A Deceptively Simple Diagram

One of the simplest models I use in my work is this diagram. It is a way of looking at the difference between junior and operational roles compared to senior and strategic roles in an organisation.

The basic idea is that at the very lowest level, people come in to work to do a job, and do it. As one gets more experienced and is promoted, one starts to have some responsibility for planning how the work is undertaken, and checking that it is in fact done.

And with further promotions, the proportion of time dedicated to planning and reviewing increases; until at the very top (say non-executive director) the role is entirely about planning and reviewing - and getting involved in operational activities would be mistaken.

What is interesting is inviting senior people to reflect on where they see their role - which nearly always results in their deciding that they are operating at a lower level than they should be. That is, they are doing too much, at the expense of planning and (in particular) reviewing. 

They tell me there are many reasons for this, which include:

• Doing is what they are good at, and indeed has led to their promotion; 
• Doing provides an immediate and visible sense of accomplishment;
• They have a strong habit about doing, and feel guilty when they stop to think.

However, they recognise that they are effectively demoting themselves; and also being overpaid for doing work that could and should be done by someone drawing a lower salary. Moreover, they are demoting, rather than growing, those below them in the structure.

Ideally, one encourages those below to work at a higher, rather than a lower, level; so that even those at entry-level are given some responsibility for planning and reviewing. Of course, under pressure, organisations tend to do the reverse: seek to increase productivity by micro-management.

Because the approach I advocate clearly means that less work gets done, if those at the bottom are 'doing' less. However, my contention is that it will probably be less unnecessary work.  For if proper planning and reviewing take place, people will learn as they go - errors and busy-work will decrease. Whereas micro-management may provoke an increase of activity but it is a mistake to equate that with productive activity. And there are other consequences: negative impacts in terms of motivation, well-being and retention of good people that will undermine long-term productivity.

Further, this model helps people to understand what it means to be 'more strategic' - a term that is often bandied about without much definition. Dedicating proper time to serious planning, and then also (and possibly more counter-culturally) to serious review is the start of a more strategic approach. Because serious review will include questions such as:

• Did we actually do what we planned to do (and if not, why not)?
• Did our activity actually deliver the results we desired (and if not, why not)?
• What are we learning?

and the answers to these questions inform our planning, which again will have some fairly simple questions that set and adjust strategic direction:

• Where are we now (honestly...)?
• Where do we want to be in the medium- to long-term?
• What do we need to do to get there?

But of course, such thinking is difficult and offers no short-term sense of accomplishment, so it is much easier just to get on and do something... 

Freshest thinking...

This morning I started my latest CPD: a 6-month programme on Psychology for Coaches, run by Marie Stopforth for the Curious Coaching Company.

One of the points Marie made in this introductory session was the importance of holding theories lightly, engaging with them with curiosity, and always as a means to an end - the client's increased self-awareness. As an example, she mentioned Self Determination Theory (SDT), and how an understanding of the three components of motivation that it suggests (perceived autonomy, perceived competence, and perceived relatedness) might inform the questions one explored with a client who declared he or she felt unmotivated; but also that one should not be so wedded to the theory that one believes one knows what is going on for the client.

And of course that makes sense; it might be a useful framework in that context, and holding it lightly is a good approach. 

But what also occurred to me, as we reflected in small groups, was that SDT might additionally offer an insight into the effectiveness of Kline's Thinking Environment - an approach I favour.

Famously, this involves a much less directed approach to questioning (so the questions would not be informed by SDT). However, I think the Thinking Environment process is designed to strengthen all three of these areas.

In terms of perceived autonomy, the Thinking Partner's (ie Coach's) belief that the Thinker can address their own issues without any input or directive questions from the Thinking Partner maximises the Thinker's autonomy. The same is true of perceived competence: the Thinking Partner champions the Thinker's ability to resolve their own issues, believing in it even when the Thinker may start to doubt it. And the experience of being listened to with the quality of attention that the Thinking Environment is famed for, along with the other components of Appreciation, and Encouragement, tends to result in the Thinker feeling valued, which speaks to the heart of the Relatedness aspect. 

And that's one of the reasons I am doing this programme; to help me to think afresh about what I do and why it works, as well as what might be the limitations of my approaches, and what else I might do.

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(Image from Wikipedia: Creative Commons Licence)

When cultures collide...

I was talking with a colleague the other day about coaching a young woman from another culture. In passing we touched on a question that has been haunting me ever since.  Does our coaching implicitly teach or assert that the assumptions of our culture are better than the assumptions of hers?

I am a great advocate of, and great believer in, individual agency coupled with individual responsibility.  Much of my coaching involves helping people to think through what their goals are, what options they have in pursuit of those goals and what actions they will therefore take (or what experiments they will run to establish what actually works in their context).

This coachee came from a culture that places a much higher emphasis  on deference to the wisdom of parents, teachers and older people more generally. The underlying assumption being that those with more life experience may have more wisdom than those with less; and further that tradition is the cumulative wisdom of the lived experience of those who have gone before.

Yet when as coaches we hear someone say they need to do what their parents, boss, or indeed tradition instructs them, our instinct is to ask: 'But what do you think?'

Is this a form of cultural imperialism? Are we not implying that the Western liberal understanding of personal responsibility, autonomy and agency is superior to their culture? And given our current Western liberal concerns about de-colonising our educational offerings, should we not be giving this more thought?

I find these difficult, but important, questions...  What do you think?

Coaching as a Confidence Trick

One of my more unhelpful stories about myself (read the excellent Shifting Stories  for more on this concept) is that I am really a bit of a fraud and my coaching is all smoke and mirrors. I don't really believe that, but if I want to depress myself, I can wallow around in it for a while, with some skill.

So I was surprised to hear myself say to another coach: 'Of course in a way, coaching is a confidence trick,' and more surprised to hear myself justify the assertion. 

I was struck by the explanation of the short con in David Mamet's House of Games: it's a confidence trick because the con artist gives his confidence to the mark, not the other way around.  (Though I still maintain that The Sting is the best con movie - I remember the first time I saw it when everyone in the cinema sat in silence for a minute or so at the end, catching up with what had just been played out...)

Anyway, the point I was making, albeit in a provocative and playful way, is that as coaches we often lend our confidence to our clients. In the Thinking Environment approach to coaching, for example, when we give our client that quality of attention that is at the heart of that approach, we are implicitly asking the Incisive Question 'If you knew that you had more great thinking available to you, what would you think?' By embodying our belief in the client's capability, we often help him or her to find it. Other coaching approaches also have the coach as an implicit cheer-leader for the client.

That, of course, raises a second-level issue for the coach. We can't lend people our confidence if we don't have any to lend; yet most coaches I know are rightly wary of being too confident. Big egos get in the way of building an effective learning alliance with the client - but the same is true of excessive self-doubt of course. 

As so often, we need to navigate a tension - on this occasion between arrogance and self-doubt. For me, this is about practicing humility (in the way C S Lewis described it: not thinking less of oneself, but rather thinking about oneself less often...) and simultaneously holding fast to my belief in the process: the value and efficacy of coaching. This enables me to talk with conviction about the probable success of the work that we are going to undertake together, whilst keeping my ego in its place. And that is a position from which I can lend the client a well-grounded confidence, along with that sense of hope that is one of the key aspirations I have for my clients.

What we can articulate...

I am continuing to listen to the excellent podcasts by Bishop Erik Varden that I have mentioned previously, on the Desert Fathers (and Mothers, in case you were wondering). And once more, it was a piece of his wisdom that was almost an aside that caught my attention the other day. 

He was talking about the importance of precision in language, and how words that the Fathers had used with a very particular meaning, such as compunction, have been watered down and sanitised, so that modern dictionary definitions are both anodyne and misleading if one wants to know what the Fathers were talking about. And this matters, he explained, because 'what we can articulate, we can learn to deal with. 

It seems to me that there is a lot of wisdom in that comment. And it is not new wisdom of course (the Fathers were in the early centuries of the Church); and it is evident in folk and popular culture: the idea of a nameless dread is particularly potent; as is the Thingy in the moat (in the Ahlberg's wonderful 'It was a dark and stormy night'); and this is precisely why Dumbledore encourages Harry to use Voldemort's name, rather than the euphemism (He who must not be named) that only increases his power.

It also helps me to articulate part of what I help my clients to do, that they find valuable. For example, in my Shifting Stories work, I get them to articulate and name the unhelpful stories that are holding them back. and also the more helpful stories that are available to them. This articulation and naming gives them more agency and helps them to choose the more helpful over the unhelpful in times of need.  

Likewise, the Thinking Environment work is precisely about giving people the time and attention to articulate their thinking in much more depth and breadth than they are normally allowed to do before they are interrupted (by someone else, life, or themselves...); and again, they find that very valuable.

It is not a panacea. Bishop Varden does not say, What we can articulate, we can deal with, but rather, we can learn to deal with. Which also explains something about the value of Gestalt approaches, which again focus on increasing the individual's awareness - including somatic and emotional awareness - of current reality as a necessary, and often sufficient, approach to change and growth. Heightened awareness enables us to articulate, whether through reason or metaphor, image or intuition, what really is; and then - I hope - we can learn to deal with it.

A Refreshing Approach to Conference Workshops

Every now and then, I get invited to do sessions at conferences (not keynotes - I am not a thought-leader, apparently - but breakout workshops). I always find this an entertaining process, from the initial request from the organisers to have my slide deck well in advance - and their bafflement when I tell them I won't be using slides - to the look of shock on participants'

faces when they turn up for my session to find that they will be sitting in a circle without a table to hide behind.

And then I get asked back; probably because the organisers get feedback like this: 

“Andrew Scott's session was a wonderful antidote to the information-heavy sessions through the rest of the conference. It slowed folks down and created space for deep, meaningful conversations. I'd suggest handing over some time in the programme for all delegates to have that 'Time to Think' together, deeply and meaningfully.”

So what do I do that is so different? The short answer is that I run my workshops as Thinking Environments (qv).

The longer answer follows, in case you are interested (if not, leave now: I won't be offended - my ego-needs are met in other ways - which might also be a clue about why people like my sessions...)

I always start with welcoming the participants, appreciating them for choosing to come to my workshop, and reminding them of the purpose of the session (which is always along the lines of 'to give you the time and opportunity to think with colleagues, about...')

We then do an opening round (at least one, sometimes more) so that everyone has the opportunity to be heard early in the session, and also to practice listening with complete attention, to everyone else in the room. I give the briefest of explanations about the why and the how of this, and we dive in. It always lands well, and signals that this is going to be different...

I then give them a brief overview, framework or perspective on whatever the session is about (the most recent one I did was on William Bridges' model of change and transition, which is excellent). My intention here is to give them something valuable that they will easily be able to recall, and also enough stimulation to have an engaged conversation with other participants about the topic.

Then I explain a little about how we will work throughout the session. This is a lightning introduction to the Thinking Environment and some of the key components: Attention, Equality, Ease and Appreciation. I try to get through all of that in less than 50% of the time available for my session; the rest is dedicated to their thinking together in small groups (using rounds and then open discussion, but always with exquisite attention and a complete ban on interrupting!). We conclude with a couple of rounds: one on their freshest thinking about the topic, and the final one on what they have appreciated about working together in this session.

And the feedback at that stage is often very similar to the comment quoted above. I was particularly amused recently when someone said how great it had been to have no input from the speaker, but rather the chance to think for themselves.  They certainly had that (and I was gratified that it was appreciated) but I had also given them a 15' mini-input on Bridges' model to seed that conversation. But what I was hearing, of course, was the impact of the session being run in such an unorthodox way. 

If you are interested in learning more about working with groups in ways that inspire great thinking together, I still have a couple of places left on my Thinking Environment Foundation Programme, here in the Lake District (19/20 June).  We've a really interesting group of people booked on so far, from a range of different organisational contexts - and we've room for just a couple more.  Full details are here. 

The Pursuit of Perfection

 

I was listening to a podcast on the Desert Fathers about the Pursuit of Perfection (as one does in Lent, of course) and one of the points made really struck me.

It was that 'perfect' is a tense of a verb, in language; and is contrasted with the imperfect tense. Both are past tenses, and what distinguishes them is the completeness (or otherwise) of the action.

Thus, I worked this morning is in the perfect tense; whereas I was working this morning is in the imperfect tense. The point being that I was working this morning seems typically to lead to when...  That is the work was interrupted and possibly not finished. 

So one very practical aspect of perfection is the completion of activity. This really resonated with me.  I have blogged before about Gestalt, and the idea of a cycle of attention; and how if the cycle is not brought to a satisfactory close, it results in 'unfinished business.' And that unfinished business is a drain on our energy.

I have also blogged before (many times in fact) about the importance of Attention as articulated by Nancy Kline in her Thinking Environment; and that the cardinal rule in that context is not to interrupt someone's thinking. By allowing (and indeed encouraging) someone to complete their wave of thinking, we are encouraging a perfected outcome for them (in this sense at least).

So there's an experiment to run: see how you can bring things to completion (even if that means acknowledging that you are never going to finish something, and ending the pretence that you will...) and see how that kind of perfection affects you.