For the first time: planning to offer coaching groups

Coaching,

Coaching Groups. This is what is on my mind at the moment. I am preparing to bring together my experience as a coach with my experience of working with groups in order to offer a series of coaching groups.

I am full of excitement about this, even as I juggle my preparatory work for the groups with my current work-load. I am especially excited to offer groups in areas that really thrill me. I’ll be offering my corporate clients the opportunity to create groups of leaders, for example, who want to develop greater leadership effectiveness or to develop their skills in coaching those they lead.

I’m also offering groups in other areas of great interest. Right now I’m poised to send out an invitation to new coaches to join a New Coaches Group. This group will work with coaches who are setting up their coaching practice and want tailored support at a cost they can afford. In the field of nonviolent communication (NVC) – an area of special interest – I am offering three groups. One will help people to build firm foundations in NVC – to master the fundamentals, if you like. One will be for experienced practitioners who want to continue to deepen their understanding and practise of NVC. One will be a marketing group for NVC trainers who want to become more effective in creating a market for their own unique offering in this area.

I am already putting the word out and I’ll be watching with interest to see which groups take off first. Who knows, I may even find that there are groups I don’t know of yet just waiting to come to me! I’m preparing invitations and will be sending them out this month.

Today, I start to address one part of the invitation – to reach out and ask for quotes to include in my materials. Many requests go to people I know well – colleagues, clients, my coach, Lynne Fairchild. One is a little off the wall – to my colleagues on the Training Journal Daily Digest. I am curious to notice how vulnerable I feel as I wonder what will come back…

Vulnerability? Bring it on!

Coaching, Developing as a leader, ,

Readers of my blog may know that I am a regular reader of, and contributor to, the Training Journal Daily Digest. This is a forum where a diverse group of in-house and independent trainers, consultants, coaches and sundry professionals come to share views with and seek help from their colleagues. It’s also a place of abundance! There’s so much that I enjoy about it.

Recently, there has been a discussion thread about how different people are experiencing the recession. Is it all doom and gloom? Clearly not. Still, the question implicit in such a discussion is: “how honest are we prepared to be?”

One posting caught my eye and resonated with me. It has messages for those of us who work as coaches – those to whom others look for an example. It has messages for those of us who lead – again, to whom others look for an example. The message was from Hilary Cooke (see http://www.merlin-consultancy.com/) and, with her generous permission, I reproduce it here:

To reply to your question, my biggest learning has so often been, and still is, around how I handle myself and certainly managing my own anxieties and vulnerabilities is an important part of that. John Heron (one of my heroes) is red-hot explicit on how we cannot safely take clients to areas we have not been to and do not dare visit ourselves.

I work a lot with people who are in jobs or roles where it has become important to fake what you feel and then manage the emotional labour that it creates. It takes huge amounts of energy to deny feelings and I don’t choose that for myself.

I have my own lightbulb joke about consultancy – how many consultants does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer – I don’t know, and I’m too busy to think about it now, but I’ll send you a proposal when I get time at the weekend.

So – we become seduced into our own brand of “macho” (I think) – and it’s about success equating to being raftered with work. Ask any colleague at a networking do and they will shake their head from side to side, tut like a plumber looking at a leak and adopt a pained expression whilst proclaiming how soooooo busy they are. That’s the facade for clients too – after all, if we are not busy, the unspoken rider is “well you can’t be very good then” and so we come to believe our own propaganda.

The risk to ourselves is building our dream-life – and then becoming too busy to benefit from it or enjoy it – and then have the temerity to advise other people on how to live theirs??? (Talk about “take my advice – I don’t happen to be using it myself!”)

Personally, I wouldn’t employ a coach or developer who couldn’t prove and quantify their own time and income expenditure on objective self development – I certainly do and expect the same from my partners. I also think it’s a shame that there is not a compulsory supervision practice to support consultants and coaches, as there is in psychotherapy. I choose to go in to supervision if I feel I am approaching or bumping into the coaching / therapy boundary with certain clients, and maintain my coaching tribe for different purposes. It’s knowing my own limits that enables me to create and hold the safe space that you talk about and that we know to have such value in our work – both with groups and individuals.

So yeah – vulnerabilities, anxieties, fears, – bring them on – and acknowledge that they are there. Only then can they be managed. It’s the ones I don’t yet know, my blind spots, that are the dangerous ones – so if you spot any, I trust you will tell me!

Honouring Michael Jackson

About Dorothy

Sometimes, after a concert, I take a little time before going to bed – to read, to catch the day’s news, above all, to settle. On Thursday I was both tired and elated after the evening’s performance (not to mention a little bemused by the woman on the bus who told me – and our fellow passengers – that I have “the most enormous arse” when I sat next to her and caused her to have to sit up and confine herself to just one seat). I went straight to bed.

This is not to say I did not savour the evening’s music. The Chorus had a minor role to play so that, whilst waiting to sing, we got to savour the rich textures of Debussy and Ravel and to marvel at the young pianist, Yuja Wang, as she played Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with both great precision and a kind of daring and abandon. Our own rendition when it came – of Villa Lobos’ Choros No 10 – matched her daring and abandon, though perhaps not her precision.

Waking on Friday morning to the news of Michael Jackson’s death, my pleasure in the evening’s concert was replaced by a sense of shock – the disbelief that often comes with the news, whether expected or not, that someone has died. Putting my shock aside I got on with my schedule of appointments and, in turn, with the weekend’s activities.

Today I have time to pause. The newspapers are full of reflections on Jackson’s universal appeal – his genius, even – as a musician as well as on so many signs that his life as a child-star-become-adult-celebrity was neither easy nor healthy. I have little to say that has not been – will not be – said in the coming days and weeks. Still, I want to honour a man whose music has had such a profound impact on generations of people and all around the world. As I write, I play Jackson’s joyful rendition of Don’t Stop ‘Til You get Enough on YouTube. The music, the dance, the sheer joie de vivre – as one critic put it, his jouissance: this is what Jackson gave us.

May he rest in peace.

Celebrating London in the evening sunshine

About Dorothy

London has been sparkling in the sunshine. As I walked down Bishopsgate yesterday I was struck by the deep blue of the late afternoon sky. Beneath it, the buildings had a fresh appeal. It was like looking at an old friend or lover and seeing beauty you had never noticed before or long since forgotten.

Tower 42, the old NatWest Tower, sometimes looks a little weary to me. Not yesterday. The glass was gleaming in the sunshine. Its windows, and the windows of the buildings around it, reflected both the City’s traditional architecture and the cranes at work creating a new generation of buildings. A living art work.

Michael Tilson Thomas (aka MTT) was also sparkling yesterday. Reflecting on our rehearsal as I walked away, I wondered if he’d noticed that the sopranos were lost – almost to a woman – early in the evening’s last run-through of Villa Lobos’ Chorus Number 10. Still adjusting to the speed at which he took this piece, we were struggling to watch him whilst also following the music. If he did notice, he handled it with consummate grace, recognising the challenge of staying on track and urging us to prioritise maintaining the rhythm of the music over a perfect and precise rendition of the notes.

As I write, I think of my coaching clients. Isn’t that a great analogy for life? For what is it to sing each perfect note of life in tune, if in the end our life has lost its rhythm?

The Immune Power Personality

Emotional Intelligence,

I wrote my recent newsletter whilst I was reading Henry Dreher’s book The Immune Power Personality: Seven Traits You Can Develop to Stay Healthy.

First published in 1995, Dreher draws on cutting edge science in the emerging field of psychoneuroimmunology or PNI. PNI is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body, also referred to as “mind-body science”.

As the book’s title suggests, Dreher outlines seven traits which have been proven by scientists to boost the body’s immune system. These are strengths which help people to cope with hard times. They are also traits which have an impact on individuals’ physical well-being and immunity.

Dreher addresses each trait in turn, identifying the scientist who has studied this trait, summarising his or her research, making links with other scientific research or wider (for example, religious) traditions and offering suggestions on how to develop the characteristics identified. Dreher is meticulous and highly effective in translating deep science into a highly readable and practical book.

One experiment described in the book intrigued me more than any other and has resonance in our times. In it, scientist James Pennebaker divided sixty laid-off workers into three groups and had one group write, for five days, about their deepest thoughts and feelings about the loss of their job. Another group kept a time management record and the third wrote about trivia. After four months Pennebaker called off the experiment. 35% of those people who wrote about their feelings had found jobs compared with none of the members of the time management group and 5% of the group who had written about trivia. This experiment was part of a wider body of research which suggests that the capacity to confide supports strong immunity.

overall, The Immune Power Personality is a valuable and thought-provoking resource for anyone who wants both to understand why certain traits provide immunity during hard times and to further develop those traits.

Starting from where you are

Emotional Intelligence, ,

In my recent newsletter I wrote about the characteristics that support us in thriving in hard times.

As I write, I think of the old joke – often attributed to the Irish – about the man on the road who stopped to ask for directions only to be told, “if that’s where you want to get to, I wouldn’t start from here!” For some of my readers, the traits I have identified may seem a long way away from their starting point. And yet, we can only start from where we are. I wrote:

If you, as reader of this article, are recognising aspects of yourself in Carl, you have a great deal to celebrate. You are already showing some of the behaviours and characteristics that are leading Carl, and others like him, to thrive. Perhaps the recession is centre stage for you – and you are confident you know how to thrive no matter what. Perhaps the economic downturn is far from being central to your current interests. Either way, you feel grounded and confident.

Maybe, though, you are not thriving at present. It may well be that you are reading this article and noticing the gaps – the fault-lines – in your current response to the recession and everything that it is bringing to you. Maybe you are using this as a world class opportunity to beat yourself up! Or maybe you are wishing things were different right now.

Either way, I offer one of the primary characteristics of those who know how to thrive, no matter what: acceptance. This is not to say that the Carls of this world are complacent and do nothing. Rather, they accept both their outer circumstances and their inner response as their starting point. For if we are to begin a journey – any journey – where can we hope to start from, if not from where we are?

As I prepare this blog posting, I wonder what can we do to cultivate acceptance. My own experience points to one habit above all others that we can cultivate: the habit of being curious about the intentions that lie behind our own and others’ behaviours. This is a habit that is offered by practitioners of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), nonviolent communication (NVC) and no doubt other schools of thinking, both secular and religious.

To be curious about our positive intentions is to ask “what am I wanting?” We do not stop at feeling angry or frustrated or happy or sad. Rather, we ask this simple question again and again until we get down to the root of our desires. Often, we know we have reached the foundations of our desires for two reasons. The first is that we are no longer thinking in terms of a specific action (“I want John to do X”) or object (“I want a new car right away”). Rather, we are thinking about the underlying need that would be met by such an action or object (“I want to be accepted” or “I want to make my own choices”, for example). Reaching this depth of understanding leads us to the second sign that we have reached the foundations of our desires. For when we do, we often let go of our feelings of frustration, anger etc. and feel a deep sense of peace – acceptance. In NLP, this is decribed as a change of state. In NVC, practitioners sometimes talk about the living energy of needs.

NLP also recognises that different parts of us may appear, on the surface, to want different – even contradictory – things. So, the NLP Practitioner is interested in the dialogue we have with different parts of ourselves and in understanding the underlying intentions of each part. In NLP and NVC enquiring in this way can save us from the paradox that comes when we judge ourselves for judging others. This is a bit like the adult who slaps a child and says: “Don’t hit your brother!” Understanding our positive intentions – all our positive intentions – allows us to find a place of acceptance and to begin to explore effective strategies to meet our needs.

And what about being curious about the positive intentions of others, especially when we feel angry or frustrated by the impact their behaviours have on us? NLP teaches us that every behaviour has a positive intention. Even to understand this is to begin to accept – we may not know what the intention is behind a thought or action and still, we know there is one. NVC invites us to go further and to enquire, recognising that the person with whom we are in contact may not fully understand their own desires. We might say, “Jane, are you feeling frustrated because you’re wanting some appreciation for your actions?” It doesn’t matter that we’re right or wrong as long as we are making a sincere attempt to understand. Of course, we may not always be in dialogue with people or organisations whose behaviours we are struggling to accept. At times, whether up close or at a distance, it helps simply to remember that we can’t change others’ behaviour – we can only change our own.

As I write I am searching for the words to do justice to the role that coaching plays in helping people to understand their own intentions so that they can find ways of meeting needs of which, previously, they were only dimly aware. What a privilege to be able to support clients in this way – and to be a witness to the results!

Something for the weekend

About Dorothy


What a weekend! Together with my niece, Rebecca, I spent Saturday at an event organised by Conservation Today (see www.conservationtoday.org). Nine speakers in one day! It was a thought-provoking and diverse event and still it left me with the big questions. Given the significant effects of global warming predicted by scientists, are we still aiming to achieve the radical changes that would avert a disaster? Or is it too late for that? And if it’s already too late, what are the aims of conservation today?

On Sunday, I spent time dipping into a range of household tasks. These included doing some of the cleaning needed following some building work. So I stirred up some dust – and I hope some of it has now found a new home. When I went to mow the lawn, I noticed Mr. Fox was in the garden and decided to wait a bit. (I wonder what my farmer father would say about that if he were still alive!) I was surprised when a second fox joined him – this is the first time I’ve seen two foxes in my garden. I took a photo of them both through the window.

And then, with Rebecca and her brother Edward, I made my way to our longstanding haunt, The Spice of Life. How did we start a competition to see who could name most solo pop singers? And is there any other group of people amongst whom there might be a shadow of a possibility that I might win? Sometimes, age has its advantages.

Taking a moment to celebrate

Coaching, ,

Today I am celebrating! I am preparing to offer a number of Coaching Groups in areas of special interest to me. These include a group for leaders as coaches, a group for new coaches and a group for people who are committed to living in the spirit and practice of nonviolent communication.

As I begin to share my plans, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. In the leadership and coaching arena, I have started to explore with a colleague a coaching group for leaders to explore what works in leadership. In the field of nonviolent communication, I have been overwhelmed by the response and am beginning to put together an interest list. I feel thrilled.

And alongside this – and many other celebrations – I received today an e-mail from my sister-in-law about Burma’s democratic leader. As I read it, I feel all the more strongly that nonviolent communication is a force for good in the world. Her message? I think it speaks for itself:

I’ve just sent my birthday message of support to Burma’s democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Check it out and create your own here: http://www.64forsuu.org/word.php?wid=10527

Aung San Suu Kyi has now been imprisoned by Burma’s brutal regime for over 13 years. 64forSuu.org is a website where celebrities, politicians and the public from all over the world are coming together to send birthday messages of support to the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Find out more about Aung San Suu Kyi’s fight for human rights and democracy in Burma on the website http://www.64forsuu.org/

Taking time off

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

In my recent newsletter article about thriving in hard times, I suggested that it’s good to take time off. I also highlighted how different types of time off come with different outcomes. I wrote:

Lesley’s response to her fear of redundancy has been to work longer hours. Over time, the return on this investment has been poor. Although Lesley is working longer hours she is increasingly exhausted so that her productivity during the hours she is working has gone down rather than up. At the same time, she is now so close to her work that she is increasingly losing perspective. This lack of perspective is adversely affecting her performance at work. What’s more, increasingly, she sees keeping her current job as the one and only way of meeting her needs and this in turn increases her sense of stress.

John has taken a different approach. Taking time out with friends has provided a distraction from his concerns. Smoking and drinking has also been providing a welcome break. However, this approach has had its downsides. As well as increasing risks to his health, John’s approach has led to tension at home where his wife, also worried about the possible impact of the economy, sees John’s approach as irresponsible and has started to criticise him.

Carl’s approach reflects his confidence that he is doing what he can to make progress towards his goals. During the time he works, he focuses on making progress in the areas in which he has set himself targets. Away from work, he gives his full attention to activities which are also meeting his needs. Carl is clear, for example, that he wants to create – together with his wife – a relationship that enriches them both. He also wants to maintain health and physical fitness. Far from being a distraction from work, his other-than-work activities also contribute to his well-being in other areas of his life.

Where do you start if you are tied up in work and don’t know how to take time off? Here are a few clues:

  • Step 1: Notice where you’re starting from. Perhaps you’re working hard and you don’t believe it’s possible to take time off and survive. In this case, you might want to go straight to Step 2 below. Perhaps you are taking time off and at the same time you notice how you don’t feel any better for it. In this case you might want to skip to Step 3. At this stage, you may like to check for any signs that you are taking actions to block out your emotions – to take the edge off your fear of failing at this critical time, for example, or of losing your job. If this is true for you, you might like to ask yourself “do I want to live my life this way?” If the answer is no, it may be timely for you to reach out for help;
  • Step 2: Replace “I don’t have time” with “I have all the time I need”. The belief that you don’t have time to take time off is just that – a belief. At some level, it’s a belief that you’re choosing. If you want to explore the theme of choosing you might like to read Choosing to Choose (http://dorothynesbit.blogspot.com/2009/05/choosing-to-choose.html) or Choosing Beliefs that Empower (http://dorothynesbit.blogspot.com/2009/06/choosing-beliefs-that-empower.html), also in this series of articles. Or you might like to try on two contrasting beliefs, for example “I don’t have time” and “I have all the time I need”. Take time with each belief, noticing how you feel when you try on each belief. Which one is the most empowering? Once you choose the belief “I have all the time I need” the question becomes not “Have I got time…?” but “How do I make time..?”
  • Step 3: Notice what you want from your spare time. What do you want your spare time to do for you? Carl was clear about what he wanted from his spare time? Are you? The more you get clear about what you want from your spare time the more you can plan activities that are likely to give you what you want. Carl’s aims, for example, require ongoing and sustained investment to come good. Sometimes, though, it’s enough to notice that you need to take a break to refresh your thinking in the workplace or that you’re hungry and need “brain food”;
  • Step 4: Plan an action or course of action that meets your needs. Once you know what needs you want to meeet, you can identify and take the action or actions to meet your needs. It’s possible that at this stage you may identify multiple courses of action to meet different needs and you may even feel overwhelmed as you try to fit everything in. So it may help to approach this stage as a time of experimentation;
  • Step 5: Check: is it working? Meeting your needs requires a constant awareness of how well your chosen actions are working – both in meeting individual needs and in supporting you in meeting all your needs. Planning a lengthy round of golf each week may meet your need for regular exercise, for example, but how does it contribute to your need to sustain a healthy and loving relationship with your partner? Make a point of checking how effective your plans are in meeting the needs you have identified and make adjustments.

Adjusting and adapting

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, , ,

In my recent newsletter I wrote about what it takes to thrive in hard times and today’s posting touches on the essential quality (which we can all develop and increase) of flexibility:

One of the most significant differences between those who are thriving in the current economic downturn and those who are not lies in their willingness to adapt. Carl is clear about his goals and, at the same time, highly flexible in the means by which he achieves them. Because he is so clear about what outcomes he wants to achieve, he is constantly adapting his approach to secure progress in each new circumstance.

For Carl, and others like him, the aim is to keep trying new things until he succeeds. He is happy to see what does and doesn’t work. In this way, there is no such thing as failure. When something doesn’t move him towards his goals he knows, simply, that it’s time to adjust his approach.

Carl’s commitment to his goals, coupled with his belief that he will find ways to reach them and his willingness to adjust, combine to create a sense of lightness and play. After all, if success is only a matter of time and if there are many ways to achieve success, why would he feel gloomy?

Today, rather than offer a step-by-step process to support you in increasing your adaptability, I offer a mixed offering of things you might like to consider along the way:

  • Know the difference between the means and the end: Many people confuse the end goal or underlying need with the means by which they hope to secure the end goal. The buyer of a high-status car may be unaware of how his or her purchase meets a need for self esteem for example. Or the man or woman who wants to have an intimate relationship may get stuck when things go wrong in relationship with his or her “one and only”. Unearthing your underlying need means going beyond any strategy that is specific to time, place or person. If you want to understand your end goal ask yourself “what would that do for me?” when you think you want something – and keep asking;
  • Take one step at a time: You may want to have the whole route planned out ahead of time. At the same time, some of life’s highest achievers start out with a goal and then take just one step at a time. They focus on the end goal, notice where they are starting from and ask themselves: “what’s the next step?” This is far easier than focussing on the big gap between the goal and the starting place and lifts the spirit considerably;
  • Select beliefs that support you: Perhaps the most helpful belief, one of the presuppositions of neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP) is “there’s no failure, only feedback”. When we adopt this belief, we often find it easier to experiment and to try things out, knowing that whatever the outcome, we’ve made a step forward. If our action doesn’t work, we know more about how (or how not) to make progress. Another helpful belief is “you can’t change the others, you can only change yourself”. This can help you to avoid the inflexibility that comes from looking to others to make changes they are unlikely to make. Paying attention to your beliefs can help you select presuppositions that support a flexible approach;
  • Take a break: It can be easy to get stuck in a single track of thinking, especially when the going is hard. This can lead to frustration – the belief, for example, that the only way to achieve a goal relies on something or someone who’s not co-operating. Taking a break – a walk, for example, or a conversation with someone about something quite different – can loosen up single track thinking and open up new possibilities;
  • Ask for help: I wrote about asking for help in a recent posting as part of this series (see 29th May 2009). Adjusting and adapting relies on flexibility in the way you look at a problem so asking for help may include asking others to help you identify multiple ways of looking at a situation. Equally, it may be that someone can provide just the help you need to take your next step forward.