About my Hostility...

At the end of a call earlier today, someone told me 'Of course, I really like people.'  I heard myself confessing (in confidence) that I don't.

Which is not wholly true. But there is some truth in it. 

I have blogged a few times about the Hogan psychometrics,  (here, for example) and my own profile (here, for another example...). But something that I haven't mentioned is that one of the subscales for Interpersonal Sensitivity is no hostility.  And I scored in the mid-range for that - about as much hostility as the next person...  And another of the subscales for that category is 'likes people' and I scored in the lowest quartile for that:  so I like people less than 75% of the (sampled) population.

Fortunately my overall score for Interpersonal Sensitivity ('Concerns warmth, charm, and the ability to maintain relationships') was somewhat rescued by my extraordinarily good performance in the other subscales, but even so it is my second lowest score, and only just out of that bottom quartile. Not perhaps the ideal profile for a coach, but I seem to manage to mask it, at least professionally.  If I had any friends, they might tell a different story, of course...

More seriously, it is fair to say that a low score on Interpersonal Sensitivity has some benefits as well as the obvious risks. These include being able to give negative feedback, being able to say clearly what they think, making unpopular decisions when necessary, not easily swayed by others' emotions, and being unconcerned with people-pleasing. 

Personally, however, it does raise interesting questions. Is it true that I carry a level of hostility, and that I don't like people? So, digging a little deeper, what do these subscales mean? No hostility is about tolerance; a low score may indicate someone who is critical of others, and a high score, someone who is generally accepting, and a sample item in the questionnaire about this is: 'I would rather not criticise people, even when they need it.' I can certainly recognise myself in saying no to that item.  

Likewise, Likes people is about being companionable; a low score may indicate someone who is socially withdrawn, and a high score, someone who enjoys others' company, so a sample item is 'I enjoy just being with other people,' and, not least given my tendency to introversion, I can also see myself saying no to that one - or at least, 'it depends.'

I'm also reflecting on David Rock's Your Brain at Work, in which he speculates that one of the reasons that Relatedness features in his SCARF model is that, for evolutionary reasons, we are primed to be suspicious of the stranger, whilst also needing the security of the group. That, combined with my own experience of being extensively bullied at school, might explain why my initial response to new people (particularly in informal and social settings) is a certain wariness. That is very much reduced in professional contexts where behaviours are more likely to be predictable and roles and expectations clearer. 

And, of course, I am reminded of Sir Walter Raleigh's famous verse:

I wish I loved the Human Race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks;
And when I’m introduced to one,
I wish I thought “What Jolly Fun!"

But blogging, of course, is really about sales, (so I understand) so I will conclude that if you are looking for a coach - or a facilitator, come to that - who will greet you with about average hostility, and who doesn't really like people very much, do get in touch.  I will be delighted to hear from you (but may not show it...)

Time to Reflect

There is something about the end of the year that prompts reflection. In part it is that natural cyclic thing: the pause before plunging into the new year of activity.  That is helped by the shorter days, leaving longer hours in the evening when outdoor activities are less practical, and sitting by the stove is more appealing. And as we approach Christmas, my work has eased off, again allowing more time to sit and think. 

So, perhaps for these reasons, I have found myself re-reading a few of my old blog posts, and (to be quite honest) enjoying them. In particular, though, I have been struck by how much I have known that has receded in my mind.  It is not precisely that I have forgotten it, but more that it is not in my working memory: not knowledge that I am accessing regularly - and therefore (I think) less likely to inform my intuition as I go about my work. So it is not a waste of time to re-visit it.

I also have a more formal discipline, at this time of the year, to re-read my notes from my supervision.  I meet my coaching supervisor, the excellent Ruth Leggett, every couple of months for half a day at a time; and these are all occasions of rich learning. It is valuable to look back on the notes, periodically for two principal reasons. One is to recognise that I have indeed learned and have implemented some improvements to my professional practice, that have added real value. The other, of course, is to recognise what I have forgotten from those sessions, and bring that back into awareness, and deciding what , if anything, to do with it.

So I am in a reflective mood at the moment; before taking a complete break from work and immersing myself in Christmas celebrations with my family, after which I will, I hope, be ready to engage with the new challenges and opportunities of the new year.

And this rhythm is important, it seems to me, both in terms of my famous sandwiches, and because it seems to work with, rather than against, the grain of human well-being. 

So I hope that you, too, find time to reflect at the end of the year; and to take a complete break that is both restful and restorative. 

Reflect or don't look back?...

Yesterday evening I was singing Vespers with the Schola Cantorum (Gregorian Chant choir) that I lead. Vespers, for those few of my readers who may not have been recently, consists largely of five psalms, a hymn and the Magnificat. The psalms are deceptively difficult: chanted largely on one note, each half line has a lightly decorated ending - each with the same pattern, but with the precise notes varying according to the number of syllables in the final words of the phrase, thus:

The bottom line is that you really need to pay attention (particularly if slightly under-rehearsed as we were last night) or you come a cropper.

And if you do trip over your words and notes, the very worst thing you can do is allow that to occupy your attention, or you will surely trip over the next line ending, too.  (Guess who did this last night...)  So don't look back is the order of the day: stay absolutely focused on the present moment.

I think that applies to all music-making; certainly at the level I practice it. Which, in part, is why it is of such tremendous value, akin to meditation in that way.

Yet, in so much of my work I am an advocate of reflective practice. Obviously, as in my famous sandwich analogy, there is value in reflection after the event, to learn for next time; and that applies as much to music as to anything else. 

But I also strive to practice - and to teach - reflection-in-action. Thus in facilitation, for example, I think it is valuable to work rapidly through a set of considerations before doing or saying anything as a facilitator. 

My current working set is: 

That first question is clearly a moment of reflection; and I think an important one.  If I do not take stock of the fact that something has changed in the group dynamic, my next intervention is likely to be (at best) sub-optimal.

And yet, as Nancy Kline would insist, I think that offering my generative attention to the group is also essential at every moment; keeping my focus on the here and now, just as when singing or playing an instrument. 

Nancy talks of giving 100% of our attention to listening, and 100% to managing the process, and 100% to our response, all of the time. She calls that a paradox, and I think it an impossible ideal.

So how do I make sense of all that?  I am still wrestling with it. (As my more perceptive readers will have realised, my blog posts are often my way of musing on topics that stimulate my curiosity). But perhaps there is something valuable in the idea of waves and pauses that may help here. 

During a wave (singing a psalm, listening to a thought being developed) the focus must be on the here and now, with no looking back (or forward). But there are pauses: between psalms, at the end of someone's utterance; and it is at those moments that one can do a lightning reflection, in order to surf the next wave with complete attention.

And, it occurs to me as I write, that this is where intuition has a role, when understood as the practical wisdom that springs from cumulative experience that has been reflected on and polished so that it is near-habitual. It offers us a very rapid hypothesis in answer to (at least) the fourth question, meaning that we can move through the considerations to a practical outcome very quickly and reasonably reliably.

At least, that's what i think right now - but I feel the need to go away and reflect on it...

I remember, I remember... (or maybe I don't)

 When I was in my early 20s I did one of those lifeline exercises: where you draw a line from birth to now, with ups and downs representing the highs and lows of life to date.  It was part of a course I was on, and I think we spent 20 minutes or so on it, and then looked for patterns or something (I don't really remember, to be honest).

But what I do remember very clearly is picking my lifeline up a few weeks later, and realising that I had not included the biggest down of my life so far: the death of my father when I was 17. Reflecting on that, I realised that threw light on how I had handled that great loss: I had not thought about it very much - I had banished it from memory. I suspect I had learned a child not to dwell on unpleasant emotions. That felt like a valuable insight, but I had not thought much about it in the intervening years: I had, to all intents and purposes, forgotten it.

But it came back to me recently, as I have been working on another development programme that asked me to reflect on times when I had been emotionally upset recently. I struggled to remember any: I see myself as being on a pretty even keel most of the time. But I asked Jane, my wise and perceptive wife, if she could remember any such times recently,  She said: 'Yes, this morning!' And as she explained what she was thinking about, I knew that she was right. 

I then realised both that I had failed to register that I was really cross about something (that had happened a while back, but which I was recounting to a friend that morning), and failed to remember that I had been at all animated about it, in telling my friend. Though on reflection (prompted by Jane) I realised that his response (which I had thought a little over the top) was pretty clear feedback that I was telling the story with strong emotional charge.

All of which reminded me of that earlier insight: that one way I deal with disruptive emotions, at least sometimes, is not to register or remember them. Not only that, but my memory more generally is pretty poor: when we start to watch an old film, Jane will remember instantly if we have ever seen it before, however long ago - whereas I can watch it through and still be surprised at the twist in the end...

That has some significant benefits, of course. It means that I am not prone to carrying emotional distress forward (or at least, not consciously) and that I rarely harbour grudges.  It also makes observing confidentiality very easy. But on the other hand, there are some distinct risks, including the risk of not learning from experience, and the risk of not connecting authentically with others.

I already have some strategies to address this, of course. I try to write up my notes of coaching sessions, events I have facilitated, etc very promptly; and I keep a reflective learning diary on a regular basis. But even here, I rarely comment on the emotional charge of events.  So that is my current work in hand, in terms of increasing my self awareness.

And I thought I had better write the intention down here, lest I forget it.

--

With thanks to Ivana Cajina and Marcos Paulo Prado for sharing their photos on Unsplash

Finding Freedom through Discipline...

There is something of a paradox about freedom and discipline, that I am reflecting on as the year comes to a close. It seems to me, that the more I stick to certain disciplines that I have chosen (around exercise, meditation, structuring my work and others), the more freedom I experience.

This morning's view...

Thus the discipline of getting out on my bike first thing every morning and cycling up the fells, come rain or shine, frees me in unexpected ways. At one level it is the obvious thing: being fitter makes me less prone to bugs, and being physically tired means I sleep well at night, free of insomnia. But it also frees me from rumination: I process a lot of thinking as I cycle.

Likewise, the discipline of meditation frees me from worry and stress in significant ways; and the discipline of structuring my coaching sessions (and various other 'sandwiches' about which I have blogged previously) frees me to be emergent in a lot of my work, whilst knowing that I am doing a good job. 

In the same way, the freedom to follow my inclinations (to laziness, to one more glass of wine, to... well I don't want to get too confessional here) clearly limits my freedom to do what I truly want to do. This of course links to my previous musings about artificial authenticity; and to the research about delayed gratification which I refer to in this post about what I really want to do.

So I offer these as some reflections, as we approach that time of year when we start to think about New Year's Resolutions (and if you want some help formulating those so that they work, I blogged about this at the start of the year, here).

This will (almost certainly) be my last post of the year, so I wish all my clients, colleagues, friends, and any other readers every blessing for a restful and restorative Christmas break, and a rich and stimulating New Year.

--

With thanks to Mona Miller for sharing her photographs on Unsplash

Blighter's Rock

 I thought this morning that I would not have time to write a blog post today.  But things change.

And now I can't think what to blog about.  That feeling, of course, instantly brings to mind the wonderful scene in Shakespeare in Love, when Will is consulting his soothsayer about his writer's block. And that brings to mind the superstition of writers in even naming the phenomenon. Russell Hoban used the phrase Blighter's Rock (but then he would, wouldn't he).

The difference (one of the differences, to be more accurate) is that I am not a writer in the sense that either Shakespeare or Hoban was. And whilst I don't subscribe to Johnson's view that No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money, I do recognise the difference between serious professional writers and casual bloggers. And when considering Shakespeare or Hoban, that quality of genius also springs to mind as a differentiator.

All of which raises the question, why do I write blog posts? The question is simple enough, but the answer is quite complex. I think there are several contributory factors.  

One is that I do see myself, in part, as a writer. As well as the book I have published, I have written some radio plays (all wisely rejected by the BBC, though I was a near finalist in their playwriting competition many years ago), and I write a lot professionally: handout material, video scripts, reports for clients on consultancy projects and so forth.

Another is, I suppose, marketing; in that broadest sense of keeping in touch with some of my client base in a way that I hope is engaging, and reminds them of who I am; and for potential clients giving them some flavour of that.

A third is the adulation. At least a couple of people, over the last few decades, have said that they enjoy reading my blogs, and I as am susceptible to such praise as most people.

A fourth is that it is one of my disciplines; that is to say, one of those practices to which I have made a commitment, as part of my regular routine. (I can't quite remember why, but probably for all of the reasons I am rehearsing now). So it has become totemic, for me, of honouring a promise I have made to myself.

A fifth is that my writing often entertains me (sad, perhaps, but true) and sometimes others.

But perhaps the most significant is something that I have alluded to occasionally in previous posts: I write my blog posts to think out loud: to explore my thinking about whatever is on my mind - and this week, that happens to be, why do I write blog posts. 

The real mystery, of course, is why anyone reads them.

Sandwiches and Firefighting

 

I have been reflecting on the importance of sandwiches this week. Not, as you may imagine, because the fine weather has been tempting me to go on many picnics; rather I am thinking of the sandwich structure of so much effective work.

It started in a supervision session, when I was talking about my coaching practice, and how important I find it to start and end coaching sessions well; with that in place, the middle works well, as does the whole process.  And then I reflected on a second-level sandwich: the importance of preparing well before a session, and reflecting and note-taking afterwards.  With that in place too, I know that I am doing a good job in each session. And of course there's a third sandwich to consider: the initial contracting at the start of the coaching relationship, and the close of the assignment, with consolidation, evaluation and so on. 

And it seems to me that many of my clients would also benefit from such sandwiches: planning before a meeting - and not just what they want to get out of it, but how (and indeed who) they want to be in the meeting. Likewise, after meetings, it is really valuable to reflect and review: did I accomplish what I wanted to; and did I do that in a way congruent with who I want to be? And if so, celebrate and record that, and build on it; and if not, what do I learn from that?

Yet for many of my clients, that feels like an impossible luxury: particularly in these days of Zoom, they zoom from meeting to meeting with little respite; and when asked, talk about the constant firefighting that they have to attend to.

Firefighting: an interesting and vivid metaphor; and not a subject I claim much expertise in. However, I am pretty sure that when firefighters turn up at a fire, they do a little planning before rushing in. One wouldn't want to pour water on an electrical fire; nor enter a structure about to collapse.  And likewise, once the flames are dowsed, I am pretty sure that they check that the temperature has been sufficiently lowered, to leave the site safely. We all know that all it takes is high temperature, fuel and oxygen (and possibly a source of ignition) to allow the fire to break out again.

So I find myself challenging some of my clients quite hard about this; and for some, that is helpful.  But what I know to be truly helpful is to hold myself to my sandwich disciplines: including, it occurs to me as I write this on a Friday afternoon, that other sandwich of ending the week with a review of how it has gone, and what I have learned, and using that to inform my planning of the following week.

--

With thanks to Eaters Collective and Daniel Tausis for sharing their photos on Unsplash

An unexamined life...

According to Plato, Socrates said at his trial that the unexamined life was not worth living. Socrates' approach, Socratic questioning, helping people to discover or make explicit the understandings that they already know implicitly, is foundational to any coach.

Yesterday, I was talking with a coaching client about the practice of meditation, and the benefits thereof. 

And that made me reflect, subsequently, on my own experience.  Some time ago I posted some reflections about meditation, here. That was after making a public commitment to a regular practice, back in 2014, here. I am in no doubt that this practice has made a substantial and positive difference to my life, particularly in my capacity to deal with disruptive emotions and distractions.

But in this post I want to draw a distinction between meditation and reflection. The meditative practice is focused on the present moment, and the conscious direction of one's attention in the present moment (in my case, practicing a Christian form of meditation, that is on a passage of the Gospel which I am meditating on).

Whereas reflection is focused on the past, and to some extent on the future. On the past, to learn what I can from my experiences, and on the future, to consider how to apply that learning. 

So they are two distinct practices, meditation and refection, but they also support each other. The regular practice of meditation means that when I assign time to reflection, I use it for reflection and do not get distracted; and the practice of reflection is a way of collecting any insights gained from meditation (and indeed checking that I am still dedicating time to it). And I find it important to record the results of my reflections in writing, and to review them from time to time.


The only other thing I'd say on this is: don't overdo it. There is always the risk of becoming so self-absorbed and self-centred, that it is frankly irritating to others and comes across as narcissistic. But to over-react to that perceived risk, and refrain from any self-examination... well, what Socrates said!