All posts by Dorothy Nesbit

Developing your “match fitness”: knowing what you want

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

Andrew was a brilliant student, graduating from a leading UK university with a First Degree. He had embarked on his career with an ambition to become Finance Director of a FTSE 500 company by the age of 35. Andrew’s clear goal gave him direction early in his career, providing momentum and guiding his actions in line with the goal set by his 21-year-old self.

As his career progressed, however, Andrew discovered that this goal was no longer serving him. In his early 30s he realised it was unlikely he would meet his goal and he began to tell himself he was failing. What’s more, in quiet moments of honesty, Andrew realised that he wasn’t enjoying the path he had chosen.

The person who is match fit is highly attuned to what he or she wants and keeps this constantly under review. This is the person who understands the difference between surface desires (if you like, the form a desire might take) and the underlying needs that might be met by a goal or ambition. This allows a high degree of flexibility and makes it more likely that a need might be fulfilled or a goal met.

The person who is match fit is also attuned to different kinds of needs and has answers to any number of questions about what he or she wants. How do I want to be in this life? What values do I want to live my life by? What outcomes do I want to work towards? Above all, the person who is match fit goes beyond form to ask: and what would that do for me? Asking this last question guides the person who is match fit towards his or her deepest needs.

Here are some questions to help you to identify the extent to which you are able to know what you want:

  • To what extent do you have a clear vision of what you want your life to become?
  • How clearly have you identified and “signed up to” things that you want in your life (the values you want to live by, the way you want to be, the kind of relationships you want to have etc.)?
  • To what extent do you know what needs you are trying to meet at any given moment in time?
  • How well are you able to distinguish between the needs you are trying to meet and the strategy by which you might meet them?
  • How aware are you in the moment of times when your needs are being met and of times when your needs are not being met? And how well do you understand what needs are – or are not – being met?

What additional questions would you offer in relation to knowing what you want?

Developing your “match fitness”: starting from where you are

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

Alex worked in the highly competitive environment of a top flight law firm. She noticed that many of her peers – including those who were far more able than she was – were often highly stressed at work and dissatisfied in their careers. Nothing was ever good enough. She also noticed that their focus on what “should” be true and that this consumed a great deal of their energy without leading to any progress.

Alex was not sure that this was the environment she wanted to work in but she recognised that it was the environment she had chosen – at least for now. She decided to invest her energy in noticing what was true in the firm. She paid attention to the workings of the firm – the stated and unstated rules, procedures and culture. She paid attention to what she was bringing to the firm – including her aspirations, her skills and capabilities, and her values. She was accepting – and curious – about the situation in which she found herself.

Alex had mastered the skill of starting from where you are. Because she was able to accept the truth of her situation she was able to be present to her situation. Even in the most challenging situations she did not experience stress so much as an opportunity to check in and notice what was true at a given point in time. This ability enabled Alex to take informed decisions both about her immediate situation and about her long term career.

Here are some questions to help you to identify the extent to which you are able to start from where you are:

  • To what extent are you able to be present to whatever is true in your life right now – from your own thoughts and emotions to the circumstances in which you find yourself?
  • To what extent are you accepting of everything that is true in your life – even of those parts of you (or others) that are not accepting?

What additional questions would you offer in relation to starting from where you are?

Are you “match fit” for 2010?

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

What is the mother of all questions when it comes to testing the extent to which you are “match fit” in your life right now? As I think about this question I am aware that the postings that lie ahead each include questions – questions which relate to particular areas of personal fitness.

And still, I wonder what question or questions highlight the extent to which you are developing your “match fitness” across the whole of your life. This is the extent to which you feel able to meet whatever comes into your personal and professional life and to feel comfortable to embrace your experience fully.

Perhaps this question relates to an underlying belief, that no matter what the circumstances in which you find yourself, there’s no reason why your life should not be getting better and better. This is possible because your growing mastery of life and how to live life makes you less and less dependent on the circumstances in which you find yourself in order to enjoy life. It’s also possible because your growing mastery of life and how to live life acts to create a life which you can enjoy.

Perhaps some of the key questions that point you to this are:

  • To what extent are you enjoying your life increasingly (no matter what the external circumstances of your life)?
  • To what extent do you know that you have what it takes to create the life of your choosing and to handle whatever comes your way?
  • To what extent can you look back on the path you have chosen up until now and know you are moving in your chosen direction?

News from Learning for Life (Consulting), December 2009

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

Today I finish writing my newsletter, beginning my main article with the introduction below. In addition, in the days to come, I offer some questions on my blog to help readers explore the extent to which they are “match fit” and highlight some of the areas in which readers can develop their personal “match fitness”.

The global economic downturn in 2009 has brought testing times for leaders in organisations as they set out to maintain a healthy and viable business. Whilst some people have kept their jobs and even prospered, others have faced challenges for which they were unprepared.

Working with clients throughout the year it has been clear that some – though not all – are undaunted by the challenges they face, no matter what they may be. These are the people whose lives keep on getting better, because they just keep on getting better at the business of life and work. As leaders they are inspiring. As colleagues they are a pleasure to be around.

I think of these people as “match fit”. But how do you know when you’re match fit? And what does it take to be match fit, no matter what your circumstances?

Parallels between Nonviolent Communication and Gestalt

Alternative approaches, Coaching, ,

Last week I met with Marion Gillie, who brings a background in business psychology to her work as a coach, consultant and coaching supervisor, including a good dose of Gestalt.

As it happens, I have been discussing Gestalt with my friend and colleague Len Williamson and wondering about any connections between Gestalt and Nonviolent Communication. Len is ahead of me with his reading – he has just finished reading Marshal Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication: A Language for Life and I have yet to read his recommended text on Gestalt, Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Contours of Theory and Practice by Erving & Miriam Polster.

I am curious to receive Len’s initial thoughts on parallels between the two. He writes:

I am struck by the parallels between Gestalt and NVC. Both start with description. In Gestalt you cannot see that someone is happy you can only describe their physical features and describe what ‘is’. You must accept they may be happy, sad or something else and if you want to know which then you must ask them. There can be no judgement. In NVC there is non judgemental observation and description of what is taking place in a situation. In both approaches this one step is immensely powerful to help relationships between people.

In Gestalt there is scanning of yourself to notice your sensing, meaning making, intuition and emotions. Noticing the distinctions of each brings richness to the experience you are having and gives insight for any situation you are in. NVC considers what we feel in relation to what we observe and again applies non judgemental description. Insight arises from what our feelings are telling us through this form of description. Both approaches bring the power of recognising what our emotions are telling us.

NVC then moves to understand what needs are creating our feelings. Gestalt works hard to help someone describe very precisely what they want. Sounds easy but it is often surprising what we find out when we look closely at this question. Wars are started, relationships broken and extreme violence often occur around misunderstandings of wants, desires and needs. Immense healing is available with powerful use of this process.

The final move in NVC is in the request we make to enrich our lives. Built from non judgemental descriptions of observation, feeling and wants there is always a request that can be constructed that is nonviolent in nature and positively moves the world forward. In Gestalt seeking to complete what is incomplete is a possible parallel. Helping people finish the most troubling piece of unfinished business enables people to grow and move on to something new.

Thanks to Dorothy for drawing me in to explore NVC. I welcome thoughts from others on these powerful ways of being in the world.

As I read Len’s words I think of how Rosenberg trained as a psychiatrist and came to view the diagnoses and judgements he made in this role as “professional jackal” – if you like, judgements like any other, judgements that block compassionate communication between human beings.

I’m not sure what understanding (if any) he has of Gestalt. I know he studied with Carl Rogers. I know he was inspired by George Miller and George Albee to think about how he might “give psychology away”.

Nonviolent communication is designed to be easy to understand and to practice (even though practitioners find it has challenges and depths which are not immediately obvious).

Perhaps the last word belongs with Marion, for something she says during our meeting resonates for me: that coaches, whether clinically trained or not, need to be psychologically minded. Sometimes the coaching supervisor’s role with those who are not is to help them to develop this interest and capability.

Books for team building and dealing with “difficult” people

Developing as a leader,

At the time this posting is scheduled to be published, I am starting a week-long programme with Roger Schwarz, author of The Skilled Facilitator. I am a great fan of Schwarz’s work via my friend and colleague Aled Davis who was so inspired when he attended Schwarz’s programme in the US last year that he invited him to deliver the programme in London this year.

I think of this when I respond to a request on the Training Journal’s Daily Digest from someone who has just been asked by a client what books she’d recommend for “team building and handling difficult people”. I take a moment to respond and share my own “starter for ten” list below:

Books for team building and difficult people, huh? Well, a few favourites do spring to mind:

· No surprises here, Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life is top of my list. This helps with the reframing of “difficult people” to “people whose behaviour I am finding difficult”;
· Maybe also no surprise, I am slowly reading Roger Schwarz’s The Skilled Facilitator and find it full of insights which apply across a range of settings – as well as rather long!
· Goleman’s The New Leaders also springs to mind, with its description of different leadership styles and the situations in which they are useful. Boyatzis and McKee take this further in their book Resonant Leadership. And just to declare an interest, these are all former colleagues;
· The HBR book (written by about three million authors – also former colleagues) Senior Leadership Teams has solid insight based on research which also applies beyond the senior team;
· And just to put in a word for a recently published book by my friend and colleague-in-the-coaching-profession Rosie Miller, Are You A Badger Or A Doormat? How To Be A Leader Who Gets Results also explores different leadership approaches and may provide inspiration.

What do these books have in common? Those which focus on leadership assume that the leader has a significant impact on team effectiveness and explore which approaches are more likely to be effective. And underpinning most of them is a philosophy (or a finding) that approaches which can be crudely distilled as “win, win approaches” work better than “win, lose approaches”.

Warm regards

Dorothy

Linking my blog to LinkedIn

Coaching

Now, I am slowly learning a few things about LinkedIn.

Firstly, I am paying attention to the regular status updates that reach me – not too often to be annoying! It’s been a real pleasure to send congratulations to friends and colleagues for their new jobs.

Recently I noticed that one of my clients posts his reading on LinkedIn. As an avid reader, I’ve started to do that, too.

Then I noticed that LinkedIn have introduced a new possibility for adding my blog. What I didn’t realise to begin with is that my blog postings automatically appear as my “status update”. This means they’re visible to anyone who looks at my profile. And I’m guessing they’re also visible to anyone who gets those regular status updates in their in-tray.

Yesterday it was really cool to get an e-mail which started: “I saw your blog posting via your status update on LinkedIn and I thought I’d just…”

I notice I’m starting to “get” the value of LinkedIn and to build my contacts up. Currently, I’m connected to 91 people. And since I’m now proactively sending out invitations this is building over time – something for me to pay attention when I have a few minutes to spare.

Namaste, Giuseppe Verdi

About Dorothy

Sitting on the Barbican’s platform ready to sing Verdi’s Otello I realise I have spent almost half my lifetime as a member of the London Symphony Chorus. An announcement is made in celebration of the award of the Queen’s Music Medal 2009 to our beloved – treasured – conductor, Sir Colin Davis. And then the performance begins.

There are some performances that need no words nor desire them. Rather, they evoke a stillness and a sense of presence such that, leaving the platform at the end of the evening I desire no conversation and quietly gather my belongings to leave.

Something about this performance is such that the exquisite beauty of the whole embraces every tiny flaw and transcends it. Something about this performance is such that to want to mention one performer is to want to mention them all. For how could Anne Schwanewilms have given a performance of such beauty without Verdi’s choice towards the end of his life to compose this work? And what of the other soloists? What, indeed, of every musician involved?

As I travel home, wrapped in my own inner stillness, one word is with me: namaste. Just for tonight I take this word to mean

The musician in me bows to the musician in you.

Restorative Justice – what’s this got to do with work?

All articles, Alternative approaches,

Yesterday I shared some links to Dominic Barter’s work in the field of Restorative Justice. This is something which is both dear to my heart and a long way away from the experience of many of my clients in the workplace. Today I thought I’d take a moment to make some links.

The phrase Restorative Justice implies that something is broken that needs to be restored. It also implies that some injustice has been done that needs to be rectified. I invite you as you read to ask yourself, are these ideas that I associate with the workplace? No matter where you are and what kind of organisation you work for – even one you have set up yourself – I am guessing that you may recognise these ideas.

How often, for example, do the fragile relationships amongst colleagues in the workplace stand in the way of the kind of conversation that could help them to move beyond some current impasse? What more might be possible if only these relationships were founded in honesty, trust, respect?

And how often do people in the workplace have a sense of injustice? This may be in relation to a particular incident or experience. Or it may be in relation to the ongoing culture and practices of the organisation within which they work or of an individual or individuals within that organisation.

If these thoughts ring true to you, you might like to go back to Dominic’s brief interview entitled “What is restored in Restorative Justice?” In it, Dominic points to what he calls “connection”. This, he says, is the thing that is broken and which Restorative Justice seeks to restore. To what does he refer? Some call it communication, relationship, rapport. No doubts other terms are also used.

As I share these brief thoughts I wonder, what need there is in your workplace to restore connection? And what means do you and your colleagues have to achieve this? I do not intend to suggest that Restorative Justice is the way to restore relationships in the workplace (thought it might be). At the same time, I do wonder what our work experience might be like if we all had confidence in a process or in our own skilful means to build, maintain and restore relationships with our colleagues.

I wonder what thoughts you have as you read this?

Restorative Justice – the NVC way

All articles, Alternative approaches,

In 2006 I was privileged to hear Dominic Barter talk about his work in the field of Restorative Justice. Dominic, who is based in and works in Brazil, told the story of a baker who, when he learnt that the man who had killed his son when attempting to steal a loaf of bread had no other way to get food that day, was moved to offer the man a job in his bakery. I find it hard to share this story (as I have done many times) without being moved to tears. This is the power of the kind of deep mutual understanding that can come from Restorative Justice.

What is Restorative Justice? Searching the internet I find a source of information at http://www.restorativejustice.org/. This website offers a set of slides which provide background before offering a definition – an invaluable resource for those who are searching for information. In essence (my brief attempt at a definition) Restorative Justice recognises that there is scope to build understanding between the “offender” and his or her “victim” in ways which repair the damage done – hence the term “restorative” – and that this in turn can have a positive, even healing effect across whole communities. Perhaps the most famous example of Restorative Justice is the Truth and Reconciliation process that took place in South Africa after the ending of apartheid.

I think of this when an e-mail lands in my in-tray from a member of the NVC-UK e-group, a group of committed practitioners of Nonviolent Communication. The e-mail, in response to a query, highlights Dominic’s work and provides sources of information which I decide to include here. They are:

As I write I imagine that some of my readers might be asking “what’s this got to do with us in the workplace?” I’d love to read your thoughts here – and share my own tomorrow.