It’s brilliant, when we are out and about, to hear feedback from people who are applying some of what they have learned with us. I met Cara Moore at the UK ICF conference and we had an interesting conversation about the e in STOKeRS. There was a blog about it in 2015.
Cara writes: “I have been using STOKeRS for a while now for my contracting at the start of a coaching session, and found it to be immensely useful as a reminder about what to include. However the STOKeRS questions didn’t cover a couple of questions that I also like to ask at the contracting stage. Furthermore it always niggled me that there was no ‘E’!
So the additional questions I like to ask to expand a bit on the Subject and Outcome that the client brings are:
So to remind me of these questions, and to resolve the niggle I have about there not being an ‘E’, my suggestion is that ‘E’ is for Emphasis!!
What do you think?”
© 2019 Cara Moore cara@caramoore.co.uk. 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 know, rationally, that trying to talk well to two different people about two different things at the same time means that we don’t have either conversation well. The privilege I have of listening to people having conversations, is that I have noticed that’s also true when we are talking to one person.
It’s not unusual to have someone come who is angry, or upset, or overwhelmed, someone where we need to do some arriving or greetings before we can do the work. So one day I came up with the idea of a pre-conversation, and drew it on the flipchart
If you’re the facilitator of the conversation, what’s useful about being clear that this is separate means that you can give good attention to the bit that needs to be done before we start doing the work of the conversation. I am noticing more and more that putting a time boundary around that can make it even more effective.
That might sound like moving from
‘I’m going to tell you how much I have going on for so long that we never get any thinking done here and I get even more overwhelmed’ to ‘would it be useful to download for 5/10 minutes and then we will work out what we need to do today?’
or
‘Let me catch up on everything that’s happened since we last met that there is almost no time to move forward today’ to ‘would it be useful to take 5 minutes to talk about the actions you have taken/what you have thought about/ insights you have had since we last met?’
When we put time boundaries in, people still talk about feeling heard – and they know to give the ten minute version, and not the two hour version. So there is plenty of time remaining to look forwards”
© 2019 3D Coaching Ltd
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!
Clare T and Ruth are offering low cost coaching to young people who are at transition points. They work from the office, on the phone and online. If you know young people who would value this, email info@3dcoaching.com to find out more.
Clare writes: ‘It’s that time of year when 17 year olds trek off to massive exhibition halls to do “university shopping”. Ahead of such a trip, my son and I had a conversation. I was keen to understand what he wanted to be different at the end of his time at the exhibition, what would he be focusing on? He really hadn’t given it much thought and jokingly admitted he might end up coming home clearer about which Uni offered the best free pens and not much else.
Covey said “Begin with the end in mind… begin each task, project with a clear vision of your desired direction or destination”. Being clear at the outset of an exhibition, or meeting, or conversation what the desired outcome needs to be and what we will see to know that’s happened will ensure it is time well spent.
My son came home more focused, excited and energized to learn more about his possible course options and what to do next and as it happens – penless!’
© 2019 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.comRegister here to receive our blog posts every Monday by email
Claire writes: “I was sharing with Nicky this morning how useful it is to think of a plane journey as a metaphor for a great conversation.
And we know that there is always more to learn – as we discovered. We were imagining how frustrated we would be if invited on a magical mystery flight that guaranteed we would go to a new destination. Only to find that we had landed in a place we have been many times before.
That’s why it is so important to co-create the process for a conversation and work out together what we are doing before we start. Whether what we are doing is coaching, or something else, a great contract for today increases the likelihood of getting to new thinking.”
© 2019 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com Register here to receive our blog posts every Monday by email
Claire writes: “We have learned that if we want to increase the likelihood of having transformational conversations – where someone knows something about their own stuff at the end they didn’t know at the beginning – then we must have boundaries. Just before Christmas someone looked at the coaching container I had drawn on the flip chart and said that it looks like a plane journey. Some metaphors have depth and insight. This one does.
They are right. A conversation is like a plane journey. And if it’s a conversation facilitated by one person about the other, we need to have agreed where we are going … even if that agreement is that we aren’t sure. Otherwise you think we are flying to Prague. And I take us to Southampton because that’s where I always fly – and because it’s worked for others I think it’s a great route.
Great conversations are co-created which is why it’s so useful to create the container for the conversation in partnership.”
© 2019 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com Register here to receive our blog posts every Monday by email
Claire writes: “Continuing professional development (CPD) is useful, and in some organisations ongoing training is mandatory. In the coaching world, we are required to evidence 40 hours CPD every 3 years in order to retain our credentials. As people progress through organisations, management and leadership development programmes and other training are available. Some even include coaching. This can easily become a tick box exercise coming out of appraisals – ‘what training would you like to go on?‘
The results of the training can be more transformational when we stretch the frame. Instead of ‘this would be good to do‘, a longer time frame and a co-created contract can make a significant difference. ‘Begin with the end in mind‘, said Covey. We expand that by asking questions like – What’s the training for? How will you (and the organisation) know it has been useful?
Think a year beyond the end of the programme and have a co-created conversation:
This stretched frame is also useful for probation or training agreements:
Not only is this useful because it looks beyond the obvious end point – it also makes revisiting the contract much more normal. ‘We are three months into… how are you getting on towards [that end point]. What do we need to explore to make sure you get to that [original goal for the training/probation]’.
© 2018 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com Register here to receive our blog posts every Monday by email
Claire writes: “Last week was one of those weeks which hit many of us from time to time – there was just too much stuff. A late evening’s work and two phone calls in the middle of the night from my husband’s work were the straw that broke the camel’s back and Friday turned from a catch up day to a place of overwhelm.
Two things changed everything. Ruth diverted from a work trip and came into the office to add some resource. And we changed the frame. I had been unproductively asking the question ‘what do I need to have done by the end of Friday’. A better question was ‘what do I need to have done by the end of Monday?’. A new frame changed everything.
Which is ironic because changing the frame had been a topic of discussion all week – more about that next week!”
© 2018 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com Register here to receive our blog posts every Monday by email
Claire writes: ‘The room was full of midwives and other health professionals. They weren’t really sure why they had come to the day… and suddenly one lady piped up: ‘OH!’
“I begin every single thing I say to my direct reports with a version of ‘what do you want me to do for you?’ and then when I get home at night, I wonder why I worked so hard and seemed to take on everyone else’s stuff?”, she said… “I told them to give it to me, didn’t I?”
She went away, committed to starting conversations with her direct reports with: “what would you like us to think about today?” It’s not, of course, that she will never help or give solutions. It’s just that she committed in that moment of insight to start with seeing if they could work it out for themselves first.’
© 2018 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com Register here to receive our blog posts every Monday by email
Claire writes: “As professionals – in whatever field we work in – we learn that we need to know what we are doing. What I continue to learn is that I almost never know what we are doing in a conversation, and my role is to be brave and hold my nerve.
We spend several days a week training people to have transformational conversations (where you can see in someone’s eyes or their body that something significant has shifted). And what happens next? Firstly the facilitator of the conversation turns to us with a surprised ‘how did that happen?’ look… and then we often see a look of panic that says ‘Help! I have absolutely no idea what to do now’. That loss of control is scary. And transformation is significant. Of course we are completely lost – something fundamental has changed. Thank goodness for the question ‘Where are we now?'”
© 2018 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com Sign up to receive our blog posts every Monday by email
Claire writes: “Alan describes the conversations we have as a place to help someone sort through their mountain of laundry. The role of the coach – and indeed the mentor, supervisor or manager (usually) is not to wash their clothes – but to support someone else to sort stuff out enough that they can move forward themselves. And to notice when they choose to leave somes stuff at the bottom of the basket.
That’s why ‘What would you like to think about?’ can be a more useful question than the one that implies ‘What do you want me to do?’. If you are a manager who feels like they are always doing the washing, it might be worth changing the question!”
© 2018 3D Coaching Ltd
May be distributed freely. Please retain contact details: www.3dcoaching.com and send a copy/ link to info@3dcoaching.com Register here to receive our blog posts every Monday by email
