Dorothy Nesbit: meet your coach

Coaching

Every now and then I take time to update my coaching profile.  This is as much about my aim to communicate clearly to current and potential clients as it is about any changes in what I offer.  I want people to know who I am, who I work best with, and how my work adds value. 

Having been through a process of revision, I notice how pleased I am – as if I have added new colour to my profile through the process of revising it.  I can see myself more clearly in this picture and I hope you can, too.

I welcome your feedback – anything you’d like to add via the comments option.  And of course, if you’d like to work with me or know someone for whom the description below just hits the spot, please contact me directly:

Have you noticed how some leaders work harder than they need to to produce outstanding results? Perhaps they have what it takes to succeed – if only they knew it. Perhaps they lack awareness of their skills or could achieve so much more by developing further. Perhaps they are trying hard to be “a leader” when, in truth, they could achieve so much more by connecting with and being their authentic selves.

As a coach, I have helped coaching clients:

• To understand what they really want from their work, igniting their motivation for their current job or helping them to understand their need to find a job in which they can excel;
• To grow in confidence and skill as a leader so that they understand what they have that gives them a place in their organisation’s future and are confident to execute their leadership role;
• To recognise, develop and leverage their skills, helping them to achieve improved outcomes with increased confidence, reduced stress and less effort;
• To increase their contribution to their organisation, to improve business outcomes and to achieve rapid promotion;
• To face unexpected challenges with confidence and clarity of purpose, leading to outcomes that exceed all expectations.

My clients value the way I balance challenge with support to create the climate in coaching for accelerated progress and results. You can read client testimonials and learn more about me by visiting my profile at LinkedIn or my blog at http://dorothynesbit.blogspot.com.

What’s my background? Since 1988, I have been developing leadership at individual and organisational level, through leadership research, executive assessment, leadership development and 1:1 Executive Coaching. I have consulted widely across sectors in the UK and Europe including the finance, insurance, pharmaceutical, professional and education sectors.

With a passion for supporting others’ development, I began coaching a long time before I’d heard the word “coach”. Since 2004, I have placed coaching at the heart of my work, completing a professional coach training certified by the International Coaching Federation and working as a coach to high-potential leaders – from first-time leaders through to directors and CEOs – who are interested to release their own potential and that of the organisation they manage.

I have an MA (Cantab), I am a certified NLP Coach and member of the International Coach Federation and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Thinking of all the mirrors in my bedroom

All articles, Alternative approaches

This morning I am thinking of all the mirrors in my bedroom.

Well, perhaps I should be more precise.  I am thinking of all the meta-mirrors in my bedroom.  The meta-mirror is a technique from neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP) which helps people to transform negative feelings towards another person and to take the learning from a situation that will help to release feelings of anger, frustration and more.  As a technique, it’s easy to learn and easy to apply.

NLP often uses physical space in the process of making mental distinctions and the meta-mirror is no exception.  This is why I think of my bedroom when I think of the meta-mirror.  It’s not only that I like to use this ample space when I want to process some feelings I have about a person or situation.  It’s also that on the rare occasions when I am feeling angry or frustrated, it makes sense to do this processing before I go to bed in order to be able to get a good night’s sleep.

Over time, using this technique seems to build in a muscle that is pre-emptive.  The anger and frustration is less right from the beginning because the ways of thinking that produce it are changing.  There’s no “sainthood” involved – just an ongoing process of learning.

Over the years I have taught this technique in various settings and found it invaluable.  I still remember teaching it to a group of headteachers as part of a training in coaching skills.  I like to demonstrate it before having participants try it out themselves.  Later, the headteacher who had been my demo subject on that day told me the experience had changed his life.

Frogs Into Princes

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The trouble with many professional ethical codes, whether they are humanistic, analytic or anything else, is that they limit your behaviour.  And whenever you accept any “I won’t do it,” there are people you are not going to be able to work with.  We went into that same ward at Napa and I walked over and stomped on the catatonic’s foot as hard as I could and got an immediate response.  He came right out of “catatonia,” jumped up, and said “Don’t do that!”
Frogs Into Princes
Richard Bandler and John Grinder
Richard Bandler and John Grinder, the originators of what has become widely known as Neurolinguistic Programming, or NLP, began their work when they set out to study the work of some of the most effective therapists of their era, including Milton Erikson, Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir.  Frogs Into Princes, first published in 1979, is compiled of live transcriptions of some of their early seminars.
I must confess that, prior to studying NLP through a number of Practitioner, Master Practitioner and Coach programmes (where I chose to follow up on my own initial participation by becoming a member of the teams that supported these trainings to further my learning), I found reading about NLP about as easy a way to learn as learning Chinese by reading Mandarin.  I just didn’t get it.  Later, when I had already completed my NLP Practitioner, I made a mental note when a colleague told me that, for her, reading Frogs Into Princes was the experience that had first brought NLP alive.  And when I found a copy recently for less than twenty pounds I decided to buy it.
Reading it, I can see that it has something for everybody.  For the reader who is new to NLP it contains many examples of the ground NLP has covered, from specific techniques (re-framing and the phobia cure to name just two) to a number of assumptions which have become guiding principles of NLP.  The example given at the top of this posting illustrates at least two of them:  If what you are doing is not working, change it.  Do anything else and The meaning of the communication is the response you get.
For the seasoned Practitioner, Frogs Into Princes offers insight into Bandler and Grinder’s work, including the initial context in which they worked and the work itself.  They really did mean it when they encouraged you to try something else – anything else – if what you are not doing is not working.  I laughed out loud when I read the example given above and a number of other examples.  I was also reminded of the power of NLP to open up any number of new possibilities to the practitioner in his or her own life and in the lives of the people with whom he or she lives and works.
I talk about the people we work with in the broadest terms because NLP has expanded in its application way beyond the therapeutic field in which Bandler and Grinder originally studied.  The lessons of NLP are available to be applied in every area of life.  NLP can help the most senior leaders to share their visions in ways which capture the imaginations of those they lead.  NLP can help the classroom teacher to adjust his or her approach in order more effectively to support individual pupils.  NLP can help the husband or wife, at his or her wits end, learn how better to communicate with his or her partner.
I would add, almost as a PS, that there is one criticism that has often been levelled at NLP, that it is in some way manipulative.  If you want to form your own view of this, you could do worse than read Frogs Into Princes.  Who knows, you might well discover that turning your own frog into a prince begins with you.  NLP is, above all, about self-mastery.
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.

The dance of acceptance – at work

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

What does it mean to “see” another and to “be seen”?  How do we know when we are being seen?  And how does this link to meeting our need for acceptance?  Last week I wrote a posting in which I attempted to address these questions and to describe what I called the “dance of acceptance”.  But what of the dance of acceptance at work?

The person who has not yet learnt to accept him- (or her-) self will do his best to put on a good face at work.  He’ll think hard about what others want to see and do his best to deliver against his best understanding.  At the same time, his best understanding and its execution may be poor because of the great fear he has of asking what’s needed or – worse still – of asking for feedback about how he’s doing in practice.  (One of the reasons I know this is because I was this person earlier in my career).

If he’s successful in covering his tracks he risks being seen as arrogant by others who are taken in by his brilliant facade.  More likely others will see all sorts of clues which creep out around the edges.  Either way, the effort it will cost him will be significant – and draining.

This person will have a manager and may be a manager.  As a manager he may look to blame others for anything that goes wrong – heaven forbid that any sign of imperfection should end up on his desk!  Whilst he’s managing his own fears his staff may develop high levels of anxiety in their turn.  He may be seen as a bully.

If he is lucky, his manager may have a finely honed level of self acceptance such that he is not, in turn, on the receiving end of his own approach.  Such a manager may well perceive the root cause of behaviours that are not serving him or helpful to the business.  He may be able to strike the delicate balance between accepting him as a person and managing his behaviour – this depends on his manager’s ability to see beyond the current manifestations of his fears and to trust to his learning and progress.

Ultimately, even if his manager has to address his behaviour and their impact on the performance of his team, he will be able to do so from a place of acceptance.  Such a manager is likely to say:

There are some problems with your performance at this time and I need to address these with you.  I’m not sure whether you’re in the right job and need some learning and support or whether you’re in the wrong job and need to move on to one that suits you better.  Either way, it’s my job to help you to find this out and to support you in getting to a point where you are performing in your job.  It may be this job, it may be another job.  I’m here to support you.

In my years of interviewing leaders for jobs or as part of research into what makes the most effective leaders it’s rare that I come across a leader who can separate the man (or woman) from his (or her) performance in this way.

This is just one example of the dance of acceptance in the workplace.   

The dance of acceptance

Emotional Intelligence,

What does it mean to “see” another and to “be seen”?  How do we know when we are being seen?  And how does this link to meeting our need for acceptance?  These questions came up in conversation today and I found myself pondering them on the train on my way to a meeting.

Marshall Rosenberg, author of perhaps my most treasured book, Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life, identifies the need for acceptance as a need we all share – a universal need.  Just for now I am going to define the need for acceptance as the need to be seen in the round and to be accepted as we are.  You will notice that by this definition the need for acceptance and the question of being “seen” are tied up one with another.

So, our need is met when we know that we are seen (if you like, that others notice things about us that are true and respond to these, rather than focusing their attention on some idea of what or how we “ought” to be or imagining things to be true which are not) and we know that we are accepted for who we are. 

Even as I begin to write I recognise that, in practice, this is an area full of paradoxes and conundrums.  One of these, amongst many, lies in the question of what is “true” about us.  Families are full of truths which can jar with individual family members even though they may recognise the objective truth of each statement (“he’s the bright one” or “she’s the outgoing one”) because they reduce the individual to a single trait and one, what’s more, which is assigned to them by comparison with other family members.  So, even whilst we recognise the description that is assigned to us we do not have a felt sense of being seen.  Somehow something deeper is required.

And then there’s another conundrum.  Psychologists have a whole list of terms to describe the processes by which we accept parts of ourselves and reject others – this process, too, has its roots in our upbringing.  Constant comparison with a more extrovert sibling, for example, may lead an individual to think he is shy when no-one outside the family would see him as such.  Or we may reject some of our greatest strengths or talents and develop a “golden shadow”, so that when someone comments on our extraordinary skill in this area we do not feel we have been seen because we are not seeing ourselves in the round.  And because of this, our need for acceptance is not met.

And then there’s the question of the evolving self.  For whilst some qualities may be woven through us like a thread of gold others may be our adaptive (or maladaptive) response to the particular circumstances of our life at a particular point in time.  If we cast these responses into the concrete belief that they represent us as we truly are we may alienate ourselves from possibilities for growth and for getting to know ourselves.

And perhaps this brings us to an underlying thread when it comes to our need to be seen and accepted.  The truth is, our need for acceptance can be and is met to the extent that we are on the road towards knowing and accepting ourselves.  This suggests the need to be in rapport with ourselves – to be willing and able to notice what is true of us both in the round and at a particular moment in time.  It also suggests being in rapport with another who is able to see us and share with us what they see in ways which we can hear and understand.  And for that other to be a true witness, it implies someone who in turn is able to be present to him- or herself  before he or she can be a witness to another.

This is the dance of acceptance:  of seeing and of being seen.

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.

LinkedIn: still keeping in touch

About Dorothy, Coaching

Time moves on.  In August of last year I reported 49 connections on LinkedIn and still growing.  As I write today the number has gone up to 180.

This is an interesting number.  On the one hand, there is a good number of people I know with whom I am not (yet) LinkedIn.  On the other hand, I am starting to have invitations to LinkIn from people who have enjoyed my postings on the groups to which I belong and I don’t yet know quite how to respond.

One thing I have enjoyed is connecting via LinkedIn with people I have known personally.  Meeting in this way enriches my understanding of them, helping me to see them in the round – something I cherish.  Xavier Dujoncquoy is one of these.  Xavier used to stay with my family as a young man and joined us on Saturday to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday.  Here’s Xavier speaking about his memories of those days – and my mother listening.

It was a wonderful day.

Championing your inner parts

All articles, Alternative approaches

Have you noticed how, when you are in conflict with yourself, there’s a part of you you champion and a part of you you like to tell to p*ss off?  Which part you champion depends on the values you espouse and still, you are unusual if you champion yourself in the full glory of all your parts.  So, a part of you basks in the light of your approval whilst another part of you prowls around in the shadows.  And guess what, it is rarely the part you champion that “wins”.

The result can be a kind of inner stasis, even whilst you are seeking to move forward.  You want to write that proposal or to phone that client or to stop eating chocolate or… or… or…  And yet, somehow, when it comes to the crunch, you are guided by the part of you you most condemn.

Some thinkers view these “shadow” parts as gremlins to be conquered – overcome by force in order to make way for those parts we most favour.  I prefer to view them differently.  For each part has a positive intention even if the means by which that intention is made manifest is unhelpful at this stage of our lives.  When we respond to the different parts of ourselves we can afford to champion them all, to take time to ask “what is it that you really want for me?” and to thank each part for acting as the guardian of this positive intention.  Only from this position of embracing our different parts can we begin the journey towards finding new ways to fulfill old intentions.

In case you want to take a new approach and to connect with your parts in conflict, here are some steps you can take to get started:

  • Start by saying hello to each part in turn.  You may be surprised and still, they will answer back;
  • Let them know that you’d like to spend some time with each part in turn and ask them, will they let you do this without interrupting each other?  If you get a “no” you might like to ask what’s needed before each part feels comfortable to give the other space;
  • Take time with each part in turn – how about five minutes with one and then a break before five minutes with another?  Let each part know that you trust that it has positive intentions and be honest with either part if you have not understood what its intentions are.  If you don’t know, ask!
  • You might like to take time every day for this over several days.  Notice how open you are to hearing what each part wants for you;
  • Say “thank you” to each part for his or her good intentions for you.  When you can say thank you with full sincerity you are ready to be the champion of your inner parts, just as they have been seeking to champion you.  And guess what!  Since each part is just that – a part of you – you are, in this way, championing yourself.

As a footnote, I would add that whilst you may value the intentions each part has for you, you may find its way of fulfilling its intentions highly frustrating.  At the same time, if you want to agree new ways to fulfill those intentions, you will need to do this from a place of mutual respect and appreciation – that’s between you and your different parts.

From the stable of NLP: “parts integration”

All articles, Alternative approaches

Jamais deux sans trois, as the French would say.  It seems to me that all my clients are bringing inner conflict to our coaching right now.  This is hardly surprising since we all, at times, experience the inner voices that seem to be in conflict with each other.  The clues are in our language (“on the one hand… and on the other hand…”), in the way we feel (typically, torn) and in our vision of two diametrically opposed options.

The manifestation of these parts is diverse.  For one person it is the part that wants to earn masses of money versus the part for whom money is just not important.  For another person it is the part that wants to stay in a job even though it’s desperately dull versus the part that wants to say “to hell with it” and leave in search of something more exciting.  For a third person it is the part that wants to share just how much she loves her new partner versus the part that wants to take things one step at a time.  Even as I write I wonder if, at root, our conflict is between the part of us that wants to keep us safe and the part of us that seeks adventure – maybe even to pursue our true calling.

Beneath this inner conflict lie assumptions that are untested or which may be understood at some cognitive level and which have not yet been understood or integrated into our bodies or way of being.  The mother of all assumptions is, of course, that the causes that our inner voices are championing are mutually exclusive.  It’s not unusual for people to recognise and celebrate one part of themselves whilst seeking to repress the other part – and guess what, the part we are least inclined to sponsor always finds a way to express itself, to hold sway.

It’s not often, as a coach, that I offer to step away from pure coaching to provide an intervention from the set pieces of neurolinguistic programming (or NLP).  At the same time, I recognise the elegance of NLP’s “parts integration”, which facilitates a dialogue between inner parts in conflict, helping each part to hear the aims of the other and helping both parts to come together to collaborate in meeting aims which were seen as mutually exclusive and are now understood to be perfectly compatible.

In truth, this integration of our inner parts is an ongoing journey rather than a one-off event.  It is part of a journey towards self-acceptance and it is significant as a contribution to our inner peace as well as to creating lives that are productive and fulfilling.

If you want to learn more, keep an eye on this blog – I sense this is a topic to which I shall return.  If you want to experience the NLP “parts integration”, seek out an NLP Practitioner to support you.

Celebrating my mother on her 80th birthday

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My mother has resolutely resisted the computer age and won’t be reading my blog today or any other day.  And that’s OK.  Still, this won’t stop me celebrating her today, on her 80th birthday.

There are many words I could say and many things I could celebrate and still, words will not be enough.  How can you begin to do justice to eighty years of life and living in a single blog posting?

Maybe I should add, how can you begin to do justice to eighty years of supporting life and supporting others in their living, including the lives to which she herself gave birth?  For as well as giving birth to her own four children, Mum has supported the lives of many, from the children to whom she was House Mother at Beenham Lodge Children’s Home, to her own children, her sister (I especially remember Mum’s support to her sister after the birth of her first children, my twin cousins), her parents in their mature years, her husband (my father)… right through to the men and women she still cooks for at the Vintage Club in Woolhampton.  And that’s without taking in the many animals she cared for during her years of farming and the plants she tends in her garden and allotment.

And then there’s the question of how many wedding dresses she has made over the years, and wedding cakes, and birthday cakes and – well, the list would be long.  Only this week, she made a birthday cake (Mr Sneeze) for the fifth birthday of her grandson Joel.  Oh!  And how many concerts she organised for St. Peter’s Church, Woolhampton, before gracefully retiring just two years ago.

With so much more that could be said and knowing that no words could do her justice, I give you my mother, Stella Nesbit, on her 80th birthday.  Here she is at my cousin’s wedding just a couple of years ago:

Making peace on peace day

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Our news is often filled with evidence of conflict on a grand scale. It can give the impression that conflict is a large-scale affair taking place some way away and in which, by implication, many of us have no part.

Yet the most cursory survey can remind us of the conflict that is in our lives. Perhaps you have some inner conflict that is leaving you feeling torn right now – for whatever reason. Perhaps you are aware of some conflict in your workplace, barely expressed but simmering and visible. Perhaps, as you survey your immediate and extended family, you notice myriad major and minor disagreements which, over time, have been written into the ongoing “story” of your family.

Today, 21st September, is Peace Day, an annual day whose significance is growing around the world. You can find out about Peace Day by watching two short videos at the Pathfinder website or by going to http://www.peaceoneday.org/.

In talking about peace, I’d like to mention the work of Marshall Rosenberg (as I have done many times) author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language for Life. Marshall has dedicated many years to evolving and sharing a way of communication which promotes peace.

Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, asks in the short films I mention above: “What will you do to make peace on 21st September?” I offer the following suggestions for any reader who is seeking inspiration and I also invite you to share via the comments box below: What did you do today to make peace and with what outcomes?

Here are my suggestions:

  • Try peace on for size: take five minutes to contemplate a world in which peace is the norm. As you imagine this world, notice what it evokes in you – what feelings, thoughts and so on. And if you find yourself thinking “yes, but” let go of the gap between now and peacetime and step back into living in a world in which peace is the norm;
  • Take ten minutes to find out about Peace Day by watching the videos above or going to http://www.peaceoneday.org/;
  • If you haven’t read Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language for Life, buy your copy today – and be sure to read it before this time next year!
  • Ask yourself, is there anyone with whom I’d like to make peace right now? And if there is, consider what steps you can take to make peace with that person or people;
  • Talk about peace today. Follow your instincts to decide who you would like to talk with and ask them if they know that today is international Peace Day.