I was at Insight HRC’s super ‘Disrupt-HR’ gathering last September where someone asked me this question.
I hesitated, what sort of coach am I? Mild panic set in, as even after almost twenty years as a coach, gaining my diplomas and CPD, varied conversations and supervision, I still didn’t have a swift answer.
It felt like a cop-out to say ‘Executive Coach’ (which I am, but it doesn’t feel like a complete or helpful answer). At the time I was rescued by someone answering for me – ‘well I always feel much better after I’ve been talking to Alison’. That short response has stayed with me and helped my confidence when it has wavered, but six months on from the question I am still mulling it over.
So here’s the thing: coaching is never just linear. The best facilitative conversations feel like an art as my client and I move between places to discover causes, effects and solutions. We keep a common thread and follow our themes, but we are adaptable and I have to be attentive so I can pick up small cues and expand on them at the appropriate moment.
At times this feels like being a ‘jack of all trades, but master of none’. I can draw on all kinds of tools – a touch of narrative conversation, a drop of timeline, a morsel of
Mindfulness. How about a little personal SWOT, or perceptual positioning; a helping of Socratic challenge maybe? There are many more – maybe this is why I don’t want to be constrained by a title.
I know that there is a place for an expert who can use any of these coaching techniques in depth, but what happens if it just doesn’t get the right responses in the conversation? What happens if it just blocks creative thought?
In the real world, what happens if we are exploring why someone is overwhelmed? If I am a business coach, what happens if the real causeof the overwhelm stems from problems at home? Do I then bring in a Life Coach?
Suppose we go for laser coaching because things need re-defining. What happens if the real issue is emotionally based and requires time, empathy and a space for just talking?
In the end, I am just more convinced that good coaching is context-dependent. Any one of us might have all the necessary skills, but we might need to work with other coaches too – just so that our clients can get the artful coaching that they deserve.
I feel more comfortable that I can work in a non-linear, un-prescribed fashion and that I can react to the needs of the moment. I’m OK with that.
There is a post script to this little blog; I have just been listening to a podcast on Eclectic and Integrative coaching. Now this has really helped to gel my ideas, though I’m afraid, once again, that Coaching schools might be trying to make a rigid framework out of something that needs to be apposite and bespoke – in the moment. So, I still think that there is an art to coaching which cannot be prescribed.
It was a beautiful day and the promise of a trip along fabulously folded coastal cliffs with possible sightings of seals and a variety of seabirds was enticing.
Ceibwr Bay
We knew that it had been breezy and that we could expect onshore (westerly) winds (around 10-13 mph) for a paddle out of Ceibwr bay. It was no surprise then to have some rolling swell even in the bay on an incoming tide. What we found was rather more than that. As we neared the end of the bay I could see a line of bigger water: larger swell with some white tops. Not so long ago, I wouldn’t even have got this far; not so long ago I would have been afraid to make a turn on these waves; not so long ago my butterflies would have been more than fluttering, they would have been dialling my fear needle to ten. Nonetheless, the swell was choppy and I wasn’t prepared to go any further. It is one thing to pass through a short patch of difficult water, but this would have been relentless and I didn’t feel ready, or safe, to continue.
We turned back.
So, these waves were, on the plus side, not too muddled, they were pretty much rolling inshore in regular sets and weren’t breaking. The downside was that they had tops disturbed by wind and were about a metre and a half of swell. Not only was I disappearing into troughs but it was very much a case of ‘now you see me, now you don’t’ when trying to spot Christopher in his yellow boat. When I looked at stills from the video, it was also possible to see just how much the boat was rocking and tipping, so (once again) I was blessing the primary stability of the Scorpio which is never in a hurry to tip me out.
We headed back towards the shore and my nerves calmed, my muscles settled, the butterflies ceased the manic flights. Reflecting, I realised that although it was still all a bit much for me today, the fear needle only reached about eight.
Do we have a sixth sense?
If you’ve read any of my other blogs or if you know me, you might well realise that the sea is not my immediately comfortable home: put me around horses and I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing it for pretty much all of my life and have managed to develop what I think is probably a sixth sense. So I’d like to talk about that sixth sense that we have around different environments and how that works for different people.
How often have you heard someone say jokingly, that we, as human beings have a sixth sense? It’s not really telepathy, but certainly if we’re talking about horses, we understand FEEL, and that’s not just by sitting on the horse, it’s about being around a horse. One of the things that has always interested me is how much people who are new to being around horses tend to get trodden on, nipped, barged over, or fall off. The reason for these mishaps is generally not because the horse is unpleasant or unkind, nor because the person is unpleasant or unkind: they haven’t yet developed that sixth sense. In practical terms it is just a little more than a flick of the horse’s ear, the look in it’s eye, the way it moves, the tension in it’s muscles, it’s reaction to the current environment. So in that context, we’re talking ‘horse sense’ and this is something that definitely changes the more you’re around horses. I could talk for ages on that, but today’s blog is about paddling, so holding onto this idea of a ‘learned sixth sense’, lets start relating this to kayaking so we can illustrate ‘feel’ in a different context.
My husband, Christopher, has been on the sea and around the sea, pretty much all his life in the same way that I have been around horses. He has that sixth sense around the sea. He understands it, he can see what’s happening. He interprets what’s going on very quickly. And he doesn’t get frightened by things which might unnerve others who – like me – are less used to the sea. It’s this same mystical sixth sense about what’s happening around us. The information that we are taking in is more than just visual, it is often defined by all our senses at once to create the complete picture.
When we relate this to learning or coaching we consider how we process the information around us (perception) and then couple this to the actions that we need to take in that situation. It’s a very personal thing and in coaching we need to allow individuals to discover their own solutions: it’s no good if I expect to manage my kayak over a particular wave in the same way that someone in a different kayak and of different build will manage theirs over that same wave.
This perception-action coupling is very possibly the modern idea of the ‘sixth sense’ or ‘feel’. Effective, coupled perception of our context, and action to manage it will ultimately make us safe and effective in our movements – and hence in our sport.
Relating ‘feel’ and confidence through experience
In both these sports (equestrian and paddling) we are having to move our bodies to balance and effect the movement that we need – a brace to stop the boat going over or a shift of our weight over the horse’s centre of balance to allow the horse to find it’s own way of moving. In order to be effective like this we need to be attuned to our environment and to be relaxed enough to move easily. (We can ‘self-organise’ and put ourselves in a useful position).
Ah.
With confidence comes a moment of calm which allows us to find the split moment in time to initiate the right movement or reaction. It’s also easier to move effectively if we are relaxed mentally and physically.
This is where reflection comes in. Whilst we need to do things ‘in the moment’ it is incredibly important to reflect on our experiences so that we can draw (personal) meaning from them and then pick out elements that will help us in future.
Taking up kayaking has reminded me of the feeling of ‘fear’ when faced with doing something. I think about the steps I take to improve my confidence on the water and then relate these to the equestrian environment. I’d like to think that I use this effectively as an empathetic approach towards helping people on their horses.
Classically, somebody will come to me and say they are afraid to go jumping. I need to understand that fear and I certainly do understand that fear. I’ve been there, I’ve fallen off , I’ve suffered with butterflies and nerves.
In the same way that I’ve now got used to that, I’m beginning to get used to kayaking on slightly bigger water, different waves and in different environments. I don’t think my sixth sense is developed yet, but I’m certainly, perceiving things differently. I’m able to feel things more easily. I’m be able to look at waves and be rational about what is likely to happen. Is it a bit lumpy? Is it a swell coming towards me? Will my boat just ride over that, or am I going to get tipped in? Is that a Whirlpool? Is that swirling water? Is that fast running water? What’s it going to do to the boat?
And now, instead of having all the terrifying worst case scenarios run through my mind, I can actually think, ‘No, I have been there. I’ve been through that. And I’ve survived it. And this is what I did’.
Rules for developing confidence
We all know that someone can tell you to ‘relax!’ until they’re blue in the face and the more they do that, the less you will relax. If we add in a constraint of some kind, (close your eyes, chat and be distracted, focus on a different issue/challenge or element) and you will find that you relax (into doing what you need to do) without even realising it. Look at the cormorants and you’ll stop focusing on where the next wave is coming from. You can look at the scenery, you can look at things around you, and you suddenly think, ‘Oh, I’ve got from A to B. And I didn’t worry about it. And it was fine. And I did the right paddle strokes’. It’s the same with riding, often I have my nervous jumpers singing or watching me instead of the jump. Their first thought, typically, is that I’m mad, but it works.
So that’s the first thing the second thing is experience. Again, someone can tell you that this particular sort of wave is not going to tip you in if you do this, that or the other. If we are nervous, we need to prove it to ourselves; only then will we embed it in our own experience log. Remember to learn as you go, start to create the link between the environment and what it is that you do to achieve your result. When you reflect you can use that again in a benchmark for future trips.
Third, compare your experiences and create a measure for how far you have come. Don’t be pushed. If there is one thing that we need to know about confidence it is that (for most people) it as fragile as fine glass. With my jumpers, I always create a ‘safety zone’ – it’s a jump or jumps that they can always complete so that if things go pear-shaped (they will at some point because that is part of learning!), they will have a good start-point to help rebuild when we need to. I recently created an argument for never leaving your comfort zone – that’s another story – but the advantages of staying within it are that you can fine-tune skill, you can relax and enjoy what you do and you can become expert in small (but important) things. My message here is don’t cross the comfort line too far or too soon. One day you will decide for yourself that you want the next challenge and you will step out of that comfort zone happily and comfortably. It’s the same with horses. It’s the same with jumping. It’s the same with paddle sports. (Oh, and it’s the same in organisations too!).
Reflecting on y our own experience is crucial. It doesn’t have to be written or spoken aloud, just thinking through what has happened and what you’ve done. You might ask yourself questions:
‘Did I do the best thing there?’
‘Could I change my technique for a better outcome? ‘
‘Was the result what I wanted? ‘Did it need to be better or different?’
‘Realistically am I able to change what I did?’ ‘ Do I need new skills?’
…and so on….
And in summary…..
You can build your own experience, you reflect on it and that’s effectively what I’m doing through my blogs and my videos. It’s not so much to share it for the world to see because there’s nothing dramatic here, but in taking on a new sport I have gained an opportunity to re-visit ‘nerves’ and that, I hope, will benefit not only me but also my equestrian clients.
I will always be delighted if somebody else who has the same kind of confidence issues that I have can read this and realise that they aren’t alone. I’m not afraid to say ‘I can’t do that, (yet)’. I’m not afraid to say ‘I don’t want to go there (today)’.
So if you’ve got any questions about building confidence, if you’ve got any questions about how to say no, if you’ve got any questions about whether you’re feeling you’re wimping out, just give me a call, drop me a line, send me an email, and we’ll sort out how to build confidence. (It’s true in any sport, but also in my executive coaching world). It’s little by little and it’s through self reflection, and positive support from the people around you.
How often are we asked what our values are? It is a common leadership and organisational question. The trouble is, if we are caught on the spot, we are unlikely to identify our values clearly.
Recently I was invited to run a workshop where we planned to look at the personal values of the leadership team and see how closely they matched the organisational values. As always, I did some research and came up with no fewer than 150 words which might be used to describe ‘values’. Unsurprisingly there is plenty of cross-over in the list, but this highlighted the fact that we just don’t define our values closely enough.
So why do we need to see this detail?
If we can agree that the best teams and organisations have matching values, then we are likely to see a more cohesive and easily developed culture. When we have to keep adjusting our values to fit in with an organisation that has a different world-view, we can probably cope for a while, but there will inevitably be friction or stress further down the line – and this isn’t helpful for anyone.
In coaching conversations, my question, ‘What are your top three personal values?’, generally elicits some version of ‘honesty’, ‘fairness’ and ‘respect’. We need to be much clearer on our own values and there are a number of ways in which this can be achieved.
As a coach, I’ll take a Socratic approach here and challenge the person being questioned with open-ended questions that are going to encourage them to reflect. We will explore the ideas of their first-stated values with questions that clarify and challenge their statement. We’ll seek the reasons and evidence for their choice and look for other ideas. It isn’t about being ‘Devil’s Advocate’, more about looking for alternative perspectives and conditions.
It is important, in this conversation, to bring the values to life, remove them from the esoteric world and put them firmly into day to day situations. For example, what did ‘honesty’ look like at work yesterday? How did it relate to truth or justice, or maybe to quality or empathy. How was it different from integrity? How does it link with fairness? Once this starts to be unpicked, we gain glimpses into those other 149 words that describe values and we can use this filter to create a much more refined definition of honesty.
Another way to unpick values is to consider what really upsets you (what makes you shout at the TV, or inwardly growl when you see particular events), or, what makes you shout with joy and excitement.
I had a slightly unnerving experience of this just yesterday and it has really made me stop and think.
Every year, I have planted a few more daffodil bulbs along the hedge near our horse’s paddock. I planted them because I absolutely adore these wonderful bright, yellow, heralds of spring and we are lucky in Wales to have so many that blossom as we head out of grey Winter days. I also think it’s nice for other people to see them, so it’s a shared thing and that is why they are in the hedgerow visible to anyone passing. If I didn’t want to share the joy, I could put them where other people won’t see them. But I love doing it. It’s a bit of work, a bit of money, but the reward is huge. Yesterday I arrived to see someone picking some of these daffodils, and my immediate thoughts were dreadful. How dare you pick these daffodils? How dare you take them when I put something there for everyone to enjoy? How dare you……. The more reasonable reaction is to want to explain why it’s a bad idea to go around picking flowers, not to accuse someone of doing something terrible. So what has this to do with values?
I was cross because I had created something that not only can I enjoy, but also other people, and that had been violated. Clearly, I feel that it is important to share, be generous in heart and practice. Nature can be beautiful in a sometimes horrible World, so there there is a spiritual tale to be told here too. I would probably have upset the woman terribly by simply shouting at her, and what does that achieve? So maybe, just maybe I have another value which shows through here and that is that I like people. I hate upsetting people. I want to be kind. All these thoughts jumbling in my head and screaming that my values are actually very clear.
So if you’re thinking about values, if somebody comes to you in a leadership workshop and asks, ‘What are your values?’, don’t just say, honesty, integrity and fairness. Give it some thought, think about what might make you cross, what gets you so viscerally moved that you can feel your emotion, feel your values.
This is how you identify the things that really really matter to you.
I’m part way through running a Coaching Skills for Leaders in Education’ and, as always when I have to deliver or share information, it makes me think and review my own practice. The group that I am working with are wonderfully engaged and curious and this means that when we reflect together we are coming up with some processes and ideas around coaching that are bespoke for their working world. We made some notes on contracting as well as how we use coaching, so I thought it might be interesting for other people who are considering how coaching fits into daily work.
First:The introduction We discussed how the coachee was going to come to you. Being offered the opportunity to have some coaching is one thing, to be sent for coaching might feel completely different. We need to remember that coaching is fundamentally a supportive intervention and must not be remedial or punitive. It is, however, developmental – there is a subtle difference.
Next: Setting up the meeting The first meeting needs to be a ‘chemistry conversation’. This is an opportunity for you and your (potential) coachee to see if you can get on easily and to decide whether it will be a fruitful match. Covering basic facts at this stage means that you can start your first ‘real’ coaching conversation swiftly and get going on meaningful work without any hindrance.
This group also wanted to discuss how we use a coaching approach without formal meetings: in essence how we are able to support individuals to find their own route through specific problems that might arise on a day to day basis. The beauty of this is that we can encourage people to stand on their own feet, find answers and explore safely to implement their own solutions.
Third: A few general tips ✓ Remember to set up the room (tables, chairs, lighting) so that you can work with good body language. ✓ Remember not to ‘collude’, show empathy rather than sympathy. ✓ Remember to let the coachee lead the conversation: if it is difficult to get started, then use a narrative approach and build rapport. Maybe ask them to talk about their week? Their weekend? ✓ Make sure that you have prepared beforehand and that you both have time. There is little worse than having to stop the conversation at a crucial point!
Finally: Coaching contract – the ground rules Ideally these should be set by both coach and coachee together, but experience tells me that it isn’t always that easy. To start with, it is important to identify any assumptions (it’s confidential isn’t it?) and to make sure that you both have the same, clear understanding of how your conversations will go. You may need to prompt your coachee with some possibilities to get started.
Remember – you need to build a comfortable environment of trust, rapport and ease. Here are a few things that you may want to cover: Confidentiality Safe-space, what ‘confidential’ means to each of you, elements which may not be confidential or which you may need to share (serious issues, safeguarding, immoral or illegal behaviour. Decide and state how you will deal with this if it should arise). Booking and planning meetings Contact details, missed appointments, emergencies, where and how you will meet, length of meetings, making changes. Note-taking Notes that you take, what you will share, how you will safeguard privacy Interruptions Creating the quiet time and space for a high-quality, focussed conversation. Openness, frankness and boundaries of comfortable conversation What will you ask? What won’t you ask? What are you both comfortable with? Stopping the conversation. Postponements. Emotions. Declaration of interest Are there any conflicts? Family, friends or professional relationships which might affect the openness and psychological safety’ that you need to develop? Being non-judgemental Not there to give advice, judge or provide the answers. Essentially we are facilitating the coachee to find answers for themselves. Holding to account, telling, shifting boundaries You may want to discuss how you’ll help your coachee to keep their commitment to action, or to share your own experience. Be clear on how you’ll do this.
It would be great to hear what you would add to this brief ‘get started’ list.
This poor freshwater goldfish is about to leap into the sea and although the water might look similar to his current environment, it will be fatal for him.
I was privileged to speak at the inaugural South Wales DisruptHR event last night, beautifully organised by Insight. Preparing for the presentation caused me to make a serious pause and consider how taking a new perspective can challenge our thinking.
This is how it goes….
We are constantly told to ‘push the envelope’, ‘step outside our comfort zone’, ‘define stretch objectives’. We exist in working and living environments that are constantly challenging us to do more, work smarter, be more productive, change, take on new responsibilities, grow and develop on a personal as well as professional level. This can be exhausting and it can be stressful.
Let me rewind for a moment and put this to you: the commonest requests for help through my coaching conversations revolve around confidence and self-belief.
You can NOT hand out confidence and self-belief to people, but you CAN take it away.
I could talk or write for ages on why this is so and draw on examples from sport as well as from organisations and work. Perhaps more helpfully, here I will offer some ideas that’ll help you to make a start in understanding how you can develop confidence and self-belief. (And let’s be honest, if we have those two amazing attributes, then the world is our oyster isn’t it?)
So, why stay in your comfort zone?
First – it is safe. You know what you are doing, you can run on auto-pilot and life is relatively predictable.
Second – if you can run on auto, this will give you space and time to think and reflect on what is good, what you enjoy, what you are good at, and to see what opportunities are available.
Third – you can be the expert. You can do what you do well and continue to be good at it. The trick here is to use the space you have created from familiarity and ease to recognise that you are good at certain things.
Fourth – ask yourself how you came to be expert. Did you plan this from the outset? Did you take opportunities that arose? How far have you come? Did you expect to be at this point now?
Standing on the Cantilever Stone
Fifth – which are the things that make you happiest? What are the things that bring you joy?
Sixth – is this YOUR choice? If not, then whose is it and why? What more do YOU want?
If you can answer all those questions and truly reflect on all the things you do well, then you might start to look at opportunities that aren’t available to you yet. You have confidence in what you are already doing and if you decide to move onto new plans then you can take that with you and build on it at your own pace. (Just as you have done in the past to get to today).
So, don’t hurry out of your comfort zone – use it to embrace all that you are now. Enjoy and celebrate what you can do and how far you have already come. Then and only then, you (and only you) can decide on what you want to do next. You are prepared to take steps outside your comfort zone.
Only leave your comfort zone when You want to
So let’s suggest to the gold fish that he leaps from a small bowl to a larger one – not out into the sea.
After two years of struggle (and no clear end in sight) Covid has made life difficult, sad, frustrating and exhausting for just about everyone. In a spirit of New Year Optimism and in line with the energy with which I see people getting out and about with their horses, I have put together a comprehensive programme of equestrian events for Spring 2022.
We will have:
Dressage test riding (how do I get an extra few percent in my test);
Polework to develop strength, suppleness and horse-rider coordination;
Coaching focus on the rider (how you can ride to get the best ‘conversation with your horse);
Coachng focus on the horse (what sort of exercises will most help my horse in his work?);
Jumping for nervous or novice horses / riders and a progressive session working on jumping technique.
Zoom chats
My aim throughout is for you to be enjoying what you are doing with your horse and helping you to see how you can keep improving even if you have nobody on the ground watching.
Jan 19th
Feb 2nd
Feb 16th
Mar 2nd
Mar 16th
Mar 30th
Polework
Ground poles for suppleness, strength,coordination
5pm
7pm
5pm
7pm
5pm
5pm
Building confidence over fences
Ground poles building to small fences focusing on confidence and technique for horse and rider
6pm
6pm
6pm
6pm
6pm
6pm
Jumping gym
Small courses, grids and other exercises (up to about 90cm)
In lockdown last year we started up a ‘Mojo Monday’ get together over Zoom. We discovered quite a few interesting things including:
We have quite many equestrian acquaintances but not so many people that we felt we could pick up the phone and talk to.
As a group we had a lot of experience, knowledge and equestrian understanding that was well worth sharing.
We had a variety of reasons for going out to competitions, but one of this top ones was the social effect.
Pivo cameras aren’t an easy ‘self-schooling’ option!
Having a coach with you helps with confidence and focus (even when we actually have a good idea of what we are doing).
Zoom means we are not restricted by geography!
…and that’s just for starters.
I was recently asked if we were going to do the Monday Mojos again to help each other to get through these miserable dark evenings. It seems like a good idea: I don’t know about you, but once we pass the shortest day, get through Christmas and emerge into a new year, it always feels as if things should improve. Our New Year resolutions, the lighter evenings, the weather…. And, as I sit here writing this at 4pm on 6th January 2022 it is almost dark, the rain is hammering against the window and I’ve had to warm up a bean bag to keep my toes from getting frostbite. The horses will be out in the rain with their backs to the wind and probably sulking even when I head down to see them in the next hour. So, the disappointment of the new year hits soon and it hits hard (So here is a nice warm looking picture!)
We will be getting together for some more informal chats over Zoom on Monday 24th January at 7pm (BD rules and regs and when is a dressage 7 not a 7?!); Monday 21st February (7pm again, ‘Why is suppleness so important and how do we get it?) and finally Monday 21st March when we’ll have a quiz. Everyone submits a couple of questions and then we all answer all but our own!
I am there to be admin and facilitator but I’m not going to provide lectures! It would be lovely to see what everyone brings to the table this time.
It can be easy to up your marks in dressage by doing a few straightforward things.
For example, in Prelim 19 each mark is worth 0.34% so just adding half a mark for the test movements could shift you from 61% to a super-looking 67%. Simply riding
Long Arena Test riding dates
round circles in the right place with an even rhythm could add between 2.5 and 5 marks (or 1-2%). In elementary 59 we are still looking at about 0.3% so an extra half mark on even only half the movements and the collectives will bring you an added 2%. (Doesn’t sound much but compare how pleased you be with 66% over 63.9 or 64%.
We all know that things are usually easier in practice but a trip inside the white boards can change all that in an instant. Suddenly everything has to happen at a marker (unlike the warm-up); there are flower pots in odd places (or so your horse thinks); the judge’s car has the windscreen wipers going; there might be a banner that could flap at the edge of the arena.
You know only too well that the instant you feel any nerves your horse is going to pick up on it and think ‘ uh oh, my rider is worried about something. There must be something I need be looking out for….what is it?…Is this a dangerous place?’
And then you, the rider, think ‘uh oh, horse is upset about something. Wonder what he’s seen?… Is he going to spook?’
This is when getting the basic things right in the test can help because you can automatically ride a round circle, you know how far ahead of E you need to start preparing for a transition, you know that you can focus on keeping the right rhythm.
Our test riding sessions help to identify the
Short arena test riding
things that you can do well to gain extra marks, so you can go into the arena with something positive to work on. We’ll look at what the judge is seeing that can make a 6 into a 7 or a 7 into an 8. We can look at why centrelines are so important and why the underlying training is so crucial to get a good ‘way of going’.
I don’t have stats for it, but the most likely place that you’ll get a 10 is probably your halt. How can you do that? How do we decide on that all important doubled mark for a free or extended walk?
This Spring I’m running Zoom chat sessions as well as test-riding in both long and short arenas so why not come and see for yourself where all those dressage marks are currently hiding?
We all have to have them at work (and sometimes at home!), and it must be one of the most common themes that raises its head in my leadership coaching sessions.
I’ve been back to school, (well working in schools) and goodness have I been learning a lot recently. As well as being a coaching topic of conversation, I run workshops on courageous conversations, and not only am I discovering the true meaning of coaching, (in another article you’ll find me talking about ‘how to coach through sharing’) but I am seeing more examples of tough conversations and more ways to handle them.
I will give you some tips on how to have your courageous conversations, but first it might be more help to highlight ways in which you can discover how to plan them for yourselves. After all, it is you who will be in the room, not me!
There are any number of resources on how to have difficult conversations and over the past 18 months I seem to have been doing a lot of reading (as well as listening!) around the subject, so I will be distilling some of the points which seem to shine through most often.
We worry about conflict
Not all conflict is bad. It’s just that the word itself has negative connotations. Consider ‘challenge’, or ‘competition’ or ‘different perspectives’. Quite often what we see at first to be conflict can actually be questioning, challenging or re-framing.
Let’s face it, healthy challenge broadens the mind and promotes new understandings and perspectives. It keeps us all awake to new or alternative views, different ideas or alternative beliefs and values. In our communities, this social element is crucial and whilst we don’t have to agree with opposing views, if we avoid being judgmental then things can immediately start to ease up: once we start to understand someone else’s view we can start to walk in their shoes.
Think about sport perhaps? Living in Wales we see the fierce competition and battles of words every Six Nations when the Welsh/English match comes up. The strength of feeling is almost tangible, but it is sport and the effect of disagreements is limited. Everyone (pretty much) moves on. (And then we have the same next time!) The competition is healthy and stimulating.
Oh, and just a thought; if you never need to have a ‘difficult’ conversation, if you never have any opposing views, then it is worth asking yourself if you are looking straight past it and giving it a wide berth. (You won’t be the first person to do this!)
What sort of conversation is it?
So, having taken some of the sting out of the idea of conflict or disagreement, it’s worth stepping back and thinking about what kind of ‘difficult’ conversation it needs to be. There is merit in picking your battles, nobody likes a nit-picker. Look for the things which really matter.
Let’s start with the toughest: these are issues which are around serious misconduct, behaviour or ongoing performance issues. They may have already escalated to include HR and could have implications for long term employment. Someone has to have these conversations, but – apart from gross misconduct – they should have been picked up and managed over a period of time.
Next in line are the issues that affect the day to day: in schools it might be a failure to create an effective learning environment, marking books or drifting away from the curriculum.
The least tricky might be about dealing with lateness, forgetfulness or a change in someone’s way of working.
A small aside here; performance reviews and appraisals are not the place for dealing with these problems. Remember a golden rule – no shocks or surprises in appraisals. They are there to develop good performance and although they need to allow for review of past work, having a ‘difficult conversation’ within that forum is going to damage chances of a positive meeting to look to the future.
Doorstepping and corridor conversations
Let’s be clear: if you need to deal with something that is going wrong it needs to be given the time, consideration and respect that it warrants. Creating a formal meeting means that you and the other individual can focus on what needs to be discussed. Imagine a box and put the conversation into it, take it somewhere safe to open it where you can both explore the contents in a safe space. As you take the issues out of the box in that space you can look at them carefully and without interruption. They will show their importance much better than a quick, ‘..oh, by the way….’
Tips
The great thing is that these are not my tips, they are not taken from a book, they are not generic rules. They are taken from Senior Leaders in Education who worked closely together and attended our workshop. I love this and it is what really got me to thinking about how effective coaching comes from sharing. Certainly, there will not be any great surprises in these top tips if you are used to having difficult conversations, but the wonderful thing about these in particular is that they are drawn up by the very people who will be using them, so they can be taken back to the real world in a ready to use form.
Plan what you are going to say. (Practice aloud, talk to the dog, go through it with a colleague – like role play).
Be empathetic rather than sympathetic (Don’t ‘collude’, but do build rapport).
Listen between the lines (Interpret, listen actively).
Allow the other person time to talk (let them think, LISTEN to their solutions, allow yourself time to think, hold the silence!).
Have a detailed and objective understanding of the issue. HAVE CLEAR EXPECTATIONS (outcome, tone of conversation, what can be achieved in one conversation)
Be clear from the very start of the conversation.
Be precise, be clear, be specific, be concise, use careful questioning
Stick to the message.
Be open-minded and non-judgmental (Listen to their views but be clear on the required outcome).
Consider how you use ‘we’, ‘I’, ‘you’. (We are a team, I will help you, you need to do this, we all want the same outcome – for the children ultimately).
Gain commitment and check understanding (Set deadlines, review times).
Work with the whole team for a solution (Don’t take it all on yourself).
Bounce things back, keep the ball in their court. They need to think of solutions, take responsibility)
Remember, you can do this. YOU’VE GOT THIS!!
Finally…
There is no quick way to learn how to have these courageous conversations – I could run an entire programme on the different elements that come into consideration. I’m not sure that they get any easier with experience, but what I am pretty certain about is that – with practice and experience) we can get braver about having them.
This article introduces us to the reasons why coaching can be a very successful intervention in supporting leaders and aspiring leaders on their leadership journey. This particular offering is based around resilience, (tested greatly 2020-21), but could equally well focus on other leadership and personal development themes. It includes face to face coaching with the option of virtual sessions and can be monitored using a mental toughness questionnaire at the outset and close to demonstrate areas of change.
THE PROGRAMME
The aims for the programme and coaching practice
The programme is designed to deliver specialist educational leadership coaching based around organisational leadership with a focus on strategy; delivery and accountability; people management; workload consideration and accountability; long-term development and divergent thinking to meet the needs of the future educational landscape (sustainability) and financial and partnership working for more effective leadership.
The coaches involved are experienced professional coaches who have worked for many years in education and who bring an objective perspective to their coaching in this particular environment.
The coaching programme offers a supportive framework for the team as well as individuals and is based around real-world challenges which ensures that the conversations have a practical impact on leadership capability in the setting of each individual’s role.
The coaching meetings always have an agenda driven by the participant, with the coach offering a facilitated conversation which allows the coachee to explore their own ideas and derive their own solutions with guidance as necessary.
In the context of educational organisations the expectation of coaching is often centred around mentoring from an experienced school leader who provides support through specific guidance and help, but with an encouragement to the coachee to explore and extend knowledge themselves. As such, this falls between ‘pure’ mentoring and ‘pure or facilitative’ coaching. Coaching in other contexts – such as this programme – is more wide ranging, allowing the coachee to drive the conversations. A facilitative coach helps the client to develop the ability to grow knowledge and confidence through reflection and understanding of themselves which encourages deeper learning and a longer-lasting benefit.
Why coaching rather than formal training?
NPQs, tailored support programmes and other leadership development within Education have long used coaching to support the development of leadership skills introduced through formal training courses.
Coaching is accepted as the best long-term driver of change. As far back as the turn of the 20th Century, John Dewey (in his ‘Pedagogical Creed’) recognised that learning by doing was a powerful method for education. Both problem-based learning and project-based learning have elements that are relevant to coaching today, highlighting how we can learn in a practical, real-world environment and develop skills which will be valuable for long-term self-development and efficacy. This approach to learning helps us to develop flexible knowledge, effective problem-solving skills, self-directed learning skills, effective collaboration and intrinsic motivation.
Coaching facilitates the link between what is happening and how we can develop our skills to achieve goals not only now, but in future.
Research from Leeds Beckett University in January 2020 describes how coaching helps to build leadership capacity.* This is a key report and highlights some important features which coaching addresses, including the ability to build resilience whist maintaining well-being. The reciprocal nature of the coaching relationship helps individuals to feel supported, build confidence and to deal more easily with the pressures of their role. The space away from daily work and time for them to reflect effectively with an impartial sounding board (as opposed to advisor or peer) provides an opportunity to ‘stand on the balcony’ and take a good look at what is happening in their school.
As a relatively new concept in leadership development contexts, there is a fairly small amount of information on monitoring success. Coaching, by definition, is intangible and it can be difficult to demonstrate clear change which is attributable to coaching. Businesses use ‘Return on Capital Employed’ (ROCE) which can show hard indicators like spend related to profit, but in recent years psychologists and leaders have brought in the idea of using cultural, social or human capital as measures for the more intangible interventions in organisations. More recently we have become aware of the importance of emotional intelligence and the clear link here to emotional capital provides us with the means to look more objectively at the effect that coaching is having.
For this programme we benchmark Mental Toughness (resilience) by using a well- researched psychometric – MTQ Plus – and comparing results at the start of the programme with those seen at the close.
Emotional Capital and Mental Toughness
Daniel Goleman, a leading thinker on emotional intelligence, is a psychologist whose book ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter More than IQ’, brings this theme to the mainstream.
He describes five attributes of emotional intelligence which include:
– self-awareness (recognising our own emotions and their effects)
– self-regulation (emotional control, adaptation)
– social skill (interpersonal relationships)
– empathy (understanding others and decision-making)
– self-motivation (drive and enthusiasm)
These attributes relate very closely to the work on mental toughness and resilience that we are using as a framework for this coaching programme. In particular, the links to life and emotional control and to self-confidence (esteem) are clear.
The MTQ Plus questionnaire focusses on these themes (see section on MTQ Plus) and therefore help us to develop a relevant benchmark and exit point to see how the team develops over the period of the coaching programme.
Whilst it would be rewarding to think that any change is down to coaching, we need to take a realistic view and weave this in with the external factors which are particularly potent this year, (2020/21). In particular we need to consider:
The shock of the pandemic
The loss of school-year milestones
The requirement to change all practices quickly
The use of technology
Individual flexibility and role changes
Managing the unknown
Planning for the unknown
Loss of local control
The coaching conversations focus on day to day challenges, but each coachee creates specific actions or elements of learning from each session and identifies how that will move into real impact for their work and therefore for the children in the school.
Summary
Coaching as a development tool is focussed on individual needs (bespoke), facilitative (develops an ability to self-motivate and improve accountability), and it encourages reflection. It also provides a ‘safe space’ in a busy and fast-changing environment, allowing individuals to stand back and take a more objective and strategic view of their working world.
