Tag Archives: Books

Measuring the return on your investment in coaching

Coaching,

When it comes to learning and development – be it through training, coaching or some other activity – businesses struggle to assess the return they get from their investment. And many professionals offering learning and development services don’t know how to help clients to measure the return on their investment either.

For professionals (trainers, coaches, consultants etc.) part of the problem is that they are already sold on the benefits so that their focus is on providing the services they feel so passionate about. At the same time, even for the most commercially-focused service provider, measuring ROI is a complex area.

With this in mind, I was interested to read the posting below by Jane Massy, CEO of abdi (www.abdi.eu.com) in response to a posting on the Training Journal Daily Digest. abdi describe themselves as the experts in evaluating learning and development. I reproduce Jane’s response with her permission:

It’s always interesting to read these discussion and I’d like to add a few thoughts from our side and hopefully dispel a few myths! My comments are based on the experience of carrying out and/or supporting L&D professionals in the evaluation of about £2bn of investment in workplace learning and development and nearly two decades of calculating business impact and value!

Firstly, any ROI (based on the traditional formula of dividing the money value of net benefits by full costs) can only be derived from the data about business metric improvements. Some of these business metrics will be convertible into money, and can be used in the calculation and some won’t (what are called ‘intangibles’). Furthermore, there is no way to show direct cause and effect in these human capital (and in fact in any) type of investments – it simply isn’t possible.

What is possible is to build a chain of impact through collecting data throughout each of the (Kirkpatrick/Phillips) levels. Data in the chain of impact includes engagement, learning, performance change and business impact data. Understanding each of the results as well as their relationship is essential to confirm the chain of impact. Our experience is that most L&D and HR people don’t actually understand the nature of these data items, don’t analyse them and don’t explore the relationships between the data items at different levels.

All investments need to be planned with this chain of impact outcomes in mind. Investing without measurable documented outcomes agreed at all levels and deciding to see if it was worth it without this advance planning is both unprofessional and also inefficient and ineffective. Part of planning is establishing baseline data and planning for isolation as well as forecasting costs.

You can isolate for the influence of other factors and you should definitely do so if you wish to calculate the ROI – otherwise you will look like a fool and your report will not be credible in front of the senior management/board who will have a clear idea of what influences business metric improvements and will want to know you have taken these into account when doing your calculation. I recommend you read Jack Phillips’ Return on Investment. If you want a copy, e-mail me and I’ll happily arrange for one to be sent to you free of charge!

I would add that the ‘me’ in that last sentence is Jane – you can reach her at jane@abdi.eu.com.

Ordinary Men

All articles
“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.

The Massolit Bookshop and Cafe

About Dorothy

When the Nesbit family arranges “secret Santa” for our Christmas trip to Krakow it is easy to predict that Santa might brings at least a book or two by way of presents. So there’s no surprise, when I text my brother and sister-in-law to let them know of delays to our journey, that they reply from a bookshop.

The bookshop they describe when we arrive sounds like a veritable tardis. Stepping into a confined area it seems at first sight that this English language bookshop has very few books. Until, that is, it becomes apparent that beyond the initial entrance there’s another part of the bookshop – through some doors, across a corridor and through another set of doors. In addition, the books shop offers coffee and American cakes to eat in the cafe area or amongst the books.

I go to the bookshop, the Massolit Books and Cafe, with my brother and my nephew the day before we leave. Following our visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau we are interested to read and learn more – an interest twinged with the pain and sadness that comes with knowing about the Holocaust. We all come away with books.

And since my mother and I have an afternoon flight the next day we make the bookshop our final stop before leaving, for a browse, a drink and cake.

Parallels between Nonviolent Communication and Gestalt

Alternative approaches, Coaching, ,

Last week I met with Marion Gillie, who brings a background in business psychology to her work as a coach, consultant and coaching supervisor, including a good dose of Gestalt.

As it happens, I have been discussing Gestalt with my friend and colleague Len Williamson and wondering about any connections between Gestalt and Nonviolent Communication. Len is ahead of me with his reading – he has just finished reading Marshal Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication: A Language for Life and I have yet to read his recommended text on Gestalt, Gestalt Therapy Integrated: Contours of Theory and Practice by Erving & Miriam Polster.

I am curious to receive Len’s initial thoughts on parallels between the two. He writes:

I am struck by the parallels between Gestalt and NVC. Both start with description. In Gestalt you cannot see that someone is happy you can only describe their physical features and describe what ‘is’. You must accept they may be happy, sad or something else and if you want to know which then you must ask them. There can be no judgement. In NVC there is non judgemental observation and description of what is taking place in a situation. In both approaches this one step is immensely powerful to help relationships between people.

In Gestalt there is scanning of yourself to notice your sensing, meaning making, intuition and emotions. Noticing the distinctions of each brings richness to the experience you are having and gives insight for any situation you are in. NVC considers what we feel in relation to what we observe and again applies non judgemental description. Insight arises from what our feelings are telling us through this form of description. Both approaches bring the power of recognising what our emotions are telling us.

NVC then moves to understand what needs are creating our feelings. Gestalt works hard to help someone describe very precisely what they want. Sounds easy but it is often surprising what we find out when we look closely at this question. Wars are started, relationships broken and extreme violence often occur around misunderstandings of wants, desires and needs. Immense healing is available with powerful use of this process.

The final move in NVC is in the request we make to enrich our lives. Built from non judgemental descriptions of observation, feeling and wants there is always a request that can be constructed that is nonviolent in nature and positively moves the world forward. In Gestalt seeking to complete what is incomplete is a possible parallel. Helping people finish the most troubling piece of unfinished business enables people to grow and move on to something new.

Thanks to Dorothy for drawing me in to explore NVC. I welcome thoughts from others on these powerful ways of being in the world.

As I read Len’s words I think of how Rosenberg trained as a psychiatrist and came to view the diagnoses and judgements he made in this role as “professional jackal” – if you like, judgements like any other, judgements that block compassionate communication between human beings.

I’m not sure what understanding (if any) he has of Gestalt. I know he studied with Carl Rogers. I know he was inspired by George Miller and George Albee to think about how he might “give psychology away”.

Nonviolent communication is designed to be easy to understand and to practice (even though practitioners find it has challenges and depths which are not immediately obvious).

Perhaps the last word belongs with Marion, for something she says during our meeting resonates for me: that coaches, whether clinically trained or not, need to be psychologically minded. Sometimes the coaching supervisor’s role with those who are not is to help them to develop this interest and capability.

Books for team building and dealing with “difficult” people

Developing as a leader,

At the time this posting is scheduled to be published, I am starting a week-long programme with Roger Schwarz, author of The Skilled Facilitator. I am a great fan of Schwarz’s work via my friend and colleague Aled Davis who was so inspired when he attended Schwarz’s programme in the US last year that he invited him to deliver the programme in London this year.

I think of this when I respond to a request on the Training Journal’s Daily Digest from someone who has just been asked by a client what books she’d recommend for “team building and handling difficult people”. I take a moment to respond and share my own “starter for ten” list below:

Books for team building and difficult people, huh? Well, a few favourites do spring to mind:

· No surprises here, Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life is top of my list. This helps with the reframing of “difficult people” to “people whose behaviour I am finding difficult”;
· Maybe also no surprise, I am slowly reading Roger Schwarz’s The Skilled Facilitator and find it full of insights which apply across a range of settings – as well as rather long!
· Goleman’s The New Leaders also springs to mind, with its description of different leadership styles and the situations in which they are useful. Boyatzis and McKee take this further in their book Resonant Leadership. And just to declare an interest, these are all former colleagues;
· The HBR book (written by about three million authors – also former colleagues) Senior Leadership Teams has solid insight based on research which also applies beyond the senior team;
· And just to put in a word for a recently published book by my friend and colleague-in-the-coaching-profession Rosie Miller, Are You A Badger Or A Doormat? How To Be A Leader Who Gets Results also explores different leadership approaches and may provide inspiration.

What do these books have in common? Those which focus on leadership assume that the leader has a significant impact on team effectiveness and explore which approaches are more likely to be effective. And underpinning most of them is a philosophy (or a finding) that approaches which can be crudely distilled as “win, win approaches” work better than “win, lose approaches”.

Warm regards

Dorothy

Social networking and the law of attraction

All articles,

It’s a busy week this week. As well as my coaching, I have an assessment report to write and all sorts of appointments. One of them seems to me to be pure luxury – for I’m just back from an extended lunch with Michael Crane.

I met Michael soon after I started my own business. Come to that, I met Michael soon after he started his, when I phoned to enquire about his company’s offering as stationery suppliers, early in 2003. I’ve watched Michael’s business grow in the time I’ve known him and I’ve appreciated the service I get from Michael’s team. Matthew, my regular contact, phones me every now and again to say hello and to ask if there’s anything I need. I don’t feel “sold to”. Rather, I feel looked after.

I’ve also watched Michael grow during this time. It’s one thing to buy a bit of stationery, sell it, and deliver it in your one and only van. It’s another thing to grow a business, to employ staff, to create approaches which can be replicated on a large scale… Many entrepreneurs fail to reach this stage. Michael comes to our lunch brimming with excitement and full of learning and of a desire – an eagerness – to learn.

Over a leisurely lunch we talk about the progress of our respective businesses, our plans for the future, the books we are enjoying right now (Michael has enjoyed Goleman’s The New Leaders. I mention my friend Rosie Miller’s book Are You A Badger or a Doormat? Seth Godin gets a look-in, too). And all this whilst our conversation circles round and then settles on a key topic – social networking and the law of attraction.

Michael has been studying the law of attraction via the DVD The Secret and is currently exploring what it means for his approach to building his business. Like me, he is actively starting to explore LinkedIn. We talk about our membership of various LinkedIn groups. Only recently, Michael put his Olympic Goal for his business on his LinkedIn profile – £10 million by 2012. He really is putting it out to the universe.

And I wonder, what is it that attracted Michael and I to go beyond the purely transactional? Surely, this is the law of attraction in action.

Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey

Coaching, Developing as a leader, ,

In April 2005 I wrote a brief introduction to the hero’s journey as described by Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero With A Thousand Faces and (with co-author Bill Moyers) The Power of Myth. Of all the articles I have written in my regular newsletter this is the article to which I return most often. Why? Because Campbell’s description of the hero’s journey captures something universal, something about the human experience. And, what’s more, because as a coach, I am often a witness to the first steps people take on their own hero’s journey.

Whether or not people choose to commission coaching or to take some other step, their first contact with me and our early discussions often represent a crossing of a threshold. This threshold will be unique to the individual concerned and often comprises bearing witness to a challenge they face which they have, up until now, chosen to down-play or even ignore. This is the time they say “I recognise this is a problem for which I would like to find a solution” or “I am allowing myself to share the dream which – until now – I have barely dared to voice to myself”.

In our lives we are likely to face many such thresholds, for with the crossing of a threshold a new journey opens up. Just as when we reach the top of one hill we see another before us, so also when we cross a threshold we have already made our first steps towards the next threshold. Of course, we need not cross the threshold that faces us and may choose to stay eternally in one place – be it a physical location or a single mindset or way of being. The consequences of our choices (either way) are captured in Harold Ramis’ witty and compassionate film Groundhog Day.

What are the steps in the hero’s journey? This is how I described them in 1995, drawing on the work of Joseph Campbell and of others such as Robert Dilts in the field of neurolinguistic programming (or NLP):

1. The Call to Adventure: this is the first sign of the hero’s journey and may come in many forms. The hero hears it – and may choose to accept or refuse this calling.

2. Crossing the Threshold: On accepting the calling the hero steps into new territories outside his or her past experience and ‘comfort zone’. In this new arena the hero is forced to grow and to seek assistance on the journey.

3. Finding a Guardian: “When the student is ready, the teacher appears”. Only when the hero has crossed the threshold will the guardian or mentor appear.

4. Facing a Challenge (or ‘demon’): often the demon is within. The hero has to face the challenge or demon in order to progress.

5. Transforming the Demon: By facing his or her demon the hero acquires a resource which is needed to complete the journey.

6. Finding the Way: Building on the work of Campbell, Robert Dilts highlights that Finding the Way to fulfil the calling is achieved by creating a new set of beliefs that incorporates the growth and discoveries brought about by the journey.

7. Returning Home: Finally, the hero completes the journey by Returning Home as a transformed or evolved person.

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?!

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.

Being “at choice”: placing your life in your own hands

Emotional Intelligence, , ,

Oona Collins*, when she was my coach, reminded me often that “you can’t change the others, you can only change yourself”. I continue to be grateful for this sage piece of advice and to practise building the muscle of focusing on what I can do and of letting go of those things over which I have no control.

I am reminded of this today when, working with one of my clients, we discover the seesaw of emotions she feels as her attention moves between those things she is doing to move things forward and those things that are outside her control. As our call draws to a close she commits to notice where she is placing her attention and where she could be placing it in order to increase her sense that her life is indeed, in her own hands.

My client is not the first person (nor will she be the last) to experience intense changes of mood which depend on knowing – or not knowing – just how much she can effect the course of her life. For many clients, increasing their understanding of the extent to which their life is determined by their own choices – known as being “at choice” and even “at cause” – is the key learning they take away from working with a coach.

Of course, the challenge of learning to accept those things we cannot change whilst focusing on those we can has exercised many people over the centuries. Even as my call is drawing to a close I am recognising how much has been written on the subject and I offer to write a posting on my blog which shares some of the resources which support the practice of being at choice. Here are a few of the many resources that spring to mind:

  • Surely the classic text in this area is Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl famously observed how, even in the concentration camps in which he was prisoner during the Second World War, some prisioners found it in themselves to give away their last pieces of bread to comfort others and pointed to the freedom we all have: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way;
  • Virginia Satir’s poem Self Esteem was written to support a young girl with whom she was spending time at the time of writing. This poem, available to read directly from a number of websites, highlights the extent to which we can choose who we are. It is also one of the texts included in Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen’s original Chicken Soup for the Soul;
  • I think also of Muriel James’ and Dorothy Jongeward’s book Born to Win and especially of their opening chapter with its vivid description of what it means to be a “winner” and a “loser”;
  • I think also of W. Timothy Gallwey’s book The Inner Game of Tennis which became an international bestseller – and a special favourite amongst businessmen and -women – when it was first published in 1974. Gallwey’s book is about the how of the inner mastery so many writers and deep thinkers point to;
  • Richard Wiseman’s The Luck Factor is also a firm favourite of mine. Wiseman, who offers the unusual combination of a Professorship in psychology and a career as a magician, offers many insights into the ways of thinking that people bring who think of themselves as “lucky”;
  • Last (for now) though by no means least is Michael Neill’s book Feel Happy Now! Like Gallwey’s Inner Game of Tennis, Feel Happy Now! is about the how of creating inner mastery.

I would add that my practical studies in both neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and nonviolent communication (NVC) have offered highly effective ways to manage one’s inner response in order to feel at ease – no matter what.

Oh! And one of the most powerful practices in my own repertoire is the practise of celebrating. This helps me to connect with the actions – whether my own actions or the actions of others – that support me in meeting my needs. I wrote about my own approach to celebration at http://dorothynesbit.blogspot.com/2009/06/gratitude-when-youre-needing-fuel-for.html

*Oona’s website is at http://www.potentialplus.co.uk/