Coaching Groups: Action Learning Sets by another name?

Alternative approaches, Coaching

Whenever I share my thoughts with others, they ask questions I haven’t yet thought of. This is true no matter how long I’ve spent brainstorming the questions I think others might have.

I am grateful for a question I hadn’t considered in relation to Coaching Groups: in what ways are they similar to or different from Action Learning Sets? This question came from Ben Sheath, Training and Development Manager at British Gas and my colleague on the Training Journal Daily Digest. Since I’ve never been a member of an Action Learning Set – at least, not one that has gone by that name – I was not in a strong position to answer the question. Thankfully Ben was able to share a link to an introduction to Action Learning Sets at ActionLearningSets.com and willing to share his own experiences. As I write I am still teasing out the similarities and differences between the two.

The introduction to Action Learning Sets begins by saying “Action Learning is an accelerated learning tool which can be applied to any number of different workplace (and personal) issues and challenges”. So far so similar – a Coaching Group also addresses an agenda set by members of the group. This agenda can be as wide and as deep as members choose. Still, I have a suspicion as I read this first sentence which is confirmed by the article’s second question: “What sort of problems do Set members discuss?” This for me, sets an Action Learning Set apart from a Coaching Group. For whilst an Action Learning Set appears to be problem-focused a Coaching Group is clearly outcome-oriented. That is, members of a Coaching Group come together to establish what goals they would like to pursue and members work with their coach and with each other to pursue their chosen goals. Insofar as the members of a Coaching Group address problems, it is in service of these goals.

What are the implications of this difference? I suspect, though I don’t know for sure, that Coaching Groups hold a bigger picture in their sights than do Action Learning Sets. And when group members are working in pursuit of a goal (rather than seeking to solve a problem) the questions they need to answer are, to a greater degree, about themselves. Whilst the Action Learning Set member may focus on how to re-design a process or to establish dialogue with colleagues in another department, the coaching client is more likely to be asking what beliefs are holding him back or what new way of thinking about a goal is likely to open up new and accelerated progress.

It seems to me that this is a matter of degree. At one end of the spectrum you might have a group that is looking at processes and systems and in which limited introspection is needed. This group is more likely to be called an Action Learning Set (or Quality Circle) than a Coaching Group. At the other end of the spectrum a group might be looking at how to improve behavioural effectiveness (as a leader or coach, for example) and this, to me, implies a willingness to reflect, to build self awareness and to share one’s self with the group. This is the Coaching Group.

One statement jumps out at me from the introduction to Action Learning Sets. This is the statement that Research has found that if a skilled facilitator is present, the Set is more likely to be successful. This is the statement that, for me, unites both approaches. For no matter the name or stated purpose of a group, the facilitator or coach needs to be sensitive to the readiness of group members to engage in learning at varying depths – from the surface “how tos” to deeper exploration of personal needs, values, behaviours and even identity. For me, this implies both clarity at the outset about the purpose and processes of the group and an ongoing dialogue with group members about their readiness to move forward.

My thanks to you, Ben, for helping me to tease out these similarities and differences.

Tracking back

Coaching

Well, that’s a new one on me. Claire Chapman, a colleague in the coaching profession who has recently started to supervise coaches, has introduced me to the term “trackbacking”.

Claire was taken by my recent post on coaching supervision (Coaching supervision: when anticlimax is the key measure of success). This in turn led her to write a post of her own (Coaching supervision – coaching assured) in which she included a link to my posting.

So what’s it called when I trackback her trackback? As you might be able to tell, I’m still learning.

On the day that became known as 9/11

About Dorothy

One of the great perks that comes with singing with the London Symphony Chorus is the opportunity to travel widely, both within the UK and around the world. Over the years the choir has travelled extensively (from Cardiff to Kuala Lumpur, from Newbury to New York) and sung in a variety of stunning and not-so-stunning venues. I remember singing Britten’s War Requiem in the open air in Athens, for example, and singing the first choral concert in the concert hall in Kuala Lumpur’s new Petronas Towers. I also remember singing in Italy in a “converted” sports hall where you could still see the lines of the basketball courts on the floor.

In September 2001 I joined the choir in a modest trip (out one day, back the next) to Ghent in Belgium, where we were due to sing Verdi’s Requiem as part of the Flanders Festival. On the afternoon of 11th September we gathered in the city’s majestic Gothic Cathedral to rehearse with the orchestra and soloists ahead of the evening’s concert.

Verdi’s Requiem is a piece we have often sung and which never loses its depth and grandeur, perhaps because we have been so well trained over the years (by our good friend Sir Colin Davis) to be fully aware of piece’s invocation of death and – worse still – of the fear of death. It is a piece that never fails to move me.

Our rehearsal started well enough as far as I remember. The memory that stands out most begins with the moment when I began to be aware of an unusual level of extra-curricular activity amongst members of the orchestra, who were handing round mobile phones, sharing I-knew-not-what information. By the time we reached our mid-rehearsal break we were all aware that something was happening in the world beyond the cathedrals walls.

I remember the buzz and rumour that broke out as we left the cathedral in search of drinks – and of television screens. I remember watching live images of smoke pouring out from the upper floors of New York’s Twin Towers. It was hard to believe that this was real and not some futuristic horror film.

With the benefit of hindsight, I wonder how these images affected the many Westerners who viewed them and how this compares with the impact of images of disasters from many other parts of the world, especially of what we have come to know as the “third world”. For surely the impact of these images lay, in part, in the way we recognised the Twin Towers as a symbol of our Western lives. These questions were not in my mind at the time, however, as we watched the events unfolding in mute disbelief.

I’d like to say that I vividly remember the concert with the music’s powerful invocation of death. The truth is that my memories are overlaid with the impenetrable veneer of the shock and disbelief we were all experiencing on that evening of 11th September, 2001.

This was the day that became known as 9/11.

Nonviolent communication and the Buddha

All articles,

Since I first read Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life in 2003 (thanks, Aled) I have – via the trainings I have attended and other events – met more followers of Buddhism than in the 40 years that preceded my first encounter with this (my “Desert Island”) book.

When I mention this to a colleague – and share my intention to understand more about Buddhism – he recommends a book which I am quick to order: The Heart of The Buddha’s Teaching, by Thich Nhat Hanh.

This is quickly followed by a number of links to websites on Deep Ecology, another way to understand Buddhist thinking and philosophy. These include links to Joanna Macey’s website, to Chris Johnstone’s website, to the Great Turning Times newsletter and to the Network of Engaged Buddhists.

Even the most cursory glance at these websites resonates strongly with my own philosophy and experience – making the link between our own inner ecology and our wider impact on the planet. This is in turn linked to an article I wrote recently and for which I am currently seeking a publisher. I have strong encouragement from my niece who is a committed ecologist. Whilst recognising the ongoing devastation of our planet and highlighting the role of industry in accelerating this trend, these sites speak of the possibility of a reversal of this trend, which they call The Great Turning. I am curious to explore more.

Oh! And I follow my colleague’s hint and sign up for daily tweets by the Dalai Lama – and quickly receive an e-mail entitled Dalai Lama is now following you on Twitter. How cool is that?!

Coaching? I’d recommend it to anyone

Clients and testimonials, ,

Sometimes, I like to “claim” a client. This is a process whereby I let someone know I think they’d benefit from coaching and that, if ever they decide to pursue it, I’d love to be their coach – or to help them to find the coach who’s right for them.

Sometimes, too, I offer a scholarship to young people with high potential – the future leader, for example, whose employing organisation has not yet spotted their potential or (because of my personal interest and engagement in music and the performing arts) the talented performer or future star.

The testimonial below comes from one such client – someone I “claimed” as a client and who took up my offer of a coaching scholarship. Oftentimes, high performance comes at a personal cost so I am struck by the benefits to my client in his work from learning to look after himself.

Coaching was Dorothy’s idea – it wasn’t something I’d thought of doing. I’ve experienced coaching as personal to me – learning about myself and what I enjoy. It’s been a way of learning how to live in a way that suits me – learning what I want and how to get it.

Before we started working together I was doing my work as well as I knew how but I wasn’t looking after myself and I was experiencing some stress. I wasn’t willing to take risks and I didn’t have the confidence and energy to change.

Coaching has opened up a new way of thinking for me. Now I’m checking in with myself regularly and acting on my own feedback. I’m more relaxed and happy and my confidence levels are higher. I’m working more and better as a result.

As my coach, Dorothy created trust from the beginning and maintained her commitment to confidentiality which was important to me. I get a strong sense of her dedication – her willingness to contribute her time and expertise to help. I also found it quite liberating to be left to set the agenda and to judge the outcome myself. There was no judgment – I’ve never experienced anything like that before.

Would I recommend coaching? Yes, I’d recommend it to anyone. I thought it was for certain people with certain problems but now I realise it’s for anyone.

Protecting your name on-line

Coaching

Today I take one more action from the list of recommendations I took away from my conversation a few weeks back with my friend Kenny Tranquille. As if being a talented coach and nutritionist is not enough, Kenny has taken on the role of my E-mentor.

Like many people, my business interests are simple at first glance (coaching senior leaders) and more diverse on close inspection. My business website represents one view of my interests and still, perhaps there’s a place for a site which represents the greater diversity of my business and personal interests.

There’s another question, too. How is my name protected on the internet? One way to do this is to register my name as a domain name. None of my many namesakes have done this yet so I go for the most universal domain name I can and register www.dorothynesbit.com with my internet provider.

I am raring to go – the most basic package allows me to create a one-page website and I am looking forward to doing this very soon. Still, I have to wait for my confirmation e-mail which is due to reach me within the next 24 hours.

I’ll keep you posted.

How is coaching faring during the recession?

Coaching

The Training Journal Daily Digest has come up trumps again. Responding to a posting requesting recommendations for some executive coaches I offer to share details of trusted colleagues – it’s not the done thing to recommend oneself on the Digest and still, I’m always delighted to put people in touch with skilled and able coaches. Minutes later, one of my colleagues on the Digest lets me know she’s put my name forward.

Oh! And what’s more, one of my former Hay colleagues lets me know he’s recommended me as a coach to senior leaders in his own business. I experience feelings of great delight at these “seeds sown”. Much of my work comes to me via these kinds of referrals and whether or not these particular seeds turn into coaching assignments, they contribute to an abundance of possibilities and make it more likely that I can contribute my skills to help individuals and organisations to build leadership capability.

But how is coaching faring during the recession? This a question that is visting one of my colleagues today. She writes:

Dorothy, over the past few days, I’ve learnt that several services and colleagues in my three worlds are running into difficulties. It seems as if it is getting ever harder to secure referrals, to find paying clients, or to fill workshops.

Just as a ‘reality check’: have you noticed trends in this direction in your coaching circles? On the one hand, these developments come as no surprise to me. On the other hand, I wonder whether those of us who hold strong positive beliefs can manage to “surf through this era on an entirely different wave”… I hope from my heart that the latter is the case.

In my own practice, one client organisation stopped its executive coaching across the world last year in response to the crisis in the finance sector. Currently, another client is taking a break pending his new budgetary period and has made it clear that he’d prefer to continue our work together. Whilst small businesses like my own tend to experience both ups and downs these examples are clearly related to our current economic climate.

Oh, the paradox! If ever our leaders need coaching it’s now! For the levels of uncertainty that come with our current economic climate are such that “drawing on experience” – even experience of past recessions – is not enough. And yet it’s at this time that organisations are most likely to tighten their belts and reduce their investment in coaching and other development programmes.

I take time to explore a link provided by another colleague to an article about coaching in Personnel Today. Two things stand out. The first is the recommendation to invest in coaching leaders ahead of any other group – after all, in times of change, it’s our leaders who lead the change. I also notice that recent research by the CIPD suggests that coaching is proving to be one of the great survivors of the recession.

I hope so. Of course, coaching makes a significant contribution to my income. Far more than this, coaching has a major role to play in developing leadership capability and this, in turn, makes it more likely that our leaders will create intelligent and highly effective organisations.

I wonder, what do you think?

Coaching supervision: when anticlimax is the key measure of success

All articles

Sometimes, the value of coaching supervision lies in its power to disarm anxieties ahead of time. This means that a key measure of the effectiveness of supervision can be the sense of anticlimax that comes when one’s worst fears fail to materialise. Meeting by phone for a supervisory session with Neil Williams I decide to share my anxieties about one particular client as part of my preparation for our forthcoming coaching session.

For me, coaching is a bit like exercise: the more regular and sustained your coaching programme, the more you will experience the benefits. So when one client postpones a session I wonder if the benefits that come from regularity and momentum will be lost. An added anxiety is the presence of a third party in the background – my client’s sponsoring manager. Is my client managing the expectations of his sponsoring manager? I don’t know.

Neil’s initial questions focus on the possibility that my client lacks commitment to his coaching. Even though I’ve already considered this possibility it’s good to voice what I know – that my client has shown great commitment during our sessions. There’s no question in my mind: commitment isn’t the issue. I’m also aware of the practical reasons for the delay.

Exploring these questions helps me to sharpen my focus. The issue is not so much “how did we get here?” (where “here” begins to look like a pattern of increasingly long gaps between sessions). Rather, the question is, having got here, how do we move forward in ways which best support my client’s progress and learning? As we explore the options, I take some ideas from Neil’s input and also add some ideas of my own. I leave our conversation with confidence and some concrete next steps which I act on immediately.

And what of my next coaching session with my client and even the one beyond? As so often happens with coaching my client brings an agenda that neither of us could have foreseen just a few weeks earlier. Our work proceeds with no impact that I can discern from the delay between sessions, though we do schedule a session a little sooner next time. Meantime, my client also has feedback from his sponsoring manager who volunteers positive feedback about my client’s progress and specifically mentions the impact of coaching.

My supervision, as so often happens, leaves me with the question: did I even need to worry in the first place? This is not to underplay the value of supervision but rather to underline it. For when I take time out for coaching supervision I am equipping myself to remove barriers to our coaching, to be fully present to my client and to provide the level of coaching support to which I aspire.

Scheduling postings

Coaching

Well, a small thing has been making a huge difference to my blogging in recent days.

My e-mentor, Kenny Tranquille, highlighted an unexplored link on my blog: post options. It has enabled me to start to schedule postings. So, when I have time, I can write two or three postings and schedule them to appear whenever I want.

So, in case you think I’ve been busy all the way through the summer, you might like to know that I’m away right now – back from my holiday on Tuesday 1st September.

LinkedIn – for the dummies amongst us

Coaching,

It’s no surprise to most people that many of us fear the activity we call “networking”. Perhaps one reason for this is that we take a very narrow view of it: isn’t networking when you go round a room of strangers trying to meet people who might buy what you have to sell? And isn’t it a pretty horrid experience to have stilted conversations with all sorts of people who don’t want to be sold to?

Today I speak with Jonathan Kemp of SmartWisdom, whom I met via my old friend the Training Journal Daily Digest. Jonathan asked me if we could talk about blogs and I’m delighted to help. No selling here – just two colleagues helping each other out. What’s more, as Jonathan updates me on the progress of his work, I realise I know people who may benefit from learning about Jonathan’s work. He agrees to send information I can forward.

We talk about my own progress in building an online presence. Jonathan tells me that when he first signed up to LinkedIn he bought several books to help him make the most of it and recommends LinkedIn for Dummies by Joel Elad. I decide to order a copy and I’m looking forward to browsing this book and to enjoying whatever gems it offers.

For me, this is “networking” at its best. I enjoy the pleasure of supporting Jonathan and take away a few gems myself. Perhaps my friends and contacts will benefit from an introduction to Jonathan’s work – and if they don’t, that’s fine, too. And I take away a few gems that support me. Even Joel Elad gets a sale.

Who knows, maybe you get to benefit, too.