communication

3D Juggling 607: Riddles and Risk

March 21, 2013 By Claire Leave a Comment

If you’ve been waiting for our next day for people wanting to work on communication, conflict and confidence using DiSC, we have now booked this at the Goldsmith’s Centre in Letchworth on Tuesday 4th June.

Claire writes: “I heard David Clutterbuck talking at the University of Hertfordshire recently where he described no less than six levels of listening – ranging from listening to argue to listening to help the other person understand. Many of us are eager to listen to problem solve – especially at work or when someone comes with a thorny issue. His sixth and highest level is listening with the human eye and without intent – which is what we endeavour to do in coaching.

Listening is often more about listening to mystery and riddles than it is to making total sense and coming up with fully formed solutions. Rilke describes it well in Letters to a Young Poet (1934): “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.”

Many of the challenges we encounter at work and in the world are complex. As an article in Smithsonian magazine puts it, we would do well to know whether we are exploring a mystery or solving a puzzle.

© 2013 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com
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Filed Under: 5 Active Listening Tagged With: coaching skills, communication, listening, working with people

3D Juggling 591: Enough is Enough

November 12, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

There is still a space on 27th November at the Action Learning Set Facilitator Training in London. WOuld you like to join us? If you are ICF Member, the main sessions from the conference are now up on the website in the members area. Worth watching!

Claire writes: “When I started 3D in the late 1990s, I had a landline and an Amstrad PCW. Now we run most of the business on the cloud off phones, laptops and iPads! Technology has really helped make working smarter, easier, faster…

But it’s quicker to email than to phone, it’s less hassle to text than to go and have a conversation face to face. And there is considerable concern now from early advocates of technology that todays young adults are losing the ability to have conversations. Sherry Turkle, talks on this TED lecture about her change of heart And todays young adults didn’t get technologically savvy until they were 4 or 5 or 6 which raises questions about the iGeneration.

I remember advice from someone who used to be in sales: For every 5 emails make a phone call, and for every ten try and meet up face to over a face to face coffee!

When’s enough eCommunication enough, and when is it time to meet? Think about it…?”

Filed Under: working with people Tagged With: behavioural change, communication, working with people

3D Juggling 585: Spanners and Kites

September 21, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

We’ve been busy in the last few weeks preparing to restructure the business so that it better reflects our values. Watch this space and we will share when we get there!

Claire writes: “Misunderstandings happen all the time. Every time we open our mouth, there’s a risk of a misunderstanding. Mostly we are understood. But at worst, misunderstandings take considerable recovery time and can affect organisations and relationships.

Sometimes we just need to be more clear. If you are flying a kite, and raising possibilities (that don’t have a fully formed business plan) or thinking around a problem, say what you’re doing. Otherwise your kite can be received as a spanner in the works.

When do you need to be clearer and stand in the shoes of your listener? Think about it…”

If it would be useful to talk this through, call us on 01462 483798.

Filed Under: 7 Direct Communication, conflict, working with people Tagged With: behavioural change, communication, conflict, working with people

3D Juggling 578: Disfluency

July 30, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Claire writes: “When we were writing the Great Appointments book, Su and I invented the word disfluency. We notice that really good and competent professionals are disfluent when it comes to talking about themselves and their skills and experience in an interview or assesment centre.

If you can’t describe yourself, the interviewers will not have enough information to be able to decid whether you are the right person for the role.

Here are some tips

Prepare your data on yourself as much as you research the data on them. And then make the connections between the two
Make sure that you use a voice where you are confident – people are often fluent and articulate in meetings or presentations or in a public arena and inarticulate talking about themselves.
Stand in the role you are being interviewed for when you answer so that you are using their language and making the connections from your story into their context so that they can imagine what it will be like to have you in role.

Disfluency, unexplored will mean that they don’t meet the real you. Think about it…”

If you want some help preparing for interview, give us a call on 01462 483798.

Filed Under: recruitment and selection, Vocation and discernment Tagged With: communication, interviews, job applications

Why why? Or how?

May 11, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

We talk a lot about why why isn’t always the best question – so interested to read how why eats how for lunch!

Filed Under: 6 Powerful Questionning Tagged With: coaching skills, communication

3D Juggling 570: Say it out loud

May 4, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Jane writes: “We just had some feedback from a senior leader who attended a development day with us about behaving assertively. They said that ‘the real play was invaluable, and doing it from my ‘antagonist’ and ‘observer’ perspectives gave us a host of insights’.

The words we think we need to say sound different when we say them out loud. It is more than having a few bullet points on a page.
In life, we only get one chance at a conversation. If it misses the mark, we spend many days, months or years dealing with the consequences. It’s safe to get words wrong in real play because we can keep rehearsing until the sense feels right.

Who do you trust to tell you how what you say makes them feel? Who can you rehearse with? Think about it…”

And we provide space to rehearse during coaching sessions. Talk to us if that would be a useful way forward for you

Out there

According to the recent CIPD report about Learning and Talent Development the main leadership skills that organisations lack are performance management skills, leading and people management skills and skills to manage change. All of these involve having robust and purposeful conversations. Think about it. What would it worth to get them right first time?
And listen to what the authors of Influencer are saying: ‘Tens of thousands of medical errors continue to happen because individuals who may have practiced drawing blood or moving a patient or reading a gauge dozens of times haven’t studied and practiced how to confront a colleague – or even more frightening - a physician’ (or manager or bishop or…)

Filed Under: 7 Direct Communication, 8 Creating Awareness Tagged With: behavioural change, coaching skills, communication

3D Juggling 569: Changing Hats

April 27, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Claire writes: ‘Most of us are in multiple roles – we may be the manager, friend and supervisor of a colleague; we may the parent, the nurturer and the performance manager at home. And we are changing roles all the time.

This can be confusing to the person we are talking with. Are you saying that you think another job would be great for me as my friend? I receive that as supportive and developmental feedback. Or as my manager when I may think you are preparing to fire me?

In coaching, you may be tempted to change hats to consultant, counsellor, manager, supervisor, mentor, pastor or spiritual director. In pure coaching that is actually unethical, but many people operate in several arenas. What’s important is that you ask the consent of your client to change, only do so if they agree – and then change back.

Next time you shift roles think about whether what you are about to say could be read as ambiguous – and tell your companion which hat you’re wearing. Don’t expect them to take the role of mind reader? Think about it…’

© 2012 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.comed to the listening exercise: Active seeing is as important as active listening. Think about it…”

Other hats

This has absolutely nothing to do with Edward de Bono’s six thinking hats except that it reminds us of them. They’re useful. If you don’t know what they are, have a look at a summary or a video if that will work better for you (fast forward the beginning)

Filed Under: 1 Meeting Ethical Guidelines, working with people Tagged With: coaching skills, communication

3D Juggling 561: Through The Looking Glass

February 20, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Claire writes: “‘I didn’t mean it’. How often have you heard that – at home or at work? We judge ourselves on our intent. Yet we measure others by the impact which their communication has on us.

And that’s where most communication problems arise – where the impact is different from the intention. Especially when we are communicating with people whose style is very different from our own.

Think about it…”

And if you want to understand it even more, talk to us about how DiSC can help you be more confident that your impact is what you intended.
© 2012 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com

Filed Under: working with people Tagged With: communication, DiSC, transformation, working with people

3D Juggling 559: Let’s start at the very beginning

February 13, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Claire writes: ‘Let’s start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start’, sang Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. Except when it isn’t!

When we start at the beginning in an interview, the interviewers never find out what they need to know. What needs to be known by the end that is not known at the beginning? That will tell you where to start.
When we start at the beginning in a thinking conversation, the thinker may never get beyond the story and what they know already. Where do we need to start is a question that only the thinker can answer.
When we start at the beginning in an appraisal or review conversation, where the person has already done preparation on paper, we end up going over old ground and creating the movie of the book – or ratifying the paperwork. You have already started out on this journey, where do we need to start today will mean that things are known by the end of the conversation that were not known at the beginning.

So unless it is the story that needs to be told, next time you’re tempted to start at the beginning, ask yourself and the person you are talking with: where do we need to start? Think about it…

Filed Under: 2 Establishing The Coaching Agreement Tagged With: coaching skills, communication, conversations

3D Juggling 558: Positive Feedback

February 10, 2012 By Claire Leave a Comment

Claire writes: “The other day I got some great customer service from someone and when we had finished on the phone, I asked to be put through to their manager. After a long period of canned music, the phone was answered with a silence in which I heard: What on EARTH are you going to complain about?

‘Please can I give you some positive feedback on your colleague?’ was followed by another silence and then a great conversation.

Too often we forget to give positive feedback as willingly as we complain.

Think about it next time you get some great customer service…”

Filed Under: 7 Direct Communication, working with people Tagged With: coaching skills, communication, feedback, working with people