Tag Archives: developing leadership intelligence

Real conversations – choosing beliefs that support your communication paradigm

Developing as a leader, , ,

Recently, I wrote an article about communication for Discuss HR.  In it, I identified a number of aspects of communication.  In this article, I identify some of the beliefs that underpin – and facilitate or impede – effective communication.

In his book, The Human Side of Enterprise, McGregor identifies two distinct theories held by leaders (“Theory X” and “Theory Y”) which in turn are manifest in two different styles of communication.  McGregor’s classic theory highlights how the communication styles of leaders rest on the different beliefs and assumptions that underpin the two different approaches to communication. By paying attention to our beliefs we can check out whether or not they support our chosen approach to communication.

One discipline which has done this very successfully is neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). Borrowing from Alfred Korzybski’s book Manhood of Humanity:  The Science and Art of Human Engineering, for example, practitioners of NLP are taught that “the map is not the territory”. Holding this belief reminds us to differentiate between the facts and our view of the facts and opens up many possibilities.  It is easier, for example, to maintain a sense of connection with someone whose views differ from our own when we are clear in our own minds that the map is not the territory.  This is true even when our partner in conversation appears to be confusing his or her own map with the territory itself.

NLP also offers the belief that “every behaviour has a positive intention”.  Holding this belief invites us to look behind some of the behaviours we find most difficult in others in order to identify and respond to the positive intentions that underpin them.  This belief is also shared with nonviolent communication (NVC) which suggests that every behaviour is designed to meet a need, even whilst recognising that some behaviours are poorly designed to meet that need.  When we combine this belief with a core value of compassion we are equipped both to be present to a behaviour (in ourself, in others) which we do not enjoy and to be curious – what is the need or intention that underpins this behaviour?  If we can see past an ineffective or unpleasant behavioural strategy to the need it is designed to meet, we open up opportunities to identify alternative and more effective strategies.

These are just two examples of beliefs designed to open up possibilities to meet our needs more effectively whilst also supporting others in finding ways to meet their own needs.  It is worth saying that our beliefs are, often, unexamined, sitting outside our conscious awareness.  For this reason it may not be enough to say “I want to adopt this style of communication” since we may not be aware of unconscious beliefs that inform our behaviour and undermine our chosen communication approach.  My mother, for example, still laughs when she recalls a neighbour who – many years ago – used to say to her son “speak proper, or I’ll pie ya!”  By my mother’s standards, the form that this message took was incongruent with its intention.  And of course, it’s fair to assume that any one of us will, at a particular point in time, hold unconscious beliefs that are incongruent with our chosen approach to communication.

I wonder, what beliefs do you hold that inform the way you communicate with others?  Please take time to notice them and – if you’re willing – share them here.

Taken together, the areas I have identified over a number of postings can be translated into ground rules which support communication in line with your chosen paradigm.  I’ll be sharing some examples of ground rules in my next posting.

Real conversations – choosing values that support your chosen communication paradigm

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, , ,
On Friday, building on my recent article for Discuss HR, I talked about the need to stand close to the fire in the conversations we hold with others.  It is the most difficult conversations, in my view, that test our way of communicating with others.  In this article, I explore some of the values that underpin an approach to communication in which power is shared – what Roger Schwarz, in his book The Skilled Facilitator Approach:  A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers and Coaches calls a mutual learning approach.

Especially when the communication going gets tough – when we address issues that are in some way difficult or sensitive for one or more of the parties involved – we need to root our communication in values that facilitate effective communication.  We may seek to do this as a matter of organisational policy, promoting values across the whole of our organisation.  We may simply choose values for our own communication, knowing that even where certain values are espoused (in organisations, in communities, in families and so on), we do not, ultimately, have control over the choices of others.

One of the most important values, in my view, that underpins the ability to hold real conversations, is compassion.  I view this as the willingness to hold oneself and others as human and to accept everything that this involves.  When I think of John, for example, whom I mentioned in the first blog posting of this series, I am guessing that my e-mail triggered strong emotions in him – what Goleman calls an amygdala hijack.  It was from this place that he responded.  This can be a bit like getting drunk at the office party.  You did it.  Everyone involved knows you did it.  You wish you hadn’t done it.  You all have the choice to ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen, though this is not without consequences over time.  At the same time, restoring trust requires being able to speak about what happened in ways which honour everyone’s needs.  These include needs which are deeply human, such as John’s need for dignity and my own need for empathy as the recipient of John’s e-mail.  Sharing these needs can stimulate feelings of vulnerability unless we have a shared value of compassion.

There is a paradox inherent in holding the value of compassion.  Strip away compassion and it’s hard to hold people – yourself and others – accountable.  For without compassion the message becomes “it’s not OK for you to be this way” or even “because you have been this way, you are not OK”.  Compassion facilitates a value of accountability by saying, I will be present to you and to whatever is alive in you, and I will accept you as you are – and still, I will hold you as capable of taking responsibility for your actions just as I, too, commit to take responsibility for mine.

I have recently experienced this in my own life, having made multiple requests of someone close to me to talk about some behaviours that I have not enjoyed over an extended period of time.  Each time, my request has been met with a “no” and, since I believe in free choice and would not wish to force her to the table, I have had to come to a decision in which I hold myself accountable for meeting my needs.  Am I meeting my needs by choosing to be around someone who behaves, consistently, in ways which do not meet my needs?  No.  Equally, in reaching the decision to spend less time with this person, and to share my reasons with her, I am holding her as capable of making her own decisions (choosing her behaviour towards me, choosing whether or not to discuss our difficulties with the aim of building understanding) and of living with the consequences of her own choices.  It has been important, too, to hold us both in my heart with compassion following this decision.

Roger Schwarz also offers a value of informed choice.  By the time I make a decision like the one I describe above, I expect to have had a number of interactions such that I know certain things for sure and could, with reasonable confidence, infer a number of others.  The value of informed choice invites us to gather and test information before taking decisions.  In your own life, for example, you may be gathering information from a number of conversations about your prospects for promotion – do you have political sponsorship, for example, or is it becoming clear that – no matter your capability and levels of high performance – you are unlikely to be chosen for the role to which you aspire?

The value of informed choice implies asking questions.  For this reason, Schwarz offers a value of curiosity.  Curiosity implies testing assumptions by asking questions and this, in turn, implies a level of self accountability.  To put it another way, curiosity implies testing the mental maps we hold in the world against the territory itself.  This is not only about the “facts” of a case (what the profits in x, y, z region actually are, for example) but also about our views of other people.  If ever you have held a view of another’s hidden motive, for example, without testing it out, you have not exercised the kind of curiosity to which Schwarz refers.

This in turn leads us to a value of transparency – sharing openly and honestly information that you have including information about your own thoughts and feelings.  Transparency is essential in collaborative relationships, since decision-making depends on information and information is shared when we are open, honest and transparent.

Our values are highly significant in our communication with others.  At the same time, it is not only our values that supply the hidden fuel for our personal approach to communication.  Our ability to hold real conversations also depends on holding beliefs that support us.  This is my next area of exploration.

Real conversations – standing close to the fire

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

In this posting, I talk about those conversations we have in which we stand close to the fire.  These are the conversations in which we address the most challenging issues that face us.  As I write I am building on my recent article for Discuss HR.


It’s one thing for Sarah to suggest to her CEO that some extra resource might move forward the IT project more rapidly.  It’s another thing for her to share with the CEO that his decision to use his friend as a consultant to the project has proven to be a disaster and has put progress back by three months.  At the same time, sharing this information might be precisely what’s needed to get the project back on track.


Real conversations require a willingness to share and discuss information which may be sensitive for one or more of the participants in the conversation.  It implies being ready to discuss the undiscussable issues that are holding the organisation back.  At the same time, it implies having safeguards in place which make such discussions possible.


The example of Sarah and her boss is just one of many, for we all face the prospect at times of holding conversations which are sensitive for one or more parties.  I am guessing that, as you read, you are readily able to identify times when you are faced with the need to hold a conversation which is uncomfortable for you or which, you anticipate, will be uncomfortable for the other party.  Perhaps you are the manager of someone whose performance is not hitting the mark.  Perhaps you are concerned about the approach your boss is taking to a central problem at work.  Perhaps you face the prospect of making your case to the Board, knowing that the views of Board members are diverse and they have a poor history of collaborating effectively with each other.


Of course, those conversations that require you to stand close to the fire are not confined to the workplace.  Perhaps you want to discuss with your spouse what boundaries you both set in your relationship with your parents-in-law and you know how likely it is that this will stimulate high emotions for you both.  Perhaps you want to discuss boundaries of another kind – the physical boundaries between you and your neighbour – and you know that, whatever the outcome, you will both still be neighbours and will have to live with the consequences of your conversation.  Perhaps you want to talk to your teenage son about the way he is treating his mother whilst still maintaining positive relationships all round.


Standing close to the fire involves addressing issues which are difficult or sensitive, knowing that you cannot predict or control the response of others.  In addition, you bring your own sensitivities of which you may or may not be aware.  To hold the conversation carries, inevitably, an element of risk:  you risk the response of another, you risk the relationship, you may risk your job… in some way, you take the risk that the outcome of the conversation may be worse than the outcome of not holding the conversation.  At the same time, you know that the outcome of choosing not to hold the conversation is, in itself, not a good outcome.


If you want to hold real conversations about real issues – if you want to stand close to the fire – your chosen approach to communication needs to be underpinned by values and beliefs which facilitate this kind of sharing.  This is the subject of my next posting.

Real conversations – choosing a communication paradigm that supports your aims

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, , ,

In this posting, I write about the most fundamental area of consideration when it comes to communication – that’s your communication as well as communication in your organisation:  the paradigm that underpins your approach.  This posting expands on my posting on 3rd March, 2011 for Discuss HR.


Whilst it may seem simplistic to look at just two styles of communication – two paradigms of communication – a number of deep thinkers in the field of leadership and communication do just this.  Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, for example, outlined in his classic book The Human Side Of Enterprise, relate essentially to two different paradigms of communication. One of them (Theory X) is based on the idea that management control is required because employees need to be “coerced, controlled, directed and threatened with punishment to get them to put forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organisational objectives”. This communication paradigm is based on the idea that some people know better than others and have, as a result, the right to dominate and control. (In practice, this belief often translates as “because an individual is in a more senior role than his team he should know better than others”, a belief that is as likely to be held by his team members as it is by the leader him- or herself).  As an alternative, McGregor offers Theory Y, which is based on the assumption that employees are worthy of trust and respect because they are intrinsically motivated to do a good job.


Roger Schwarz, in his book The Skilled Facilitator:  A Comprehensive Resource for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Trainers and Coaches, refers to what he calls our Theory in Use and identifies two theories which broadly align to McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y.  He takes the work of Argyris and Schön, 1974 and Action Design, 1997, to outline his Unilateral Control Model.  This is what Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication:  A Language of Life refers to as a domination approach – McGregor’s Theory X.  Schwarz maps very simply the core values and assumptions held by the user of the Unilateral Control Model, the strategies which derive from those beliefs and their consequences.  The aim of this Theory in Use is to win and not to lose, for example, and assumptions include the belief that “I understand the situation;  those who see it differently do not” and “I am right;  those who disagree are wrong”.  It’s easy to see how such beliefs limit communication, discouraging an open dialogue about different points of view, and lead in time to misunderstanding and conflict, defensiveness and mistrust – before, in turn, leading to limited learning and reduced effectiveness.  Schwarz also outlines a Theory in Use which he calls the Mutual Learning Model.  This is characterised by assumptions which value the contribution of all parties, recognising that “I have some information;  others have some information” and “each of us may see things that others do not”.  The strategies that derive from these assumptions tend to lead to increased trust and understanding, on the one hand, and reduced conflict and defensiveness, on the other.


Schwarz’s model illustrates one aspect of McGregor’s research that is often overlooked:  that both theories appear to be “right” in the sense that they constitute self-fulfilling prophecies. If you want motivated staff, choose and cultivate an approach to communication which is rooted in acceptance and aspires to mutual learning (Theory Y). If you want mistrust and mediocre performance to proliferate, choose a domination-based approach (Theory X).  This finding is echoed more recently in Daniel Goleman and colleagues’ The New Leaders:  Transforming The Art Of Leadership Into The Science Of Results.  In it, the authors identify six different styles of leadership and highlight that each style has its place:  the most effective leaders are able to select different styles to meet the needs of different situations as they arise.  At the same time, they caution against the over-use of certain styles, highlighting how this can create dissonance in the workplace.  In short, a leader’s choice of leadership – or communication – style significantly affects the climate across his or her team or organisation and this in turn has a measurable impact on business results.


In practice, few people use one paradigm or the other exclusively.  Some people, for example, view some members of their team in one way and other members in another, so that they are likely to use the Unilateral Control Model with those staff they least trust and a Mutual Learning Model with a few select members of their team.  Other people aspire to use one model – often the Mutual Learning Model – and find that, at times, they slip back into the other model, perhaps because it’s the one they grew up with.  I wonder:  what is your experience?  And are you willing to share it here?


Both approaches differ in where they place attention. If you’re serious about choosing motivation and engagement, you need to choose MacGregor’s Theory Y approach to communication and, in turn, to choose to focus your communication in a way that supports it.  I shall be writing about what this means in practice over the next few days.

Real conversations – what are your aims for communication in your organisation?

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

In this posting, I write about one area to which we need to attend if we are to learn to have real conversations in the organisations we lead.  This posting builds on my posting of 3rd March, 2011 on Discuss HR.

So much has been done to study the effects of different styles of communication that it’s possible to choose your approach to communication based on a clear understanding of your aims. Choose one style of communication, for example, and you increase levels of mistrust which, in turn, makes it hard to get to the root of and to resolve problems. The more this style of communication is endemic across an organisation the more it leads to mediocre performance, poor morale and low levels of engagement, increased sickness and high staff turnover – and that’s before we even start to think of the impact on our customers.

Choose another style of communication and you build trust even whilst making it easier to have some of the most challenging conversations which face us (and, let’s face it, as a leader in your organisation or an HR practitioner you are charged with your fair share). This second style of communication gets to the root of problems so that they are addressed fully and effectively. It also facilitates the conversations that generate the most creative and effective solutions.

Once you have a clear understanding of the outcomes you would like from your chosen approach, you can choose a communication paradigm that supports you in making progress towards your aims. This is relatively easy given the amount of research available in this area.

In my next posting, I’ll be writing about the different paradigms that underpin different styles of communication, and which lead to some of the outcomes I’ve described above.  Meantime, in case you are interested to explore your aims and aspirations for your communication and for communication across your organisation, I encourage you to take time in a place in which you will be undisturbed to explore the questions below:

  • Take time to connect with your aspirations for your business or organisation in the next 12 months, 24 months and 5 years.  Notice the outcomes to which you aspire in 5 years’ time.  Notice the milestones your organisation needs to achieve along the way in order to move smoothly towards your five-year plan;
  • Notice the challenges that you and others will have to overcome in order successfully to achieve your plans for the next 12 months, 24 months and five years.  Take time to imagine what it will take successfully to meet those challenges;
  • Notice the role that communication will play in overcoming challenges, in meeting milestones and in moving smoothly towards your five-year plan.  Who will need to communicate with whom?  What will be the most critical conversations along the way?  What will be the most challenging conversations along the way?  As you consider these questions, take time to notice the full range of relationships and conversations that will contribute to your organisation’s progress during the coming five years;
  • What are the critical outcomes as you see them from communication within your organisation and between your organisation and its key stakeholders?  I invite you to think not only about the business outcomes themselves but also about those areas of outcome that contribute to business outcomes over time.  What areas do you see as important?  What outcomes do you want in those areas?

You might like to take a moment to notice how confident you feel when you think about your organisation’s ability to deliver the quality and effectiveness of communication needed to achieve your aims and aspirations.  What is this telling you about your experience of communication right now within your organisation?  If your heart is sinking right now, I hope you’ll return to read the remaining postings in this series.

Either way, I’d love to hear about your aspirations for communication across your organisation.  If you’d like to share any of your thinking here, please leave a comment below.

Integrity – a different form of leadership

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, , , ,
What counts is for a man to dare to be entirely himself,
standing alone, one single individual alone before God,
alone with that enormous effort and responsibility. 
Søren Kierkegaard
Working with client organisations to create a model of the competencies they wish their staff to demonstrate – that is, the competencies that differentiate high performance – I have noticed over the years how quick commissioning clients are to ask for the inclusion of Integrity.  This competency is concerned with acting in a way which is consistent with what one says is important – some call it congruity.
In practice, though, I find that organisations want this from their employees – up to a point.  Leaders want their employees to speak openly and honestly, for example, as long as the message is one they want to hear.  They welcome employees who act in line with their own values, as long as their values are congruent with the values of the organisation.  Perhaps, even, they want their employees to be open and honest with customers or clients, as long as they still get the deal.
I have been reminded of this in recent days as I reflect on Uwe Timm’s book In My Brother’s Shadow.  Born in Hamburg in 1940, Timm was 16 years younger than his brother and had few memories of the young man who lost his legs, and then his life, as a member of the German Army.  Timm’s book is both an intensely personal memoir of family life during and after the war and an exploration of the difficult questions that surround the Germans’ involvement in World War II.  How is it, for example, that the Germans asked so few questions about their Jewish neighbours as they gradually disappeared from view?  Of his own brother, he wonders how he could speak of the British bombing of Hamburg as inhumane whilst never making the same judgements of the killing of civilians by soldiers in the German army.
Surveying the literature Timm highlights the case (from Wolfram Wette’s book The Wehrmacht) of a German officer who walked down the street in his home town in uniform together with a Jewish friend, at a time when Jews were branded by the Star of David.  The man, who, in this way, demonstrated the highest level of integrity, was dishonourably discharged from the army.  He also highlights, drawing on Christopher Browning’s book Ordinary Men, how few soldiers took the opportunity that was freely given to them to ask to be withdrawn from duties which included killing their Jewish compatriots.
I want to add that I share Timm’s reflections with the clear understanding that we all face challenges when we seek to act with integrity – to make choices in line with our values in the face of increasing levels of personal risk.  In this sense, leadership has nothing to do with the official role in which we find ourselves.  Rather, it has everything to do with our willingness to make considered choices – and to own those choices – in line with our most heartfelt values, knowing that we cannot control the responses of others to the choices we make.  I believe that this remains a challenge for us all.  And I am grateful that I have not yet had to face the level of challenge faced by Germans during World War II and by many around the world today.
Returning to Timm, I note his awareness of the values that fuelled the choices of his parents’ generation including a strong sense of community and of obedience to community values.  It was in adherence to these values that many men, brought to trial after World War II, said:  “I was only obeying orders”.
No wonder, then, that Timm chooses to quote Kierkegaard, as part of his explorations.
PS  Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

Creating the climate for success

Clients and testimonials, Developing as a leader, , , ,
Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, in their book The New Leaders, identify the range of leadership styles that leaders draw on and highlight those styles that create a climate for success.  This is what they call “resonant leadership” and they contrast this with the use of styles which, if overused, create “dissonant leadership”.  The key here is “if overused” – all the styles identified in the research have a role to play when used effectively.
Developing a repertoire of leadership styles and the capability to use them effectively is not easy.  Many of us lack strong role models to emulate so that we just don’t know what “highly effective” looks like when it comes to leadership.  Perhaps we will copy leaders (from our parents, teachers and other childhood figures to our managers at work) without even recognising the implications of their chosen approach.  By copying poor role-models in this way we repeat the behaviours that were not effective first time round.  Perhaps we will try hard to do anything but what they did.  This carries a particular challenge:  whilst we may know what we don’t want to do, how do we know what to do instead?
At the same time, making effective adjustments to our approach can yield benefits all round, as the testimonial below highlights.  I’m grateful to Fabienne Luisetti, with whom I worked in coaching partnership during 2010, for sharing her experiences.  If you’d like to know more about how I work with clients please follow this link for details of how to contact me to arrange a complimentary consultation.
Meantime, this is what Fabienne had to say about her experience of working with a coach:

There came a point where my reputation of being a fair but tough leader became an obstacle to both my career and my well-being. Whilst projects were completed and goals achieved, people were bruised along the way and, at times, I would be living with negative feelings in the evening from my interactions with others during the day.  Having gone through all the leadership programmes available in our company, I decided I needed a more focused one-to-one coaching programme and this is when I started working with Dorothy.

Right from the start Dorothy was very professional in her approach and created the right environment of trust for me to express my feelings, thoughts and reactions.  She challenged a few pain points and also helped me to distil feedback from others and my own work into key areas to focus on.  Her willingness to share theory and to describe others’ experiences helped me to place my situation in perspective. I am delighted to provide this testimonial.

How has coaching worked for me?  A 1:1 coaching program with set milestones was particularly motivational.  At every meeting, I wanted to show progress.  Therefore, in between two coaching sessions, I tried a few new strategies to be able to report upon.  When I realised they were working well for me and the people around me, I was motivated to try further.  This is the way I achieved my three personal coaching objectives;  I am now engaging people and teams in a more collaborative manner;  I can feel people contribute to my projects in a more spontaneous way not because they have to but because they want to.  And I feel good about progressing projects, keeping within deadlines in a much softer way.

Fabienne Luisetti

How to make the tougher decisions you face

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

What do you do when you face a decision that is finely balanced and with no easy answer?  This is the question my coaching client brought to our session recently.  She had been weighing the pros and cons of two very clear options and had yet to come to a decision.

Checking in with her gut instincts she already had an answer.  I invited her to rehearse the reasons for her choice as a way of grounding her decision.  She did and they seemed clear and compelling.  It was interesting, then, to hear a “six out of ten” when I asked her:  given all the reasons you outlined, what mark out of ten would you give to reflect your level of conviction that this is the right decision?  It was clear that something more was needed.

I invited her to try each option on for size.  She tried on the first option, noticing all the likely outcomes from this decision in the near-, medium- and longer-term, together with the implications for her – the work involved in following through with her decision.  This gave her new insights into the benefits and limitations of this option.  Then she tried on her second option, going through the same process.

One issue came up when she thought through her second option:  the amount of time she thought it would take in the short term to follow through with this option.  We discussed the resources she could call on so that the weight of this short-term follow-through could be spread out a little, leaving her free to focus on another – key – area of her job.  Once she had identified these new possibilities, this second option looked much more attractive in the longer term.

As a result of this process her decision – which was not the decision to which her gut instinct had initially led her – was one she could sign up to with a full conviction.  What’s more, she was clear that her next steps needed to include making a plan and gaining support in order to access the resources she needed for her short-term follow-through.

My satisfaction came from knowing that my client not only had a decision she could approach with conviction in what was, without question, a difficult situation:  she also had a process she could return to when making decisions in the future.

I wonder, what’s your process for making the tougher decisions you face?

Unleashing innate leadership potential through powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships

Coaching, Developing as a leader, , ,

As Christmas approaches, I am looking forward to taking a break.  My conversations with clients about diaries have almost gone past the stage in which the question “shall we meet before or after Christmas?” is asked.

There are many things I shall look back on in 2010 – and many things I am looking forward to in 2011.  This includes looking back on the work I have done this year to clarify my offering to clients.  My aim has been to make it increasingly easy for those people and organisations to find me to whom I am best suited to contribute.

Most recently I have been preparing an update of my profile on LinkedIn.  This is what I have included – so far:

Dorothy Nesbit

Leadership Coach, unleashing innate leadership potential through powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships.

Summary

Are you a successful senior leader who’s striving to fulfil your potential? Do you want dramatically to increase your contribution to your organisation?

It’s lonely at the top. Everyone looks to you for the answers and your actions are under scrutiny from every direction. At times, wracked with self doubt, you are your own worst critic. Wearing the “mask” of leadership, trying to keep up with your own view of what it takes to be a great leader – it’s hard work and exhausting.

A passionate leadership coach, I love to team up with talented and successful executives to liberate their innate potential and achieve more with less effort. My clients build powerful and authentic relationships with themselves and with others as a springboard for increasing their contribution to their organisation.

If you recognise the need to adjust your approach and you need help with the “how”, I’m your coach.

My signature coaching approach will leave you:

• With clarity and confidence about the role you want to play;
• Equipped to play your role with growing ease, authenticity and self-mastery;
• Inspired and motivated to deliver improved business outcomes.

My approach is uniquely effective because I grow and develop powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships, unleashing and cultivating innate leadership potential.

I wonder, as you read this description, what do you learn about the people with whom I most enjoy working in coaching partnership?





Giving feedback: what do you do when someone just isn’t getting it?

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

What can you do when you’ve given someone feedback and they’re just not getting it?  This is a common dilemma at work and opens up two possibilities.  The first is to adjust your approach to giving feedback until you’ve been successful in giving your feedback in a way which can be heard and understood.  The second is to take your frustration elsewhere – to share it with your filing cabinet, colleagues, spouse or pubmates, for example.  Often, the first option is the most difficult.  At the same time, when we give feedback we do so for a reason – there’s something we want to change as a result.

Recently a colleague from the world of nonviolent communication (or NVC) highlighted a brief video on YouTube of coaching by Miki Kashtan* in how to say “no” when someone wants your time at work.  Miki’s coaching helps the person wanting to give feedback whilst also helping to preserve the dignity of the person receiving the feedback.  When we get it right, it’s not just that our feedback is heard and understood:  both parties have new insights which they can apply across their lives, they understand each other better and their sense of trust and connection is preserved and maybe deepened, too.

For me, Miki’s coaching illustrates some common ways we use language and their limitations.  One of these is to speak generally when we give feedback rather than to highlight specific examples.  This can have the effect of making it hard for the recipient to hear and understand our feedback whilst at the same time carrying the risk of making a statement about the person rather than about specific behaviours which didn’t work for the giver of feedback on particular occasions.  The person receiving feedback can be left with an uneasy feeling as they absorb the message that they’ve “done something wrong” and maybe even the message that there’s “something wrong with them” without being able to understand the message and its implications.

A second way in which we commonly use language when we give feedback is to mix together the other person’s behaviour and our response to that behaviour.  “You talk too much” would be one example:  you only need to scratch the surface of this statement a little to realise that we don’t know how much a person talks when they “talk too much” though we can infer that the person giving the feedback is not enjoying it.  So common is this language pattern that most of us would not even notice it.

Perhaps Miki’s brief video (just ten minutes long) illustrates something else, too.  Beneath the label “nonviolent communication” – a label that can seem off-putting to some – lie both sound thinking and practical alternatives to aspects of communicating in our culture which limit the results we can achieve.

*Miki is co-founder and senior trainer at BayNVC in Oakland, CA, USA, host of the Conflict Hotline on KPFA radio, and for several years coordinator of the global CNVC project on applying NVC to social change.