Coaching: Enabling positive change through observation
As someone who dabbles in philosophy as a way to understand people and what drives them to behave the way they do, I wonder how fixed we are in our career paths or on a more granular level, how we deal with people and work in our day to day lives.
I am not a believer in the idea that as part of one universe which is governed by some supreme power or rules, our fate is predetermined. Instead I believe that we are able to choose to follow instinctual patterns of behaviour or not, depending on our own consciousness of that pattern of behaviour.
So with this in mind, how does a people enabler begin to become conscious of a person’s potentially unconscious set of behaviours, even before they are even aware of them themselves? And how can the enabler then help them use it to their advantage or begin to change it, in accordance with what we feel is beneficial to that person, or in my case, the work which we as an agile team are embarking on?
Tea (I prefer Earl Grey)
It must surely all start with coffee, or tea in my case. The best thing about office life can sometimes simply be having a chat over a warm beverage, preferable out of the office. This is usually the first thing I would aim to do with every individual I start to work with at a new company or on a new project. It seems obvious, but I think there is so much pressure on delivery and results these days that this simple gesture can be missed. Making the time to buy someone a coffee and ask them about themselves is the best way to start to understand who they are and what brought them to this point in time doing what they do.
Be like David Attenborough
There is a recent Facebook app which allows you to find out how Sir David would narrate your life, mine read like this:
*Strolls in through the front door of a bar*
“Here..we can see the exact moment when Eleanor finds her way back to her natural habitat.”
Oh David, you have me so pegged….you legend.
What I mean is, allow yourself to observe the person or team from a distance, without trying to change or interfere with how they naturally or currently behave. This allows you to pick up on their behaviours, who they like, who they don’t get on with as much, who they go for lunch with. It informs you of any potential team differences or conflicts, simply by doing nothing. This will form a baseline to work from in terms of being able to go to the next stage in mentoring the individual. You may observe what we would typically call positive traits and negative traits, but I prefer to see them as just traits. Steering clear of labelling traits as good and bad will avoid labelling people as good or bad, we are not here to judge, simply observe and understand. I am a strong believer that there is no good or bad intrinsically, simply actions which have effects. What I try to bring into all my thinking around teams and helping to understand people is to go back to the basics of what some call Enlightenment.
The Basics
1. Nonjudgement
2. Nonresistance
3. Nonattachment
More about that in a later blog post…
Reflect
Stage 3 would come after a few weeks, at this stage you’re established into the team, and with any luck you’ve been accepted, fingers crossed. So by now you should be building trust within your team, trust gained by allowing people to be themselves in that safe, nonjudgemental environment. It’s time to reflect back to them what you have observed and see whether they agree with this or not, its a chance for them to actually reflect and give you the background detail. This may be around for example, a relationship with another team member which they are finding challenging. Or it could be that they are not getting what they need out of someone. The conversation should stay light, you are not psychoanalysing them (not much anyway) and there is no idea that anything has consequences, its just a chat. But there may be actions that can be taken either on your side or theirs. Actions might come from the next stage, invite.
Invite
This idea of inviting someone to do something came from a course I did last year, whereby our course leader instead of telling us we had to do something, like homework, she invited us. It felt so much nicer and more grown up to be able to make a choice on that action, instead of being dictated to or told. For me it had much better consequences since I found myself eager to do whatever she had invited me to do. I guess it’s like being invited to a party, it always feels nice. You might say to them something like this, ‘ I’d invite you David, to take a look at that situation differently.’ ‘I’d invite you to perhaps take a step back and think about how the other person might be feeling.’ ‘I’d invite you to think about what you could do to make sure you get to work on time tomorrow.’ Etc. If you feel it’s coming off patronising, then I’d fall back to plain speaking, and simply give them advice, or options to follow.
One of the best tips I picked up during the ‘How to be a brilliant people developer’ lead by Meri Williams, CTO of Monzo, was during a one on one, ask the person with a particular work situation to think about how they would have handled it if they were able to relive that experience. It’s such a great way to think about how you could have adapted your behaviour in order to have a different result from someone else. The onus is then on you to reflect on your own behaviour instead of thinking that someone else should change theirs. At the end of the day, no one can ever control what someone does, you can only ever control how you approach things. This benefits you too as a coach because you are asking the person to come up with their own solution, which let’s face it, will always be better than your own.
What you may find out from all this chit-chat is that someone isn’t really getting their bell rung by the work they are doing. Those intrinsic values they have are not being fulfilled or utilised. If this is the case, it’s a chance to look at whether they can shift their area of work or pick up optional team goals or tasks which could satisfy more of what they enjoy doing. This could also include putting them on training to broaden their interests or expertise, or it could mean they are not suited to that area of work at all. The main thing is that they are given opportunity. It is then up to them to follow that route. But being by their side during all this is important, everyone needs support in their journeys, tea will always be required approximately three times a day, so create those chances to catch up. What is more interesting and fulfilling than being a part at least of someone’s experience, and being able to amplify it? Not much.
More to come on my blogsite: www.girluninterrupted.net
