Claire writes: “So England is in lockdown again.  Version 3.0. For various complicated reasons, we have found ourselves living in a different house in each lockdown. On one level that’s annoying because in our in-between home we don’t have access to most of our books – and there aren’t many jobs that need doing hanging about. On the whole this is a huge advantage because we aren’t feeling stuck. There are new places to explore on daily walks and new views from the window.

Many people – all over the world – have spent much of the last 9 months in the same chair looking at the same screen.. I have many conversations with people who are talking about feeling stuck in some way. They are feeling stuck and the chair that they are sitting in and the screen they are looking at is compounding that. They have probably talked about those feelings – or thought about them – while sitting in the same chair talking to people through the same screen. Fitness instructors talk about muscle memory.  Your eyes and your backside will have developed muscle memory around this chair and this screen. 

If we want to facilitate people to think differently – or even just be a good friend to someone, it’s probably useful to get out of that chair and away from that screen. The movement in itself will begin to unlock the stuckness. That might look like taking through Zoom while standing up and leaving against the wall. Or it might be that you both pop on a phone headset and go for a walk and talk. You’re both going to have to work really hard if you’re talking about stuckness and sitting in those chairs looking at those screens. Move!”

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We are delighted to share that Alexandru Popa has joined the 3D team to deliver systemic board and team development.  At the same time, Clare Townsend and Ruth Bennett will be developing some events for young people at decision points as well as offering them 1-1 coaching.  The 3D Team work will enable us to offer 3D Youth work at low cost. Call the office if you want to talk with Alex, Clare or Ruth.

newsong / Pixabay

Claire writes: ‘There is nothing new under the sun. And everything we learn and share through our work are things some people know intuitively and use sometimes. Yet naming them gives us the opportunity to integrate them more fully into the things we do.

Moving, we know, can both speed up our thinking and help move us from being stuck. Nietzsche said ‘Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.’ In coaching it’s especially useful because we are more able to notice when our companion is having new insights. A recent tweeter tried it out: @3dclaire might appreciate knowing that, this morning, I walked around Pimlico for 40 minutes, half a centimetre behind someone. It worked a treat. #simplenoteasy’

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Claire writes: “Einstein says we can’t solve a problem in the frame in which created it.

Many problems in organisations have been talked about around meeting room tables plenty of times. Which is why standing up or moving to a different layout or a different place can unlock everything.

I worked with a group a few weeks ago who were amazed how far they got and how optimistic they were able to be.  That’s because we did most of the work at the end of the room without furniture. And we didn’t sit down.”

#changethemedium

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Claire writes: “I love this picture of a man and a child fishing. Their proximity and focus on discovering something together – even though the father may be an expert fisherman – models well what we are learning about effective conversations at work.

Where and how we sit can impact how the conversation evolves. I remember talking with hospital consultants who were using a coaching approach with colleagues to offer peer support. Efficiency meant that the peers arrived at the end of the clinic and sat… in the patients chair. The consultants knew the conversations were not the best they could be. So they decided to swap chairs and the quality improved. They had been treating their colleagues like patients.

Your context will be different. But changing to a different chair, a different environment, or moving from a position that feels like reporting back may well change the quality of the conversation.”

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Claire writes: ‘We have a sofa in our meeting room which usefully gives people a variety of choices where to sit. The other day someone came in, made themselves comfortable on the sofa and said that to be able to think they needed to download some difficult stuff first. Which they did.

Then they indicated that they were ready to move forward in their thinking. It felt heavy, so I invited them to move up to the other end of the sofa. What happened next was extraordinary. Any time that the past came up in her conversation, they said ‘but that belongs over there’. Which allowed them to own the stuff, and to move on.

That’s another example of where moving works. In his book Rest, Alex-Soojung-Kim-Pang explores some research about why that’s true – it has some interesting insights.”

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