Claire writes: “Do you like advice? It’s easy to slip into offering good ideas without asking whether that’s useful.
Artist Andy Leek leaves handwritten posters around London called #notestostrangers. One note reads: ‘Think of the last bit of advice you gave and see if it’s useful to you’.
When it is asked for, and when it addresses someone else’s specific question, advice can be useful. Sometimes what we offer to others is what we need to be hearing ourselves. And sometimes offering to listen might be even more of a gift than offering solutions.
PS If the advice is framed as a question it’s still advice!”
Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2020
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!
Claire writes: “Thanks to Stuart Reid for sharing this short video from BBC Hardtalk. It is an interview with Alan Rickman about acting and listening. You only speak because you wish to respond to something you’ve heard… What you have to say is completely incidental”
Three minutes full of gold and great insights we can apply in coaching!”
Claire has released a brand new masterclass on listening – available now on the website
3D Coaching Ltd 2020
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!
Claire writes: “Not only is this a new year, it is also a new decade! In the last blog we looked back – this one is about looking forward.
Although I am not one to do deep and meaningful planning, having a sense of what we would like to be different by the end of this year, or indeed the twenties (2020s) might produce some interesting insight as to what is important.
For example, I would like my book to be published, as planned, this December. That means that I need to crack on! By the end of the twenties, a number of our 3D Team will have changed how they engage with us. So what do we need to do now that will make that possible for them. And who do we need to be developing so that we have a sustainable future.
What would you like to be different by the end of this year, or indeed the twenties (2020s)?”
Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2020
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!
Claire writes: “Every December, our family writes an A to Z of the year remembering, with some prompting of the alphabet, the highlights of what we have done. This year will be no different, albeit tinged with a deep sadness of the two close friends who have died during the year. One of them, Lydia, had been our companion in A-to-Z-ing since we met about 3 years ago. So the year’s review has been on my mind. In coaching we often ask the question ‘what do you know now that you didn’t know when we started talking today?’
I like that as a review question. Which has made today be thinking more about what have we learned this year, than what have we done?
What have we learned this year at 3D?
What do you know now that you didn’t know at the beginning of the year?”
Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2019
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!
Claire writes: “Alex and I were running some online mentor training last week. The group was talking about taking off and landing conversations where people move forward in their thinking. The insight was that the pilot on a plane is most noticeable during take off and landing.
During the flight the pilot is fully there… and will be silent most of the time, and speak when it’s useful.
Whether speaking or silent, they are doing what is necessary to enable us get from A to B.”
Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2019
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!
Claire writes: “As I write, it is the end of Friday and it’s been a busy week at work, and a tough one personally with stuff going on. We have a phrase in our family, introduced by the girls now that they work: Adulting is overrated!
At an event a couple of weeks ago, I found myself noticing with someone that the way they spoke to a colleague sounded a bit parent like. The workplace needs adults and yet even when you like to treat colleagues with respect and belief that they can do things, that may not have been their experience in other roles or with other leaders. Last week, in a training event, someone managed to stop saying ‘I think you should’ (which can be received as code for ‘because I think you haven’t thought about it’) and change it to ‘I’m thinking about x – is that useful’ at which point her colleague smiled and looked away, clearly thinking.
Adulting matters – it’s what it takes to empower people to be their best.”
This blog was inspired by an article in People Management: It’s time to stop parenting your team
Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2019
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!
Claire writes: “We all have blindspots. Last week, Ruth texted me this picture. Instantly I recognised a blindspot and connected the insights I have about our work being like the stoker on the back of a bike with the learning we share about moving forward. I had never made the connection that bicycles can’t easily go backwards! That connection has changed my teaching from this week onwards.
There many ways Ruth could have communicated what she had seen:
or any other form of words that made the meaning for me.
Leaving me to make my own meaning was the most powerful thing she could do.”
Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2019
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!
Claire writes: ‘Last week I spent a day in the Maths classroom in a secondary school. I was developing teachers who are using a coach approach with colleagues. There was plenty of learning and a recognition of how much coaching can easily seen to be a way of fixing under-performing teachers. Here’s one picture from the wall display about how Maths can change the world!
When receiving coaching makes someone feel done to, it’s painful for both colleagues and at best can only move things forward in a transactional way. As long as there is enough trust, there is potential for transformation – when people have deeper insights that will change how they think about something.
The first step is to stop talking about problems that need fixing. I like to start a conversation asking people ‘What’s your question for today?’. It’s optimistic and future focused. It shows respect and makes the conversation easier. And it shifts thinking.”
Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2019
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!
Claire writes: “People tell us what to say, or how to work with them! We teach that all the time, and it’s always great to be emailed some feedback with one of your examples. Thank you Claire Banham:
The lady I was coaching yesterday decided that, as we were in the final 10 mins of our session, she didn’t “want to open the whole can of worms today.” Then she paused and said “so to finish I’d like a bite-sized worm please!”
That picture (and luckily we were both picturing the sweet kind, rather than the wriggly garden variety!) was so useful, and helped her choose how we closed the session, I thought I’d share it with you!”
I am looking for examples of where you have used a coaching approach at work and it has been useful. Four sentences would be great – your context, what was happening, what you did together and what was different/useful about the outcome. These are for a book to be published in late 2020. Please email claire@3dcoaching.com and be clear that you give permission for it to be used. Let us know if you would prefer your name/organisation to be anonymised. Thank you!”
Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2019
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!
Claire writes: “It maybe that I am a bit preoccupied with stuff at the moment, but I seem to have stumbled over a useful idea.
Several times recently family or colleagues have brought something big to a conversation when I wasn’t expecting it. Every time I have acknowledged the thing and invited them to ask me again in a few days time. I haven’t consciously been thinking about the thing. And I have noticed that when they have come back we have both moved on in our thinking which has led to some very productive conversations.
I wonder if this is another example of the best work happening in the space in between?”
Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2019
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com If you would like to get this by email every week, you can do that here!
