How to keep your cool (and your coaching stance)

I recently had a conversation which could have been titled: ‘Moments in the life of an Agile Coach that drive you #@$@ crazy!’

You know those situations when a particularly unhelpful management behavior keeps showing up again, and again, and again. Or when you think you made some huge progress with a team, and then one moment everything seems to have been forgotten. Or when you think you can move forward with something awesome, only to find yourself confronted with a large bureaucratic hurdle.

The conversation made me reflect on my journey so far — on how I have become better at dealing with those kinds of situations. Here are a few things that had a big impact for me:

• Meditation / mindfulness exercises. I used to consider myself a proud member of the ‘I don’t buy into that stuff’ society. Some challenging situations prompted me to give it a try. And it turns out that it works for me. There has been quite some research on the matter in recent years. A critical examination of the claims is definitely in order. Still, some of the findings on the effectiveness of mindfulness are harder to reject (1, 2). This might make it easier for sceptics to give it a go. In my experience, there is nothing that prepares you better for ‘one of those moments’ than being relaxed and aware of what is going on. It makes it so much harder for your lizard brain to want to bite back, run, or freeze.
• Nonviolent Communication (NVC) teaches us about being aware of our needs. It thereby helps us to be more empathetic towards others and their needs. Being able to approach situations like this is a game changer. I just don’t have enough space here to thank Marshall Rosenberg for leaving us all his wisdom (3).
• On top of delving into NVC, I went through a six-month conflict mediation training. It greatly helps to sharpen your awareness of your own behavior. And helps you develop a better understanding of how others act in conflict situations.

It takes time to build habits for dealing better with tough situations. And even more time to develop a different mindset. As a first step, it can help to start thinking of people’s actions as their strategies to meet their needs. Sometimes these strategies are tragically ineffective and harmful for them and others. Here it is especially helpful to show empathy by acknowledging that they are also just chasing happiness.

What are some of your strategies to keep your cool?

(1) Harvard Business Review; Daniel Goleman: Here’s What Mindfulness Is (and Isn’t) Good For https://hbr.org/2017/09/heres-what-mindfulness-is-and-isnt-good-for

(2) The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkley; Jeremy Adam Smith et al.: The State of Mindfulness Science https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_state_of_mindfulness_science

(3) The Center for Nonviolent Communication https://www.cnvc.org/