Claire writes: “I’ve been thinking about the start of conversations for a few months now. And noticed that when it’s not clear to both parties in a conversation when the work is starting that it can get messy. One of us thinks we are doing some work – the other one is just chatting. It’s clear boundaries that make transformation more likely to happen.
This reminds me of an orchestra. They gather, they greet one another and they tune up. When it’s time to start the piece, the conductor taps their music stand and everyone knows that the work is beginning.
The arriving matters. I like to call it a pre-conversation. What do you need to do to mark the transition from the arriving to the work?
(It’s interesting to recognise that the music emerges in the space between the conductor and the orchestra…because in coaching it emerges in the space between us, too)
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Claire writes: “I don’t know about you, but the combination of covid and on-demand TV this year has provided me an opportunity to indulge my love of forensic pathology. I have watched every episode of BBC’s Silent Witness over the last few months. Only two series to go! Our daughter has been living with us for some of this time. She hates it! When we are together in the evening, we have to find entertainment that works for us all.
We all have preferences. In conversations, some of us love exploring. Others enjoy pinning down actions, or indeed creating numerous ideas and possibilities. A coaching style – whether you call it coaching or something else – is about having a conversation that is in service of the other person. It needs to work for them. If we stay in our preferred part of the conversation, that’s not partnership!”
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Claire writes: “There’s lots to learn in training events. Delegates make observations or ask questions that get me thinking. I have a sheet on my desk to catch them so that I can process them later without forgetting.
We were talking about staying in connection with someone as they are thinking, and the importance of looking as well as listening. A. used to be a translator and shared with us that you can only translate if you have your eyes on the speaker all the time. As soon as you look away, you lose connection. (I’m smiling now because I ran a session on active listening on Friday where I was being translated into Russian and forgot to share that insight with them!)
In conversations where the purpose is that we are keeping someone company while they do useful thinking, connection is everything. Connection is different from control. It can look like this. How can you keep in connection in conversations?”
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Claire writes: “It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it sang Ella Fitzgerald. You can try hard, Don’t mean a thing, Take it easy Then your jive will swing.
Try too hard in coaching and it becomes all about you. Take it easy, ask questions with a less is more mindset and you’re on the way to getting them to do the work. One way of doing that is to ask questions about what we are doing (process questions) unless a more wordy one really is going to be useful. Which it usually isn’t!”
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Claire writes: “This morning was the final module of Transforming Conversations. It’s the moment when people start to see everything they are unlearning come together and they grasp their courage in both hands. Twice this morning, even more courage would have looked like saying half a sentence as a question and leaving it with the thinker to respond.
Stuart emailed to ask if I have ever noticed a moment when you almost bottled it, but instead held your nerve and it paid off? Here’s his example:
Thinker: “x is something I suppose we’ll need to come on and talk about.”
Stuart: “Shall we go straight there?”
Thinker: “I suppose so.” [Launches into X]
Courage pays off!”
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Claire writes: “It’s interesting, I think, that the closer we are to something the less we see. People often talk about coaching as being a place to see the wood (or in the USA, the forest) for the trees. It’s the ability to facilitate someone else getting a different perspective that makes it work.
To facilitate their thinking well, we need to leave our opinions out – in our heads as well as what we say… or we both get too close to the trees.”
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Ruth writes: “The other day, as I was listening to a conversation, I started thinking about fishing. It sounded like the ‘professional’ in the situation was fishing for an answer, constantly casting their bait into the water, again and again trying to find a question that would catch the ‘fish’.
I don’t fish. And I imagine that casting the line in quick succession won’t get the desired result. The water would be constantly stirred up, not allowing the fish to come towards the hook.
I was left wondering how often we do that in conversations. When we ask repeated questions in quick succession – How will you know? Do you think that…? What might you need to do? and other brilliant questions I have in my stash to ask – we are constantly stirring the water, scaring away the fish. Scaring away the thought process.
I wonder if we are like fish, needing the bait and hook to be cast and for the water to settle so that we can think more clearly. As I coach I want to learn to be like a patient fisherman.”
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Claire writes: “It’s not unusual for the conversations we have to dive deep – but who decides whether we dive or not? A few years ago, we were in Paxos on a family holiday and the girls and I went for a scuba diving lesson. They loved it. I wasn’t ready when we did the deep (for beginners) dive. I hated it – even when the rather gorgeous instructor guided me by the hand along the sea floor. Everyone else saw amazing things. I just wanted to go home! We had, for me, dived too early.
In coaching, we need to have agreed what we are doing together today before we dive at all – and then only with permission. Otherwise we risk taking them places where we want to go that may be at best not useful and at worst resemble my scuba lesson. While we are working out together what to do today – or rightsizing, they may choose to go deep. That’s great – but I need to hold back on depth until we are clear what we are doing today. Otherwise I go to the deep coral because that interests me – and if I had waited I would have heard that today they’d like to look at the old shipwreck in the next bay.”
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Claire writes: “I’ve been thinking a lot about how important it is to go into conversations with empty pockets. Coaching mastery is about integration not accumulation of tools and techniques.
And yet we do go into every conversation with the privilege we do or don’t carry – our education, our gender, our colour or race. I’m grateful to a friend of colour who challenged me to think more deeply about this. Several months ago, when I was writing the book, she told me: ‘You have to talk about it in a way we can’t.’ This took me to listening to some challenging books including Akala’s Natives.
This video is another way of looking at privilege. We can’t get rid of our privilege. But acknowledging it is there is an important step forward if we are going to work in partnership as much as possible. What’s your privilege?
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Claire writes: “On our kitchen cupboard is a sticky note that says Is this a bracket? Sometime ago, after some coaching, I put that up to remind me to stop, take stock and reflect.
It feels like Covid19 has forced a break and given us the opportunity for a new paragraph. What I love about a new paragraph is that there is empty space in the gap. You can choose to carry on and write about the same subject or you can change the subject if you want to. I wonder what that means for me, for you?
Punctuation is also key to great conversations. When we catch what the other person is saying with phrases like OK or yes, they act like full stops. Great coaching conversations pay attention to pauses and the space in the words between us. It makes a significant difference to the thinking space we offer. I’ll be exploring Punctuation: Silence in Coaching in a special one hour masterclass on Wednesday 8th July 16.00 (UK). Places limited. £30 inc VAT. Register your interest by emailing info@3dcoaching.com”
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