Leave a comment this week and drop me a line to organise a complimentary coaching consultation

Coaching

It’s International Coaching Week this week and today I’m making the first of three special offers in support of International Coaching Week.

I am offering a complimentary 30-minute coaching consultation to anyone who leaves a comment on my blog this week (that’s by 5pm on Friday 11th February, 2011) and sends me a message with the heading “I’ve left a message on your blog.  May I claim a complimentary coaching consultation?”  Click view my complete profile here on my blog to find my e-mail address.

And if you, too, would like to “pay it forward”, I invite you to make a donation to the Disasters and Emergency Commission via this link or to make some other gesture that’s meaningful to you.

International Coaching Week: what is coaching, anyway?

Coaching

This week is International Coaching Week (ICW), sponsored by the International Coach Federation (ICF) to educate the public about coaching whilst allowing coaches to give something back.  It seems to me that the most fundamental question coaches need to answer this week is this:  what is coaching, anyway?  And how does it benefit clients?

Let’s get clear about this.  Most of us don’t go to the doctor’s because we want medicine or an operation.  We go because we want to get better.  The consultation, the medicine and the operation are not the aim of our visit but the means by which we seek to reach our aim.  In the same way, we don’t commission a builder to build an extension because we want more bricks and electricity.  Rather, we have some dream of what our home might become and of what it will do for us as a result of having an extension in place.  In the same way, coaching is a means to an end, rather than the end itself.

So, what sorts of aims do clients bring to coaching?  In truth, these vary enormously, though there are some underlying themes, the first of which is to improve performance.  An athlete might work with a coach to improve his or her performance, for example, and yes, so might a senior leader in the workplace or a mum at home.  For the athlete, performance might equate to gold medals or record-breaking achievements.  For the senior leader, performance might equate to additional income on the bottom line or to something more personal, like the ability to do a cracking job within just forty hours a week.  For the mum at home, performance might equate to managing the tasks associated with raising children and running a home in ways which afford every member of the family a sense of security, comfort, peace and fun.

Often, the aims clients bring to coaching reflect some kind of discomfort to which they want to give attention.  So a second theme in what clients want from coaching is greater ease.  The athlete may well be achieving fabulous results, for example, but wants to overcome the inner nerves that both detract from the joy of the sport and hamper the achievement of true world-class outcomes.  The senior leader may well want to improve results at work but also wants to feel less stress and enjoy a happier life at home as a result of achieving better business results in less time.  The mum at home may be yearning for greater ease and balance.

These and other outcomes come from making simple adjustments that make a disproportionate and positive difference to the person seeking coaching.  The athlete may change his or her inner talk in ways which replace nerves with focus, excitement and motivation.  The senior leader may adjust his or her attention in ways which lead to more effective decision-making and in turn to improved outcomes from less work – and a sense of inner peace.  The mum at home may adjust her standards from “super perfect” to “good enough” in areas where good enough really is – well, good enough!  In this way, she may feel less stress, self criticism or resentment and enjoy more ease and fun.  Perhaps the most exciting thing for clients of coaching – and for their coaches – is that coaching produces both immediate results and, by facilitating clients’ learning, lays the foundations for ongoing changes and improvements.  Few clients of coaching come looking for learning though many take learning from coaching that produces dramatic improvements to their performance and to their quality of living.

So what is coaching and how does it work?  Coaching is essentially a partnership between coach and client which supports the client of coaching in finding new ways forward.  You can read some of the comments my own clients have made about coaching by following this link or you might like to look out for tomorrow’s special offer in order to have a direct experience of coaching.  In short, and as a reminder, coaching is a means to an end – and a means to reach ends you barely dreamed of reaching on your own.



Introducing International Coaching week, 2011

Coaching

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) sponsors International Coaching Week (ICW) every year as a way of educating the public about coaching whilst allowing coaches to give something back.  I’ll be responding to International Coaching Week in a variety of ways this week – including writing about it here on my blog.

The best initiatives for International Coaching Week create winners all round.  In the run-up to this week,  coaches around the globe have been thinking about what they can do that supports International Coaching Week without distracting them from key priorities.  The key to the success of International Coaching Week really does lie in creating “win, win” opportunities.  And because coaches are typically generous in their support of others, discussion fora have been alive with the exchange of ideas.

I started preparing months ago for International Coaching Week by writing an article for the UK’s premier coaching magazine, Coaching at Work.  This article focusses on the benefits to coaches of undertaking a voluntary project, providing coaching to members of the senior leadership team of a school in West London.  I was able to write this article because I led the project, between 2004 and 2006.  Its duration and the fact that time has passed since the end of the project meant that I was able to draw on the experience of team members both during and since the project.  If you are a subscriber to Coaching at Work, you can read a short on-line version of this article by following this link or you can look out for it in the March edition of Coaching at Work.

I’ll be making some offers of my own as the week progresses.  I particularly want to contribute some donations for the work which was begun in Haiti just over a year ago.  (And if you feel moved to make a small donation please follow this link).  First though, tomorrow I will be attempting to answer the question “what is coaching?”

A tragic expression of an unmet need

Emotional Intelligence, , ,

We’ve all met them.  The person whose behaviour in our monthly business update meeting is so bizarre that all the post-meeting talk is about them (“what was THAT about?”) rather than about the business.  The person everybody has labelled as “difficult” and whose office nobody visits – unless they HAVE to.  The person who seems so calm and on top of things one minute so that we are surprised when, suddenly, they respond to something we say in an entirely different tone.

Daniel Goleman, in his book Working With Emotional Intelligence, draws on the field of neuroscience to identify the “amygdala hijack”, the moment when something in our external environment stimulates emotion in us which is disproportionate to the event itself.  Sometimes we observe it in someone we know and are taken by surprise.  Sometimes it is the regularity with which we observe it in someone that prompts us to call them “difficult”.

What can be more challenging is to own that we, too, are stimulated in this way.  It is challenging because, as an observer of others, it is so clear that their response in a given moment is not rational – so clear that we judge.  And when we, too, fall prey to this ancient cocktail of stimulus and response, what then?  Are we to judge ourselves as harshly as we judge others?  No wonder we prefer to look away as if we are not witness, too, to our own behaviour.

I am reminded of this today when my work with a coaching client prompts me to offer an alternative perspective.  Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life, describes such moments (and more besides) as “a tragic expression of an unmet need”.  Rosenberg’s phrase captures with compassion an assumption which is also at the core of neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP), the assumption that every behaviour has a positive intention.

At times, our attempts to meet our needs are highly ineffective.  This may be because we are overtaken by an amygdala hijack.  It may be because we lack the skills to take effective steps towards our desired outcomes.  It may be because we are so fearful of the feedback that is coming our way that we refuse it, so that we miss a valuable opportunity to adjust our course.

When we respond to ourselves and others with judgement, when we see such actions as irrational and inept, we are liable to tell ourselves that somehow something is wrong with the person, as if we are our behaviour.  A equals B.  Worse still, it is as if we are our behaviour at our moment of greatest ineptitude.

Rosenberg’s phrase and its first cousin assumption in NLP offer a more compassionate view.  We were trying.  We were trying to meet a need.  We did not meet it well in that moment.  Paradoxically, this more compassionate view does not excuse us so much as open up new possibilities.  For, if I can recognise that I have a need which is not yet met, I can try new ways to meet it.  And if I can see past the behaviours of others to embrace them as people who, like me, also have needs which they did not meet well in a given moment, I have an expanding range of possibilities in the way I respond so that both my needs and theirs might be met more fully.

Are you ready to let go of your judgements – of self, of others – to connect with the needs that lie beneath our most irrational and inept behaviours?

PS  Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

Enjoying the kingdom of heaven on earth

All articles,
Qui cantat, bis orat
Saint Augustine

Days after two Sky News sports commentators are sacked from their jobs for sexism, I find myself wondering, as the Barbican’s staff bring out flowers for Susan Gritton and Sarah Connolly, if our culture will ever change to include equality in this tiny detail between male and female soloists.  This is the least of my thoughts, however, as I savour the experience of singing Elgar’s The Kingdom at the Barbican under the baton of Sir Mark Elder.

The path that has brought me to this moment is a long one – much longer, of course, than the flurry of rehearsals that has prepared us for this concert.  In our opening rehearsal, for example, I find myself thinking of my first experience of singing The Kingdom under the baton of Richard Hickox, with whom we recorded this work in the late ’90s.  The memory stimulates the sadness that comes with the premature loss of a man who was so passionate about his work, a sense of loss which is in itself a celebration of this great musician and champion of British music.

I think, too, of my father, for whom both music and the teachings of the Bible were a healing and spiritual balm.  I don’t know if he ever sung this piece, which is not frequently performed.  I do, though, imagine that he would have loved it, both for its grand choral sweep and for the poetry of its Biblical concerns.  Certainly, as our rehearsals proceed, I find myself thinking of the piece as an evocation of heaven on earth.  If it is not here yet it is at least possible.

As the rehearsals proceed Joseph Cullen, our Music Director, seems content – one might almost say uncharacteristically content – with our progress.  Come the concert I find myself sitting next to a colleague who has noted in her score the moment when Joseph told us we were perfectly balanced and in tune.  Joseph has been diligent in passing on direction from Sir Mark Elder ahead of our first rehearsal with him, known as the piano rehearsal.  I have not sung with Sir Mark before and I enjoy both his attention to detail and his lightness of touch (though even in the performance his instruction to pronounce the word knowledge with an “i” – as in “knowlidge” – makes me think of London’s black cab drivers).  Yes, we are working to achieve high standards and still this does not need to be – is not – dour, let alone a battle ground.

The arrival of the soloists and the London Symphony Orchestra at our tutti rehearsals is itself like the arrival of heaven on earth.  Susan Gritton stands out for her delicate and masterful singing which is showcased in Elgar’s exquisite aria, The Sun Goeth Down.  With such a beautiful voice, why is she not better known?  Sarah Connolly and Iain Paterson also sing masterfully and Stuart Skelton, struggling with a chest infection and saving what he has for the concert itself, also sings with great beauty even whilst clearly struggling.

As much as there is an audience on the day, I am here because I love to sing and I do.  Elgar himself remarked that his choral writing was much improved by the time he wrote The Kingdom and it is indeed wonderful, its dramatic intensity reflected in its dynamic range and in the various moods and colours he conjures.  If only we were sitting next to the tenors I would gladly join them in singing the passages that are written for men’s voices but we’re not so, after indulging myself in the rehearsals, I let the men do their job on the day.

I am often struck by the disproportionate response of the audience to the chorus and Sunday is no exception.  As Joseph brings us to our feet the applause increases and is reinforced by cheers.  I am glad of this and at the same time I celebrate the orchestra’s vivid and vigourous performance and think of the stamina and commitment needed not only to reach this standard of musicianship but also to maintain it.

If the response of the audience is anything to go by, the reviews of this concert will be highly supportive.  For my part I am reminded, once again, of the great privilege (or should that be “privilige”?) of singing, as an amateur, alongside some of the world’s finest musicians.

This is indeed heaven on earth.

    

Honing my niche, one word at a time

Coaching

Recently I have been working with my coach, Kathy Mallary, to craft a brief statement that sums up my niche.  This is about helping my ideal clients to find me – and to find me with ease.  This implies stepping into the place within myself in which I am most truly myself, most powerful and authentic, able both to add most value to my clients and to be most truly me.

Of course, the idea that I might get to this statement in a single once-and-for-all hit is just that – an idea.  It’s an idea that has the power to stimulate pressure and stress.  So much power for such a tiny idea.  In practice, I find myself getting closer and closer.  At this stage I have a statement which is closer than anything I have ever attempted before, though one word is still up for debate.
My first version was this:  Leadership coach, unleashing innate leadership potential through powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships.  More recently, I changed the final word to conversations.  Is it relationships?  Is it conversations?  I am still debating.
Increasingly, I have no doubts about the territory of which these words are the map.  It’s been my experience that my relationship with myself has been the foundation for my relationships with others and indeed for the quality of my life as a whole.  And my relationships – whether with myself or with others – are a function of the conversations I have, the conversations I create.  Relationship… conversation…. relationship… conversation… it doesn’t seem to matter.  What does matter to me is that my work with others, as much as my work with myself, reflects this simple truth.
This is why I do not come from the school of crack-the-whip coaching.  I don’t believe that forcing ourselves to do things we think we ought produces the best outcomes over time.  Rather, I believe that we achieve our best outcomes when we understand ourselves (and each other) more deeply, so that we can collaborate within ourselves and with each other.  From this place of inner harmony it is easier for us to identify and connect with those things we most desire in our business and personal lives.  With this clarity the actions that will move us forward offer themselves one action at a time.
For me, this is the true foundation for our quality of life.   

To blame or not to blame

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, , ,

This week I have been responding on my blog to a talk by Brene Brown at http://www.ted.com/.  Before I move on, I want to highlight and explore just one more comment from her talk:  when she suggests that the definition in the research of blame is “a way to discharge pain and discomfort”.

I confess I think of the early morning news team on Radio 4.  Do they ever report an unhappy event without asking “who’s to blame?”?  I often wonder who this serves and how.  Nor are the newscasters on Radio 4 alone.  Families blame their fellow family members for the every-day inconveniences they mete out on each other or they blame others outside the family for events – sometimes tragic events – that befall them.  Societies blame other societies (or even vague concepts, such as “terrorism”) for actions they do not enjoy.  People blame politicians.  Politicians blame each other.

I ponder the use of blame in the organisations I work with, for here, too, blame is used liberally.  Managers blame their staff for various actions and outcomes that do not meet their needs.  And because they hold the power of position they do this, at times, directly and openly and even as part of a formal process such as appraisal.  One team blames another (sales blames customer service who in turn blame accounts…).  Sometimes such blame is expressed openly and directly.  Oftentimes it is a low, ongoing grumble in the background of our interactions with each other.

Without question, our choice to blame has a positive intention – we do it for a reason.  If Brown and her colleagues in the world of scientific research are right, we do it to discharge pain and discomfort.  This raises a number of questions for me:  how effective is blame as a way to discharge pain and discomfort?  What are the side-effects?  And what are the alternatives?

Perhaps it would help to define blame in some way.  At the time of writing, Wikipedia offers the following definition of blame:  Blame is the act of censuring, holding responsible, making negative statements about an individual or group that their action or actions are socially or morally irresponsible, the opposite of praise. When someone is morally responsible for doing something wrong their action is blameworthy. By contrast, when someone is morally responsible for doing something right, we may say that his or her action is praiseworthy. There are other senses of praise and blame that are not ethically relevant. One may praise someone’s good dress sense, and blame the weather for a crop failure.

How effective is blame as a way of discharging pain and discomfort?  It seems to me that it must be effective to some degree, otherwise we would not do it.  To take one of the more extreme examples we can imagine, the relative or friend of someone who has been murdered may well find it easier to feel the anger that comes with blaming the person who has committed the murder than they do to be present to the intense feelings of grief connected with the loss of a loved one.  To give a more mundane – but nonetheless pertinent – example, the manager in the workplace may well find it easier to blame his (or her) staff for their failings than to recognise the shortcomings in the instructions he gave or to acknowledge his role in recruiting staff who lacked the necessary skills for the job.

What are the side-effects of blame?  It’s easy to see that blame has consequences that are undesirable.  If we choose to blame others, for example, we live with the ongoing feelings (of anger, resentment and so on) that go with blame.  And we do this whilst never being entirely free of the feelings we are seeking to hold at bay.  These include the grief of the mourner or the fears of the manager, and so on.  At the same time, there are consequences that go way beyond our immediate emotions.  Blame creates the culture we live in, for example, so that even when we are dealing with people who do not think in ways which produce blame we may fear blame from others because it is what we do ourselves.  In organisations, blame is often associated with a failure to get to the root cause of a problem or issue such that the problem continues.  Both the problem itself and the blame associated with it consume energy in ways which are unproductive.

So what are the alternatives?  I am going to offer two of many:

  • If the aim of blame is to discharge pain and discomfort, perhaps a key area to look for alternatives is in the area of handling our emotions.  Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life, invites people to transform difficult emotions by understanding the needs that underpin them.  This means connecting with our unmet needs and the feelings that go with them.  This may well help us with the second of the options I offer here;
  • If our aim is to address a problem or issue, then it helps to focus on the outcomes we want and to explore what it would take to get to our desired outcomes.  Thinking about how we or others are contributing to a problem is no longer a matter of blame but rather becomes, in this scenario, a matter of identifying barriers to progress so that we can find ways to make progress towards our desired outcomes.

Whilst we may continue to consider who is responsible, both options involve letting go of attaching blame in order to get the best outcome.  I wonder, are you ready to let go of blame?

PS  Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using links in this posting.  

Numbing painful emotions: is it really good for business?

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Kahlil Gibran
The Prophet

On Monday, I wrote about Brene Brown’s masterful exploration of empathy and connection on TED (follow this link for a reminder).  Today I want to pick up on her assertion that, by numbing pain and other difficult emotions, we also numb – in equal measure – our capacity for joy.  Is this true?  And if so, what are the implications in the workplace?

Brown highlights in her talk that we numb our emotions as a strategy to protect ourselves from our feelings of vulnerability.  How do we do this?  Brown points to the experience of her fellow Americans, saying, “We are the most in debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in US history”.  And just to be clear, the picture that accompanied the word “addicted” highlighted alcohol rather than any other substance. Some might say, isn’t this a high price to pay for a bit of emotional pain relief?  Others might say – by their actions they do say – this is a price worth paying.  After all, isn’t society structured in a way that supports this?  But it doesn’t stop there.  As Brown points out, insofar as we numb our negative emotions (she cites vulnerability, grief, shame, disappointment) we also numb our capacity to experience the positive emotions (including joy, gratitude, happiness).  This is not a new discovery as Kahlil Gibran’s passage On Joy and Sorrow from The Prophet amply demonstrates.  Even so, it seems to be a discovery which is not widely known or understood.

I want to take a moment to touch in the implications for us in the workplace.  How many of us have experience of working in places where the expression of negative emotions (maybe positive emotions, too) is – implicitly or explicitly – discouraged?  It seems to me that our wokplaces are, increasingly, emotionally sanitised, so that oftentimes the response to emotion is to get someone out of the building (on “compassionate” grounds) as quickly as possible.  If we’re feeling angry because we didn’t get the promotion we hoped for we are left to find our way through or even expected to pull ourselves together.  If we are shocked by the way a customer has spoken to us on the phone we’re expected to meet our targets by picking up the next call.  If we feel nervous in our first meeting as a member of the Board we sure ain’t going to show it.

If Brown – and Gibran – are right, the corollary of this is that we lose touch with all positive emotions.  The satisfaction of recognising a piece of work well done is lost in the midst of our fear of criticism or even our own self-criticism.  The pay rise brings a temporary boost to our emotions before, quickly, becoming a new part of our every day reality.  The passions that motivated us to join our organisation become lost in the everyday experience of surpressing our emotions.

Last week I pointed to a posting by John Hepworth on DiscussHR about employee engagement.  He begins by saying:  According to Seijits and Crim (2006), a professor lecturing on leadership amused his audience by relating the following:  “A CEO was asked by a business journalist how many people work in his company.  ‘About half of them’, the CEO responded”.  It seems to me that Brown’s research points to a fundamental truth:  if organisations are serious about engaging the full commitment and contribution of their employees they need to get real about human emotion.  We all have emotions.  When we accept this as a fact of life we can begin to explore how these emotions serve us, to learn how we can recognise these emotions and even to learn how to manage and work with these emotions.  Only then can we begin to create the kind of culture and climate in which peole thrive.  This gives us a much greater chance of achieving what some call “employee engagement”.    

Insights into empathy: a call to authenticity

Emotional Intelligence

Once again, TED has come up trumps with a talk by Brene Brown called The Power of Vulnerability.

Brene Brown studies human connection – our ability to empathise, belong, love. The website says:  “In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity.  A talk to share”.

The connection reaches me via a colleague and I pass it on to a colleague.  He spots an assertion he doesn’t agree with (and nor do I) along the lines that People who don’t experience shame have no capacity for human empathy or connection.  I see shame as a function of self judgement as much as it is a function of empathy – strip away the self judgment and we still have the capacity to empathise.  When we couple our empathy with others with self-empathy we are able to connect with our intentions in doing something even whilst recognising that those same actions were unhelpful.  This is the road to sadness and to deep regret – but not to shame.

Putting aside this one assertion with which I do not agree, I applaud Brown for her exploration of the topic of empathy.  It’s not just that she is witty and sharply observant in what she says.  It’s not just that she exposes the fear and vulnerability that we all feel.  It is – for me at least – that she highlights that this is as true in the workplace as it is elsewhere.  At home women feel vulnerability initiating sexual contact with their husbands.  Men feel vulnerable initiating sexual contact with their wives.  At work, we feel vulnerable when we learn we have lost our job.  We feel vulnerable telling others they have lost their job.  This vulnerability is simply part of the human condition.

Brown highlights those things we do that stand in the way of empathy and connection – with ourselves, with others.  She also offers some alternative ways of being in the world.  Keep reading if you want to share with me some of my own observations about what Brown has to say.  And whether or not you take time to keep reading, you might want to take time watch Brown’s talk and to hear what she has to say.

Is your team effective?

Developing as a leader,

Roger Schwarz, creator of The Skilled Facilitator Approach, writes a pithy newsletter (Fundamental Change) every couple of weeks which I enjoy reading.  His recent article, Is your team effective? prompted me to look for any conditions he places on reproducing his article.  Ah!  This is what he says:  Material from Fundamental Change may be reproduced in other electronic or print publications provided this copyright notice is included: “Copyright Roger Schwarz & Associates, 2010. All rights reserved.” and a link to http://www.schwarzassociates.com/ is included in the credits.

Without further ado here is the article I enjoyed so much:

How do you assess whether your team is effective? Is it that the team accomplishes its goals and meets its numbers? Those criteria are important, but alone they are a limited view of team effectiveness. To be effective your team has to meet three criteria1:

Your team meets or exceed the standards of people who receive and review their output, whether that output is decisions, services, or products. Of course, it’s important that a team meet its goals, including the numbers it has set as targets. But that is not sufficient. Ultimately, other people decide whether your team is performing acceptably. If you are not meeting the expectations of people who receive and review your team’s work, your team is not performing effectively.

Leaders often think that the performance criterion is the only criterion for effectiveness. Although that may be true in the short run, in the long run it is essential to meet two other criteria.

Your team works together in a way that improves its effectiveness over time. If your team isn’t improving the way it works over time, chances are it won’t be effective in the long run. You have probably been on a team that met its goals, but was so dysfunctional that you promised yourself you would never work with the same people again. These teams pay too high a price for their performance. Effective teams learn from their experiences and mistakes. They talk openly about how they need to do better as a team, develop and implement plans to do so, and then evaluate their progress.

Your team provides experiences through which team members can develop their skills and have a sense of well-being. Although team members can weather frustrating periods, the team experience overall has to be a satisfying one for team members. If the team experience doesn’t provide opportunities for members to develop their skills or if the team experience creates undue stress, boredom, or frustration, you might lose your best people, and those that stay may be only partway in the game.

Don’t short-change your team by ignoring the second and third criteria. The three criteria are interrelated; you need to meet all three for your team to really be effective.

One way people meet some of their needs for growth and well-being is to be on a team that performs well and that continues to improve how it works. If team members don’t find the team experience satisfying, they will not likely have the energy to meet performance standards or figure out how to work together better.

Teams are complex social systems; to get the most from them, you need to treat them that way.

Roger Schwarz