Coaching
Monday, January 2nd, 2012
The start of a new year is always a great time to write out a yearly list of the things we want to achieve in the coming year. But over the last couple of days as I went about reviewing my year, I began to notice a recurring trend. So much of what I had achieved in 2011 was to do with work or external achievements. By writing in my journal and slowing myself right down I noticed that many of the things I was congratulating myself for having achieved were things I did and not about who I wanted to be.
With my 50th birthday only 5 months away I knew 2012 has to be different. So that’s when I came up with the idea of a ‘To Be List’ as an alternative to the usual To Do List.
Grab a pen and paper or a blank page on your computer screen. Write the words TO BE LIST at the top of your page and for 5 minutes freely write down all the things and ways you want To Be this year, instead of the things you want to do.
Your list might include being more of the qualities of kindness, compassion, fun, or more honest. Making it onto your To Be List might be the desire to be more rested and relaxed, have more moments of stillness, more connections with others. Think about how your To Be’s impact not only on how you feel but also on how others feel. How could more random acts of kindness resonate and impact on others around you?
As you move through your year keep adding items to your To Be List. This list is a great reminder of how you want to live your life in a way that feels authentic and meaningful. Living life from this place will be far more satisfying and rewarding than relying on external accomplishments and rewards. You’ll also notice that by generating and applying your To Be List you’ll also be activating and putting into practice many of your own core values, which often get pushed aside or overlooked in pursuit of other goals.
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Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
I recently treated myself to a set of Russian Matroyshka dolls. I had wanted a set of these for some time and had implanted the idea in my unconscious wish list.
Whilst trawling through my inbox I opened a blog post by Sharon Lippincott on her blog The Heart and Craft of Life Writing and to my surprise there was an image of a set of Matroyshka dolls, very similar to the set I had just purchased. Don’t you love it when synchronicity strikes?
Whilst reading through her post an idea came to me of how I would use my dolls. I was scheduled to give a talk at a mental health organization and the dolls could provide a perfect visual learning aid, along with a great metaphor about valuing and protecting our core self. I could also use them to illustrate the relationship between coach and coachee.
My set of Matroyshka consists of five smaller dolls each nested one within the other. As you unpack each doll you get to the smallest doll encased in the centre. In the world of psychology and therapy many names are given to this core self. It’s often referred to as the essential self, sacred self or private self.
I view this core self as the self that describes who we truly are. It’s the very essence of our true selves without the flaws. It’s the self that flourishes with strengths and ideas.
Each doll represents a different layer of our personalities, layers which often take us away from that core self. We often cover over this core self with several layers in a response to the many experiences life throws at us. The layers are designed as a safe form of protection but they can take us away from who we truly are. It is so well protected we forget the qualities and the strengths that make us who we are at the core.
In the case of coaching it is through the modeling of exquisite listening, unconditional positive regard and wise, not clever questions that coaches can assist individuals to peel away the layers and begin to take ownership of this core self.
There are many benefits to the organizations we work in, the professions we serve and the relationships we engage in by making this connection. From the place of this core self we are able to flourish, make better decisions, engage in different quality conversations, be grounded and centered in the middle of chaos and storms. It is this self which is more productive, not in a fast and frenzied way, but from the place of flow and knowing that who you are is enough.
In a recent coaching conversation with a Head of Department, she revealed that since actively pursuing a more consciously motivated solutions focused approach, her staff had commented on the different quality of conversations that were taking place between them. She had found that through creating the right environment, her team were allowing themselves to reveal glimpses of this core self which enabled them to activate better solutions and address real concerns in creative and meaningful ways.
This core self never leaves us. It is always there waiting to be connected with and there are many ways in which we can make those connections. You could try creating conscious rituals and practices that take care of your physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. You might coax this core self out of hiding by keeping a journal, going for a run, a swim or by getting out into nature.
Other ways might include posing questions to the self that catch us off guard: What excites me? What am I most passionate about? What did I love doing as a child? If money was not an issue, how would I choose to live my life? If I had a six month sabbatical what would my itinerary include?
By the nature of our genuine presence, our ability to listen and compassionately challenge, Coaches can bear witness to the re-emergence of the core self. We can be catalysts for courageous and creative conversations that support, facilitate or simply provide the spaces for those on the voyage to getting back to you.
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Friday, December 9th, 2011
One way coaches can get better at listening is to simply go about your day and listen to the conversations around you.
How often is the person you are talking or listening to positive or negative in their response back?
What does the other person’s body language look like?
What does your body language look and feel like like?
What’s the tone of voice or facial expressions?
How present is the person? How present are you?
How can you tell whether someone is really listening to you?
How many times do you fade out or get distracted during the conversation?
What surprises you about what you notice from the conversations you observe?
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Friday, December 9th, 2011
With Christmas just around the corner how will you slow down?
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Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
Re-occurring coaching themes often present themselves in many of my coaching clients at the same time. Sometimes the very themes my coaching clients battle with are uncomfortably close to home in my own life. It’s scary.
Tackling these themes with one client often creates shifts so much more easily in my other clients. But when I really tackle the shift with myself, that’s when the shifts that happen with my clients are much more significant and noticeable.
One recent theme that has been very present is the challenge of not committing to finding that extra hour in the day that belongs to nobody else but you. Coaching clients find their days sucked up by emails, meetings, deadlines, want it now demands and toxic people ranting on about nothing important – they can drain the very little life force you are left with!
Most of my clients complain about not having enough time to get it all done and believing that staring at a computer or Blackberry screen really is their lot.
In many of the colleges I go into as an Executive coach or trainer, the over arching message I pick up from the ground is give us speed training or coaching that offers fast tools delivered with the expectation that there is little participation or engagement in the practice.
On one training job, I was engaged to train a group of middle and senior managers who wanted to be given a coaching model but who resisted having to practice the model with each other. They just wanted to go away and use it. Slowing down, thinking, reflecting are almost dirty words in many corporate environments.
One tool or trick I like to share with coaching clients is the tool of Strategic Deceit which I first came across in a book for writers by Heather Sellers called Chapter by Chapter. I borrowed the concept and put it to work not just with myself but also in my work with writers and coaches who struggled with finding time to really engage with the projects and goals that really mattered.
Strategic Deceit can be described as a ‘colourful lie’. It’s a slight variation on the truth.
Sellers suggests dalliance in a bit of creative story telling, shaping the truth in order to both protect and in many cases create space for your daily writing habit, or as in the case of many of my corporate clients time and space to think, plan and strategise. And if they’re lucky, time to invest in getting creative. Shaping or in many cases bending the truth may be the only way many individuals have of creating the time and space to make any of the above happen.
I bet you’ve probably applied Strategic Deceit before with a friend or family member. In our family the offending member is my youngest sibling Mary. With a habit of being chronically late for just about every event, Mary has been known to have been given as much as two hours ahead of the real time of when we were expected to meet just so she would get there in time.
Sometimes we just have to help ourselves by any means necessary. So in other words, can’t find the time to sit and plan and reflect? Then creatively make up a meeting you have to go to. Call it the Strategy Visioning group. In the corporate world that title should keep the nosey parkers off your back. Attending a group somewhere seems to legitimise your attendance more than if your next appointment sounds anything like a meeting for one.
The key thing is to get your creative spin of a meeting scheduled into your diary. Next book a room in your office building. If there’s no space available, think creatively about somewhere you might be able to hang out for half an hour or more without being found. Be fair, there are hundreds of distractions to your day. So, having or creating time to think may require a ‘colourful lie’ to buy your way into that space. What you want is an easy, pressure free way of slipping away from the demands of the day even if for a mere thirty minutes.
What things have gotten you free space in the past? What do you know you can say that would buy you time?
Make a list of three Strategic Deceits or phrases you could use that won’t have guilt written all over your face.
Mine look something like this
1. “I’m delivering all day today and won’t be back till late.”
2. “I’m already booked up at that time what other ways could we connect on these issues?”
3. “I can’t do Thursday at 3pm or next week.”
Have fun!
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Sunday, September 19th, 2010
How To Be A Good Great Coach!
Forget the books, the expensive courses or the qualifications and credentials after your name. Great Coaches possess a handful of skills that never fail. Amongst that handful of skills are the ability for exquisite listening and presence.
Where would a great Coach be without the skill or talent to be an exquisite listener and to have established presence?
No other skill is as powerful and as transformative as the ability to be really present with another human being and to couple this with the ability to listen wholeheartedly without an agenda.
As a coach trainer, time after time I witness Coaches with varying degrees of coaching experience struggle with the skill of being an attended and in tune listener. It seems the ability to listen well is a universal challenge.
In coaching I teach that there are three main levels of listening.
Level one is conversational listening. At this level we are aiming to simply get our point across in the conversation. A good example of this is butting in to add your thoughts or your experience before the other person has even finished. Or, working out in your head what you are going to say next whilst the person is still speaking to you.
Level two is the kind of listening you were most likely taught on Assertiveness Training courses or Leadership and Communication Skills training and that is Active listening. Active listening is paying much more conscious and aware attention than at Level 1. It is at this level that we expect Coaches to be operating from. In my mind, Level 2 listening is what I’d refer to as good listening. Here the focus becomes actively attentive to what is being said, how it is being said, cues gained from body language etc.
What’s interesting when we think about active listening from the Coach’s point of view is how much work the Coach is putting in, even at this level, trying to work things out. With a desire to get it right the Coach can miss out on that place of being relaxed and in the flow that the next level of listening brings. It’s easy to look and sound like we are working hard or look and act like we are listening but so much can be missed at this level.
At Level 3 the quality of listening and presence is the most transformative but it can also be the most difficult level to describe. The climb between the two levels is a steep climb but one worth attempting.
So let’s unpack this level a little bit more. At this level of listening we listen minus the external and internal distractions. We move beyond intense focus on the verbal and non-verbal cues and enter into a much deeper, reflexive territory. It requires a relaxed presence, almost like letting go and allowing the pace of relaxation to work for you. The focus of your listening moves into a 360-degree focus of the person you are in conversation with. It’s from this place that you the human being softens, where you absorb so much more, you become more open and in touch with the intuitive signs and signals of what is being said and what is not being said. It’s where you join the speaker fully, attentive, engaged and present to the moment, second by second, minute by minute.
Another way of connecting with this level is thinking about it like driving a car. When you have mastered the skill and know-how of driving a car you do it from the state of unconscious competence. Listening becomes second nature but not at the expense of presence. Space is opened up for other skills to be at play in the conversation.
Let me describe a moment when I felt like that with one of my clients.
I had such a moment the other day with a client I will call Monica. Monica and I had been working together over several months.
Although a really competent and high achiever at work, Monica was still battling with really valuing her skills and contribution. But today’s sessions felt different. Within minutes of our phone conversation I noticed my presence had moved further and further into the background. I felt like an observer sitting in on the session yet I felt very connected. I listened as Monica began to share the examples and revelations she had begun to make about her strengths and qualities since we had last spoken.
I was witnessing her picking up her strengths, her amazing qualities and skills, reclaiming them and hearing her saying loud and clear ‘these are mine’. You could hear a pin drop down the telephone line. But I knew it was real when I felt a tear run down my cheek. For several seconds we both sat in silence at either end of the phone line drinking in the moment. Words were not needed. Being was enough.
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