Ruth writes: “I was talking with a coach on one of our programmes today, who admitted that he had a close call in the group the day before. He nearly took a turn to coach someone and was then incredibly glad he hadn’t. The topic she wanted to think about was around retirement. He’s just about to retire himself and has spent the last few months planning, organising and getting ready for his own retirement. 

He had noticed that he was too close to the subject to be able to be objective and useful. His head was full of his thoughts and ideas. He described seeing lots of waving flags during the conversation, which were his own thoughts, making noise as though they were in the room.  

Sometimes we are too close to a situation to coach someone on it. At 3D we call this risk talking to the ‘wavy people’. Noticing that we have our own ‘wavy people’ around a topic means we can make a good decision if we are the right person for this conversation. Admitting we might not be can be difficult and the kindest thing we can do.”