to for good, impartial advice and help.

Peer groups are often a help, but what do you do when you work alone and don't have a peer group around you?

Aly McNicoll, training director of the New Zealand Mentoring Centre, discovered her solution ten years ago.