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Your story in 2010

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It’s not the first time that I have asked my friend and fellow coach, Len Williamson, for his permission to share one of the brief writings he shares from time to time. Len has a particular gift for hitting the spot with just a few words. With his permission I share this example. It speaks for itself:

January and February are now written and the year’s themes are taking shape. Like any good novel now is a good time to take stock. Are you still holding the pen writing your story and do you like what is being written? Often by March the pen has slipped across our desk or been taken from our hands by someone else. In a trance we watch the pen write, live the story it tells and wonder why we are not where we want to be. If it is firmly in your hand or the hand of a friend and the story reads well then let the pen’s prose flow. If it is not then take it back, fill it with your ink and write the story you want to tell.

You can reach Len via his website at http://www.theowlpartnership.com. You can also read about Len’s efforts to raise awareness and funds for sufferers of multiple sclerosis at http://www.1000miles4hope.com/.

Oskar Schindler: an unlikely hero

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He who saves a single life, saves the world entire

From the Talmud

In 1993, when Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List was released, I was well aware of its phenomenal success and still, it largely passed me by. It was only recently, fresh from my visit to Cracow, that I picked up a copy of Thomas Keneally’s book Schindler’s Ark at my local discount bookshop. This is the book on which Spielberg’s film is based.

The story of Schindler’s war-time activities is an astonishing one, minutely researched and conveyed by Keneally. For in a period in which between 11 and 17 million people were killed, including 6 million Jews, Oskar Schindler became increasingly determined to save as many Jews as he could from the death camps. As the war proceeded he took increasingly significant risks to this end. No wonder then that, with the end of the war in sight, members of the camp gave up remnants of jewellery and even gold teeth in order to make a gold ring for Oskar, bearing the inscription from the Talmud: He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.

Schindler challenges us in many ways. Keneally’s account of Schindler’s life tests simple views, for example, of what is good and what is evil. For whilst his growing passion to save the Jews in his workplace marks him out as a hero, he also carroused on a regular basis with all sorts of members of the Nazi party. And whilst some of this activity can be firmly put down to the kind of political awareness that made his commercial and other enterprises possible, other activities are not so easily explained away. Throughout his marriage, for example, he made no secret – not even to his wife – of his extra-marital affairs.

Schindler also challenges modern concepts of leadership and especially the idea that once you have acquired the skills of leadership you will always remain a leader. In the early part of the war, for example, Schindler enjoyed a large measure of commercial success. Towards the end of the war he gave this up in favour of guarding the Jews in his care (his factory in Brinnlitz did not produce a single shell and was funded entirely by the profits from the early years of the war). Following the war Schindler’s business enterprises were largely unsuccessful and his home, when he died in 1974, was a small apartment near the railway station in Frankfurt.

In a similar way, Schindler’s heroic acts of leadership on behalf of the ‘Schindler Jews’ during the war brought them to the point of freedom but no further. Keneally gives an account of the speech Schindler made both to the Jewish inmates of his factory camp and to the SS men who were responsible for guarding the camp following the announcement of the end of the war. This was a speech that was finely judged and not without risk – the kind of speech that defines leadership. By his words Schindler secured the peaceful departure of the SS guards and invited the suriving Jewish men and women to act in a humane and just way.

As an account of the extraordinary acts of the most unlikely of heroes, Schindler’s Ark is a ‘must read’ book. At the same time it raises challenging questions about what it means to be a leader, a hero, a ‘good man’.

NVC and the Skilled Facilitator Approach

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This posting is for those people in my network who are interested in Marshall Rosenberg’s work in the area of nonviolent communication and/or Roger Schwarz’s Skilled Facilitator Approach (SFA). How do they compare? And because this is a blog posting rather than a full article I’m sharing – for now at least – my first impressions.

Let’s start with values. A core value amongst practitioners of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is compassion. As it happens, compassion is also a core value of the Skilled Facilitator Approach – amongst others. As I look down the list of values on my SFA card – transparency, curiosity, accountability, informed choice, compassion – I wonder whether the Skilled Facilitator Approach doesn’t make explicit some of the values implicit in NVC. None of them seem at odds.

In the Skilled Facilitator Approach, the mutual learning cycle begins with something which is also at the heart of NVC – making an observation. In NVC this may be noticing your own thoughts and actions or noticing someone else’s. It may also be noticing the voice with which you are speaking – with compassion (called speaking in giraffe) or from a place of non-compassion or anger (speaking in jackal).

There are some similarities here and some differences between NVC and the Skilled Facilitator Approach. In NVC our attention is on the needs we have or the needs we think the other person is expressing, together with the feelings that give rise to those needs. In the Skilled Facilitator Approach, the same focus is reflected in a rule: focus on interests, not positions. At the same time, the Skilled Facilitator Approach places a great deal of emphasis on checking our observations (“I think I heard you say…”) and our inferences (“I’m thinking you might be thinking… What do you think?”) This seems to me to be at odds with the view held by Marshall that to focus on thinking can get in the way of understanding needs. Whilst the goal of each approach is the same, the route seems to be different.

There’s a rule in the Skilled Facilitator Approach that seems to me to add something to the practices of Nonviolent Communication: explain reasoning and intent. According to this rule, you might add to a question an explanation (“the reason I’m asking is…”). In NVC, we share the needs that might be met when we make a request – again, a different route to the same end – so I wonder what it is this different approach adds. Perhaps it’s a different way of expressing the same thing – and perhaps it’s the language in which an intention is expressed. Sometimes in NVC the language of needs can be a barrier to easy understanding because it is so foreign in our wider culture.

I notice that I could go on – making comparisons – and yet the more I do the more I encounter a challenge. For it seems that for every aspect I identify of the Skilled Facilitator Approach I find an equivalent in NVC. For now, I am left with a belief that engaging with both approaches is adding each to the other and yet, I don’t know what.

I wonder if you, my reader, have thoughts? If you do, I’d be glad to hear them.

The Skilled Facilitator Approach on LinkedIn

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Sometimes in the world of deep learning it’s possible to feel quite lonely. For as much as some people appreciate those people who, by their learning, lead the way towards approaches that are as yet scarcely known, others can find them irksome and over analytical. On the surface it’s hard to argue with the Skilled Facilitator Approach – I doubt that many people would find much to contradict in its underlying values and ground rules. Still, this does not mean that many people put it into practice.

For this reason, when I feed back to members of the Training Journal Daily Digest, I am thrilled to hear from someone whose company has been working with Roger to increase their effectiveness using the Skilled Facilitator Approach – and I wonder who else is out there. I check on LinkedIn to see if there is a group and, finding none, decide to set one up.

This requires some thought about how to describe the group and I go to Roger’s website for inspiration. This is the description I come up with:

Are you learning to apply the Skilled Facilitator Approach in your personal and professional life? This group is a place where you can discuss this approach, seek help and share your experiences.

The Skilled Facilitator approach is an approach to effective human interaction – an approach Roger Schwarz and his colleagues have been developing since 1980 when Roger began teaching facilitation skills.

You can learn more by visiting Roger’s website at http://www.schwarzassociates.com

The Skilled Facilitator Approach – first steps to learning

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I’ve already mentioned in my postings this week that I have found Roger Schwarz’s book, The Skilled Facilitator: A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers and Coaches, just a tad unwieldy. So I thought it might be worth mentioning a few alternatives – for anyone who’s interested in a starter before going on to the main course.

Of course, Roger’s website is a great place to go. The website offers the full range of information you might expect from an organisation with expertise to sell, including a free monthly newsletter.

One article is available which gives a succinct introduction to the Skilled Facilitator Approach. It’s called Ground Rules for Effective Groups and is in its third edition.

Mmm… and maybe I should take care not to put you off Roger’s book. This is also available via his website.

The Skilled Facilitator Approach – a vehicle for holding courageous conversations

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Sitting at my desk preparing to write about my week with Roger Schwarz and his colleagues in December I look down at the card we all received as part of our training. The two-sided laminated card offers a reminder of the core values which guide Roger’s approach, the ground rules and the six steps of the mutual learning cycle.

Perhaps there’s no surprise that this approach touched me deeply. At one level, with its focus on effective communication, the Skilled Facilitator Approach is a business tool, available for use by facilitators, managers, coaches, trainers… the list could go on. Somehow, we have depersonalised communication in the business world and yet it’s deeply personal – we may be part of the business machine and still we are real people, with thoughts, feelings, emotions. The Skilled Facilitator Approach invites us to engage deeply with them in service of our communication with others.

What is the appeal to me? Firstly, with so much research on what it takes to be a great leader, parent, teacher (McGregor’s X and Y theory springs to mind) it can seem strange that we live in a world in which the learnings have not been applied. It seems to me that the Skilled Facilitator Approach maps out in very practical ways what it means to embody this theory. I am particularly drawn to an approach which is grounded in a clear set of values and assumptions (and I recognise how much they reflect my own aspirations). Perhaps at root, this approach has a deep appeal to me with my preference for holding real and courageous conversations.

Now, I set out to write about the training itself and I recognise that I have not done this. Still, I want to express my gratitude to Roger Schwarz, to Matt Beane and to Annie Bentz for embodying this approach in their training with us. For this is a rare sight – the espoused theory in practice. And I know it is borne of an ongoing commitment which few people demonstrate in their lives to put into practice a set of values, rules and behaviours. Roger, Matt and Annie, I thank you all.

Roger Schwarz and the Skilled Facilitator Approach

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Over the years, I’ve found that my learning needs have been met as much by synchronicity as by diligent research. My introduction to Roger Schwarz and the Skilled Facilitator Approach has been no exception.

As it happens, the friend who introduced me to the Skilled Facilitator Approach is also the friend who introduced me to Marshall Rosenberg’s work in the field of Nonviolent Communication – Aled Davies, Director of Resolve (GB). I remember how, in 2003, Aled thrust Marshall’s book into my hands and said “you must read this!” More recently, Aled has told me about his interest in the work of Roger Schwarz, author of The Skilled Facilitator Approach. I took Aled’s choice, in 2008, to fly to the US to train with Roger as a measure of the value he placed on Roger’s work. In the months running up to Christmas Aled has been planning a programme in London – Roger’s first public programme in Europe.

Now, let’s be clear. Roger’s book is rather fat and unwieldy. I’ve been reading it – slowly. At the same time, I was keen to support Aled in publicising Roger’s visit. So I asked Aled if he would run an evening workshop to which I could invite members of my network. I was thrilled when Aled said yes. I didn’t anticipate that I would come away from the workshop and sign up for Roger’s programme in December. And I didn’t anticipate just how deeply Roger’s work – and presence – and that of his colleagues would touch me.

Perhaps that’s for another posting. For now, it’s enough to say that this is how I spent the week beginning 7th December 2009. And this was, for sure, a week to remember.

When the snow falls

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Tuesday: The news bulletins start to focus on the weather, reporting heavy snow in Scotland and the north and predicting equally heavy snow in the south as part of England’s coldest winter in 30 years.
Wednesday: The news focuses on a rather luke-warm attempt to “settle the leadership question” in the Labour Party (unseat Gordon Brown?) and continues to focus on the weather. In Lewisham, where I live, the snow falls throughout the afternoon – a rare and beautiful sight. One by one, my business apointments for the remainder of this week are cancelled or converted to telephone calls. I attempt to travel to my choir rehearsal in the evening, only to be told that there will be no trains for the return journey. I go back home.
Thursday: I could spend the time I unexpectedly have at my desk – I have plenty to do. Still, it seems a shame to miss out on the snow and I venture out, walking up to Blackheath, across the Heath and down to Greenwich. There are already many footprints in the snow and – no surprises here – people of all ages are out with their sledges. As I walk one of my coaching clients phones: can I fit in a session this week? We arrange to speak this afternoon. Returning to my desk in the afternoon I am delighted to find an e-mail from a client in Dubai, letting me know he has given my name to one of his friends in Kuwait. His friend has already dropped me a line to ask for information about my work in the field of leadership development.
As I walk, I ponder the way the newscasters have been talking of the “worst winter in thirty years”. It is as if there is no judgment or conclusion involved and nothing to be explained. “Worst” is somehow commuted to the status of a fact. Without doubt, there are inconveniences and downsides to the weather. And still, these unexpected times seem to me to offer something valuable – the opportunities that need only to be seen in order to be seized. These are some of my favourite opportunities at this time:
  • The opportunity to remind ourselves that we live within nature’s laws and to consider what we can control and what we can’t;
  • The opportunity to start the day with a blank page and to ask, “what is important to me today?”
  • The opportunity to let go of doing and focus on being; “who or how do I want to be today?”
  • The opportunity to step back and reflect; especially to ask myself, how many of the activities that normally keep me busy serve my vision for the world and my own part in making that vision a reality?
  • The opportunity unexpectedly to play;
  • The opportunity to enjoy nature’s beauty.

I wonder, what are you making of this unexpected time?

Ordinary Men

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“Most of the other comrades drank so much
solely because of the many shootings of the Jews,
for such a life was quite intolerable sober”.

Following my visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau I look for a book (in Massolit Books and Cafe) that might begin to answer some of the questions we ask ourselves about the Holocaust. I come away with Christopher R. Browning’s book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.

Returning home following our visit, I make this my next read and find it to be a thoughtful and thought-provoking study of the experiences of 500 members of Reserve Police Battalion 101, based on their testimony in 1962 to 1972 as part of the investigation and legal prosecution of the Battalion by the Office of the State Prosecutor (Staatsanwaltschaft) in Hamburg.

Browning avoids sweeping generalisations to explore the multiple responses of the Battalion’s members over time, from their first and unexpected order to shoot 1,500 Jews in the Polish village of Jozefow in 1942 to the Erntefest (“Harvest Festival”) massacre towards the end of the war. Over time the Battalion’s members diverge into three groups, ranging from those who consistently took action to avoid the task they were allocated to those who learned to enjoy it.

The Battalion is of particular interest both because of the extensive and relatively open and honest testimony of its members and because it comprises the men of the title – ordinary men. These are not men who joined the Battalion fueled with the kind of race hatred that the naive witness might expect. The unfolding account offers a conclusion which, in turn, challenges any view of these men as fundamentally evil or in some way different from the reader. These were our fellow human beings.

In his Afterword, published six year’s after the book’s initial publication, Browning responds to scrutiny and criticism by his fellow author Daniel J. Goldhagen. His response is enough for me to decide not to seek out Goldhagen’s alternative account of Reserve Police Battalion 101.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wonder what thoughts you have as you read this?