This week I enjoyed SIMA^TM training in Oxford with a group of new friends.

I have enjoyed being on the receiving end of this coaching and am now licensed to use the system, and in particular the Who do you think you are? programme in my own coaching work.

The probably unique method is not based on filling in a questionnaire that then describes a person as one of a number of categories (who does like to be just a number or to have to fit in a particular box?) Instead it draws out a person's motivated abilities - what they enjoy doing and are good at - through structured interviewing. This information is then fed back through conversations, or an ongoing coaching process, to develop self-understanding and good decisions to be made about career and life choices.

SIMA stands for System for Identifying Motivated Abilities and was developed by Arthur Miller in the early 1960's. It has been used extensively ever since in Europe as well as the USA.