Time to Think

I have blogged a bit recently about some of the fascinating reading I have been doing as part of my diploma, such as the books on the psychology of coaching by Brown and Brown, and Peter Bluckert. I mentioned my intention to be more psychologically aware in my coaching as a result, and believe that is useful.

However, I am also a great believer in simplicity, and in particular a fan of Nancy Kline's book, Time to Think.  Kline's thesis is that in a thinking conversation, the quality of someone's thinking is directly related to the quality of attention of the listener.  She offers a deceptively simple structure for a 'Thinking Session.' The challenge is to stick to that structure, and pay full attention to the other person throughout - refraining from interjecting, asking questions that pursue what you are interested in, offering suggestions, etc.  If the person you are listening to asks you a question, it can help to assume that it is rhetorical. Acknowledge it (perhaps non-verbally with a smile etc), and wait in silence for him or her to answer it himself or herself. Attention and silence are key tools in this approach to helping the other to think. There are other steps, especially if the person is blocked by some assumption he or she is making, but the bulk of the session is predicated on this highly attentive listening.

My belief in the power of Kline's approach was underlined this week. I was co-running an event for professors at a University, and I gave them the opportunity to do some co-coaching using Kline's approach. Afterwards, those doing the coaching reported how difficult they had found it to refrain from chipping in with their own anecdotes, expressions of commonality, words of wisdom or advice - and how much further the conversation had gone as a result.

My experience, too, is that Kline's approach can be extremely powerful. Yet clearly, if I am trying to assess what the psychological state of the other might be, and what intervention might be most helpful, I am not giving the individual the full attention that Kline suggests.

Likewise, I am aware how disruptive it can be to the train of thought of the other person if I start to make suggestions, or offer alternative ways of looking at things, during their thinking time. Yet clearly, those may be helpful interventions too; part of what people want from a coach is another perspective.

So my interim position on this is that I will do all the thinking about the psychological aspects of the coaching before the session, as I prepare, and after the session, as I review it, and again (in some cases) with my coaching supervisor. But during the session, I will try to give that quality of completely focused attention to the other person. In time, I am hoping that the psychological awareness will become simply part of what is available to me as I attend to the other, but I don't think it is helpful to allow it to dominate my thinking as I coach, if that distracts from being fully present and fully attentive. 

And with regard to making suggestions or alternative ways of looking at things, I will strive to keep that till the closing stages of the session, once a lot of serious listening has already taken place.

 I would be very interested to hear other coaches' views on this.

Selfishness

I was listening to a podcast by a highly-successful (or so he told us) coach on how to be as successful as he was. His secret was to charge eye-wateringly high amounts of money for his coaching. That ensured that he only signed up people who were completely dedicated to achieving their dreams, and therefore made the chances of his coaching them successfully very high.

After the initial temptation passed (I mean, until I thought about it, naturally the idea of people paying eye-wateringly high amounts of money for my coaching was quite appealing), I then reacted the other way, and decided that what he was doing (at least in part) was teaching selfish people to be even more selfish. For example, he described how he helped people to realise that if they were really committed to their dreams, they could find the money - without consulting their partner, borrowing it if necessary, and so on...

Then at the other extreme, I was in a meeting where somebody declared that she needed to be more selfish - but by this she meant that she might occasionally have to say no to doing other people's work, if that meant that her own would suffer, or that she would have to work all weekend to accomplish it.  I did have the temerity to suggest that 'selfish' was not quite the right word in that context.

But the contrast set me thinking about selfishness. It is all the vogue, in many coaching circles, to encourage people to put themselves and their goals first, in pursuit of organisational or professional success. But the people who I know who have taken that approach to its limit, and achieved real success, often seem to regret it: the price is sometimes too high. And some of the ones who don't regret it seem to me to be deluding themselves.

Yet on the other hand, I repeatedly meet people, like the woman in the meeting the other day, who for fear of being 'selfish,' end up being so helpful and accommodating to others that their own work suffers, and eventually, they wind up stressed and unwell - which, of course, is not good for them, those they love or those they work with.

I think it is one of those tensions we have to live with: that tension between looking after ourselves and our own interests sufficiently that we maintain our health and (emotional and psychological) wellbeing; and giving sufficient attention to others and their interests. But it is easier to see when it is out of kilter in someone else than in oneself. Perhaps that's one reason why people find coaches helpful, to help them reflect on that balance - but maybe not the coaches who charge eye-wateringly high amounts of money for their coaching.

Charity Miles

I have recently discovered Charity Miles. It is a simple and brilliant idea. You download the app to your mobile, and then every time you go for a walk, run or cycle, you select a charity. A sponsor (typically someone like Johnson & Johnson, who have a clear interest in being connected with healthy lifestyles) donates an amount of money to the charity of your choice, based on the miles you cover. 

The sponsor then emails you, and the app prompts you to tweet your support or put it on Facebook, which I suppose is what the sponsor is buying. The amount per mile is small, but it adds up.

Just by my usual routine of a run with the dog in the morning, a walk during the day, and a brief walk last thing at night, I will be racking up a little over $20 a month. Given that we often also go for longer walks at the weekends and in the holidays (especially when not entirely surrounded by floodwater...) I reckon that will be about $250 over the year, and any charity would welcome that.

The app offers a long list of charities which you can support. I am quite fussy about giving to charity, for various reasons, but found several I would be happy to donate to. The one I am choosing to support is Charity Water. Water is such a basic necessity, and I like their operating model of working with communities to devise and deliver sustainable water solutions. I had not come across this particular charity before, so that is another benefit of Charity Miles.

So if you take more exercise than I do: get the app and raise money for charity by doing nothing extra, other than remembering to start it each time you go for a run.

And if you take less exercise than I do, then get the app, and make a resolution to do a little more!

About Those New Year Resolutions...

Happy New Year to all my friends, clients, colleagues, and indeed any other readers.

It being January, I thought it might be good to share some reflections on turning New Year Resolutions into reality. As is my wont, I will throw out a few ideas: keep the ones that you deem valuable and discard the rest. So here are eight things to try.

1: Check that you really mean it. I call this the Viktor Frankl question: how does this resolution sit with your fundamental understanding of the meaning of your life?  If it doesn't, then why is it a resolution? If it does, that immediately gives it more importance; and reminding yourself of this may give it more traction. (Memo to self: blog about Viktor Frankl: I have mentioned him in passing a few times, but he is worthy of a proper post).

2: Write a Context Goal. A Context Goal is written like this. First, you write what it is you want to accomplish (and express this in positive, not negative language - eg to be free of nicotine addiction, rather than to stop smoking). Then write down all the reasons that this is a good idea. Be as creative as you can here: you are looking to generate a long list. So as well as the health benefits (for example) of being free of nicotine addiction, you might list the social benefits, the good example you wish to set to younger people, the fact that you want to prove to yourself that you can conquer this addiction, the monetary savings, and so on and so on.  The idea is to make the goal so self-evidently worthwhile that even in your most recalcitrant state, you can only see it as a good and worthwhile thing to do.

3: Consider occasions on which you have successfully achieved something similar. We are often prone to assume that we can't change (particularly if we have failed at this particular resolution in the past). Therefore it is important to recall that we can in fact change, and that we have plenty of evidence to support that belief. Re-writing our story about this may be an important support for such desired change (my forthcoming book refers...)

4: Consider what structures you can put in place to support the resolution. I have posted before on questions about will power (here for example) and the importance of environmental cues in stimulating our behaviour. So a simple thing to do might be to put your list of context goals by your alarm clock or phone, so that it is the first thing you see every day. You will have to devise other environmental cues for yourself...

5: Recruit an 'external conscience.' Most of us find it much easier to honour the commitments we make to others than those we make only to ourselves. So if your resolution is to run or go to the gym, you will be far more likely to do so if you agree to meet someone to run or train with you. If it is to free yourself of an addiction, consider who would be good to hold you to account on a regular basis, and recruit them to the project, explaining precisely what you need of them.

6: Consider the use of an affirmation to strengthen your resolve and your belief in you ability to deliver it.

7: Keep a learning diary: every day record your progress (or lack thereof) and consider what you need to do next to stay on course or get back on the tracks (as appropriate).

8: Celebrate progress and success. Set yourself milestones and rewards, to keep you motivated, ensure you recognise progress, and reward yourself (and others, where possible!)

Merry Christmas to all Clients, Colleagues and Friends

I wish all my clients, colleagues and friends a very blessed Christmas and a happy and successful New Year.

2015 has been another good year for us;

• I continue to have lots of interesting work with interesting people;
• I have finished the long awaited book, and once the graphic work is completed, it will be published (early 2016, I hope);
• I have also started a post-graduate diploma in Coaching, which I am enjoying enormously;
• Jane has wrested complete control of my diary, the back office, the accounts and all the other important parts of the business, which has resulted in a huge improvement in all areas;
• Annie has qualified as a teacher, Clare has spent time travelling in China, working in Zambia, and now has a job with a charity in Manchester; Mike got a First in his Graphic Design foundations course, and is now enjoying life as an undergraduate at Northumbria; and Lizzie aced her GCSEs and is loving the 6th Form.

Here's a family portrait, as we appear to Mike, when we are reading:

I always think Christmas a good time for poetry, so here is one of my favourite poems:

The Journey of the Magi 

"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

T S Eliot

My Dark Side

A number of my coaching clients, and some fellow coaches whose work I rate highly, have spoken well of the Hogan psychometrics, and especially the one that identifies potential career de-railers - the so-called Dark Side assessment.

So I have decided to get trained on these, and as a first step, had  a go at completing one myself, under the guidance of Julia Cater of People Decisions. It was very interesting.

My initial reflections on the report that emerged are that it has quite high face-validity; that is, I recognise myself in it (rather more than, say, a horoscope). Moreover, my wife (if not my greatest fan, certainly my most acute critic) also recognised me in it.  And we could both see, even though there are areas where we both think it gets it wrong, that it is a very useful basis for reflection and discussion with a coach (I have yet to meet Julia for the de-brief).

Overall, it suggests that my high scores (that is, my strengths-that-might-become-weaknesses-under-pressure are being Reserved (Independent can become detached), Imaginative (Imaginative can become eccentric) and Colourful (vivacious can become dramatic).

I also score very low on some areas where perhaps I lack the strengths at all: Diligent, Dutiful and Sceptical.

By and large, that's not too far off the mark.  However, I strongly disagree with Lacking few well-defined beliefs or interests, but with regrets about past behaviour and Lack passion or enthusiasm.

I think the Reserved is somewhat overstated, particularly Not communicate frequently or well,  and likewise the Colourful  especially Talk more than he listens.  And clearly, those two points, Not communicate frequently or well, and Talk more than he listens, sit rather oddly together.

However, I can see how it arrived at all of these, and they (and many of the other points) are worthy of thought and discussion - and even as I type, I am wondering if, under extreme stress, those may have some validity...

The big question, of course, is about the self-report aspect. For instance, I answered some questions based on the literal words, even though I suspected (and I think rightly) that they would be interpreted in a way that is not what I feel about myself. For example, when a question has ‘never’ or ‘always’ in it, I always take that literally so will tend to disagree, as there is nearly always at least one exception; whereas if it has nearly always or almost never, I will answer the opposite way.  So the process didn’t feel very robust in that way. Also, I was aware of what it was likely to be saying about me, and there is always that tendency to answer about the Andrew I’d like to be…

All in all, very interesting, despite these reservations, and as I say, it could certainly be the basis of some useful exploratory discussions and reflections.

Reply from the Suzy Lamplugh Trust

In my recent post about the misrepresentation of Merhrabian's research (that stuff about words being only 7% of the way we understand communication), I mentioned that I had been told it was sourced from the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. I looked at the Suzy Lamplugh Trust Website, and found it did not, in fact, quote these percentages, but did make the claim in words. I gather the text on the WWW is taken from their leaflet Keeping Safe: Dealing with Aggression. I concluded my last post by saying that I would write to them about this.

Therefore, I emailed as follows:

On your website, (here) you say that 'The majority of communication is through body language, a lot through tone of voice and only a little through words.’ (your emphasis). I assume this refers to the work of Albert Mehrabian, but he himself distances himself from such claims, and puts important caveats on how his research is interpreted and applied. 

I think you should re-consider how you present this. If you are interested in my particular thoughts, I have just blogged about it here. 

I am writing to you, as I think the work you do very important - and therefore want to help you to do it as well as possible.

I heard nothing, so wrote a follow up,  

Did you receive the email below? 

I see that your website remains unchanged. 

As I said on my blog on the subject (here): I find this misrepresentation of Mehrabian's work bad enough in corporate life; but in the context of safeguarding, it is worse. For instance, if it becomes widely accepted as fact, what is to prevent a rapist claiming that, although his victim said No, 93% of her communication was saying Yes?... That cannot be a justification that the Suzy Lamplugh Trust would accept.  

I got an apology: my email had apparently been misrouted, and the promise of a fuller reply in due course. Eventually I received this:

Thank you for your email. Suzy Lamplugh Trust is a personal safety charity and we work to reduce the risk of violence and aggression for everyone. The information provided in the leaflet you have referred to aims to help individuals who are in stressful or difficult situations to understand the options available to them. The specific quote to which you refer seeks to highlight the need for workers who undertake difficult and/or stressful tasks to be aware of how their behaviour may be interpreted by the people they are interacting with. This will enable them to complete a dynamic risk assessment and take measures to defuse, de-escalate or exit a situation if necessary. This information is given to educate and empower individuals.  

Whenever a crime is committed, Suzy Lamplugh Trust is clear that the responsibility for that crime lies solely with the perpetrator. Everyone has the right to live their lives safely.

I hope that this alleviates your concern however if you have further questions please get back in touch.

I did not think that really addressed the issue I had raised, so I wrote again:

Thanks for your reply. 

I think you misunderstand my concern. I am well aware of the excellent work and reputation of the Trust. 

My concern is very simple. Your wwwsite says: 'The majority of communication is through body language, a lot through tone of voice and only a little through words.’
I believe that to be untrue, and think I have understood and indicated the source of the error.  

I also think that publishing untrue information may have unintended negative consequences. 

I am sure your intentions are honourable, etc. However what I am not clear about is whether you think that the information is in fact true (in which case I would be fascinated to know your sources); or whether you think it untrue (or simply don’t know), but are happy to publish on that basis in pursuit of a good aim?

Today, I received this further reply:

Thank you for flagging your concern. We regularly review the information on our website and will take your comments in to (sic) consideration when we next revisit our website material. 

So I will re-visit their site occasionally, and see if they make any changes. But if this is a polite brush-off, then I will take it further up the chain, as I believe it to be a serious issue.