Claire writes: “The difference between a whimsical thought and an action is nailing it so that something happens. I love asking people what they are learning?  A more effective question is to ask what difference the learning is making: “What’s different in your conversations as a result of what you’re learning?”

Kolb, in his learning cycle had wisdom to recognise that adults learn by moving through a cycle of doing, reviewing, learning and applying/ putting into practice.

Some of my favourite nailing questions include:

• “And now you know that…?”
• “When you share that with your people, what will you say?”

What are your favourite nailing questions?”

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Claire writes: “Open questions encourage people to talk.  Closed questions can be answered by yes or no. The books say that in coaching we should be asking open questions.  I totally agree with that… except when closed questions are better!

If the person I am talking with has leapt ahead after an insight, a closed question is better: Do you know what you’re going to do next?  Otherwise they will answer the open question and tell you what they already know! That may take them backwards. Do you need to say it out loud is a good supplementary when they say ‘yes’!  It’s only useful to explore what next if they don’t know.”

Ⓒ 3D Coaching Ltd 2019

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Claire writes: ‘My year of fundraising taught me many lessons which will continue to emerge for some time. We raised about £4000 in the five days between the last walk and the deadline for the local paper… all because our journalist told me to let him know if we’d met our £50000 target by then. I’d been planning to lie down and recover. So I put the question to our community – ‘we have 5 days left, what do we need to do to hit the target?’

At the same time, we were exploring in our team whether marking that we had 5 minutes left in a conversation had a similar impact on getting to a great place. Sometimes the really great work only happens when we articulate clearly that we have 5 minutes left. ‘we have 5 minutes left, what do we need to do to get where we need to be?’

Of course it’s not over in one conversation, but as Amabile and Kramer say any progress is progress. And another £10,500 has poured into our team total in the same way that things continue to progress after a conversation at work is over. Especially if we ended well. More of that on another day.’

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Claire writes: “I’ve written about real play before and am returning to it again because it is so powerful.  Moving from ‘I would say’, ‘I might say’, ‘I wish I could say’, ‘I don’t want to say’ or ‘I ought to say’ to real play works. Trying out a conversation in real time is more effective than talking about talking about something to someone.

The rules are simple

1. Invite them to stand up or move (because it’s hard to think differently when they’re physically in the same position they were when they said they were stuck)
2. Invite them to speak to you as if you were the person they need to speak with – saying anything at all – no matter how incoherent it is
3. If there is any level of emotion or difficult stuff, place your hand where you were standing and move aside so they are speaking to your ‘cataleptic hand’ (because it keeps you from absorbing stuff and if they are in flow it won’t stop them!)
4. Ask how that felt – and if they would like to try it again in a more (or less) challenging way
5. Invite them to move a little between each go (same reason as #1)
6. Repeat 2-5 as many times as needed (ask if it’s useful – this is a working together not you doing something to them)
7. Use your intuition and theirs to know how far to go with this
8. This is not role play.  You are not representing and acting the part of their colleague.  So don’t join in!

Claire writes: “Every time we run training events, I hear most delegates say in the feedback on Day 1: ‘We would have been able to deal with that properly if we had had more time’.

• Most of the value to a conversation where someone is thinking happens after it’s over
• When we treat time as a scarce resource it will never be enough.

Claire writes: “Acronyms help remember things. A group in Leicester challenged themselves to work out how to make a good ending to a conversation. They came up with CALF:

• Check/ challenge the contract
• Accountability – when/ what needs to happen to get this done?
• What have you Learned so far?
• Have we Finished?

That final question is interesting. Notice where the responsibility sits when you say ‘Have we finished?’ rather than ‘I think we have finished’. It’s useful.

David Clutterbuck’s Four Is are also a useful end to a conversation – especially if notes need to be made together:

• What are the issues we have discussed?
• What insights have you had?
• What ideas have we come up with?
• What are your intentions?

After all, a great end is as important as a great beginning.”
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Claire writes: “When we need to think through a slightly complex conversation, it’s common to find someone else with whom to talk it through. Talking about talking is helpful. What can be even more useful is to try it out. We call that real play.

All you need to do is talk to another as though they are the person – and hear yourself say what you’re thinking of saying. Unlike role play, they don’t join in – they just ask you how that felt. More often than not you will want to change the tone or the challenge – and can have another go. If you do that, moving a bit before you try again makes it easier to make the change. It’s astonishing how effective this can be.”

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Claire writes: “We judge ourselves on our intention. If my intention is good, what I say is good. Except that my colleague judges me on the impact of what I have said. If it lands badly, we may take some hours, days or years to get over that. That’s why real play is useful. This means saying what we are thinking we might say out loud and hearing it to get a sense of whether its impact is what we intended.

Invite your colleague to try it out at different temperatures – say it in a very safe way. Now try it in a really challenging way.

• Only a few groundrules
• This works better if you stand up
• We aren’t acting – and you are not taking the role of the person they are thinking of – you are just a face to talk to
• For safety, it can be useful to put your hand up and move away so they are talking to your hand
• Ask then – how did that sound – anything you want to change?

It might only take two or three goes, and it can make a significant difference to the quality of their conversation when it happens”

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