We live in what has been termed VUCA times: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Certainly the past few years have seen the world turned upside down by a pandemic and now by a war that threatens peace in Europe. But given it was the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said, ‘the only constant in life is change’, I rather suspect the pace and scale of change has always felt overwhelming.
As a leader knowing how to navigate and respond to change is therefore an essential skill, and one which is often part of the leadership courses I design and run for organisations. As a leadership and organisational coach enabling others to create and respond to change is my core business, so I thought it might be useful to share some of the tools I regularly use to help others understand, respond to and plan for change.
Sometimes change is forced on us, but there are also times when we want to make changes. We might want to tackle inequalities in society through our work, or creating other positive social changes. Or we might want to change some aspect of how our organisation works, maybe shifting to hybrid working or becoming more environmentally-sustainable. All of these scenarios are about creating change and these tools apply to internal and external change and are scalable from individual life changes to restructuring an organisation or creating social change.
Is it worth the effort?
Change takes effort and resource. We often need to support of others to achieve change. So, before we start making a change it’s a good idea to be really clear for ourselves and with others about the ‘why’: the case for change.
The Opportunity/Threat matrix offers a really simple format to think through the benefits of making a change, and the risks of not making it.
You basically work through 2 questions – what are the opportunities if we do this, and the risks if we don’t – in both the short-term and the longer-term. It’s up to you to define what short/long-term horizons make sense for your situation, but be specific – e.g. in the next 12 months/ the next 5 years.
It can be really helpful to involve others in this exercise. This broadens the perspectives involved in the analysis but also enables those with a stake in the decision to fully understand the arguments around opportunity and risk.
You might decide, after completing this exercise, there isn’t a strong enough case to press ahead with the change – but if there is then the following tools can help the process go more smoothly.
How to make change happen or ‘tip’?
This simple ‘equation’ sums up the key considerations at play when we’re trying to make change happen. I came across this version at Henley Business School on a change leadership course and it’s based on the Gleicher modelled, popularised by Beckhard-Harris, with one important variation.
This model identifies 4 key ingredients that need to be in present for change to happen, and one factor (cost) which inhibits change. These ‘ingredients’ are outlined in the illustration below:
Change ‘tips’ when the other ingredients outweigh the cost.
This model I’ve used countless times since encountering it at Henley, includes ‘capacity’ which the original Gleicher version lacks.
In my experience capacity is often the missing ingredient in the cultural/ creative sector – we lack the time or resource to invest in enabling change. Technically this is what is referred to as ‘development capital’; resource which we can use to invest in doing things differently, experimenting, doing training, buying new hardware and software. Too often our budgets and diaries are over-committed and we lack this space and resource.
I use the equation to assess the likelihood of success of change and identify where there might be blocks so we can identify what actions are needed if change is to happen. It can be used at the planning stage, and during review of how things are going.
How to respond to unwanted change?
You may well have heard or seen ‘the change curve’? There are actually two curves, but the one most of us know is also known as the grief curve, as it emerged from the work of psychologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross looking at the main stages of bereavement. However, it has also long been applied more generally to understand how we respond to external changes we perceive as negative.
I find model this helpful for a number of reasons. It can be helpful to be aware of these psychological reactions so we can be sensitive with others and self-aware. For example, it can be unrealistic to expect people to be able to quickly process ‘bad news’ and adapt, it might take some time.
And we need to be cautious not to allow ourselves – or others – to spend too much time in the ‘bargaining’ stage. Bargaining is when we offer a solution to the change which doesn’t take full account of the situation: re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic. Thinking we’re doing ‘our bit’ for climate change by buying a re-usable coffee cup but not making the bigger changes to our lifestyles really needed.
We might need to do a little bargaining before we’re ready to accept the full reality of the situation (the ‘depression’ stage). But we want to avoid spending too much time bargaining if we want to adapt constructively to negative change and reach the stages of testing and acceptance.
The other thing I like about the Kubler-Ross change curve is that it sits well with my experience of what makes me feel better when Shit Happens (another technical term I learned on that course at Henley). Working out what I can do to be helpful or to improve things, where I do have some agency, usually helps me feel a lot better.
How to keep the momentum going?
I promised you two change curves. The second applies to changes we want, hence it’s name ‘the positive change curve’. What is shows is that – basically – our enthusiasm wanes over time. We start off ill-informed about what exactly the change will involve and how long it will take, and as we discover more about the reality our optimism is likely to drop. If the gap between expectation and reality is too big we might decide to quit. But also we might form a more realistic but still positive view of the change and move into the ‘Informed Optimism’ stage.
How is this model helpful? It reminds us that we need to attend to morale along the way; to celebrate our successes, give ourselves some ‘easy wins’ early on etc. Simply making time to review, constructively, and acknowledge what’s been done and achieved can be enormously helpful – and the simple set of questions are typical of the kind I use with individuals and teams to this end.
Also, the smaller the gap between expectations and reality the fewer morale issues lay ahead. So the positive change curves reminds us of the importance of realistic plans.
How to involve/ engage others?
Last but not least, this final tool offers a simple framework (and worked example) of how to explain what you’re trying to do, and why, to others so you can engage them. Whether you want other people to do things differently as part of the change, to generate ideas about what needs to change or simply to support or approve of the change you’re planning – you’ll need to be able to clearly and simply explain what you’re doing, why, how and what you need from them.
These 4 simple questions are a template for those communications – whether they take place via face-to-face informal conversations, a formal presentation or written formats (or all three).
I hope there’s something in these tools that’s useful for you. If you agree with Heraclitus that ‘the only constant in life is change’, then learning a few new techniques about how to master change is time well spent.
When I first started working with coaching clients funded via their employers, I usually asked the employer to have a very light touch involvement. But increasingly I’m realising the importance and benefit of sometimes inviting the line-manager to be part of the conversations, with clear boundaries. I’ve been writing some guidance for employers and coachees about the options for employer-funded coaching. I’m sharing this below in case it’s useful but also I’d love to hear any other thoughts about ways to involve line-managers or your feedback about things that could be clearer or that are missing from this guidance:
Coaching is a relationship that enables learning, reflection and change. It’s a self-directed process, with the coachee responsible for defining their own version of success and identifying how best they can approach achieving this, with support from a coach.
Practically speaking, coaching takes the form of a series of confidential 1-2-1 conversations. The overall change desired is broken down into a smaller goals, tackled one at a time. Typically individual sessions last 60 mins during which the coachee identifies actions that are then tested between sessions and reviewed in follow-up sessions. The coach’s role is to create a safe and brave space for the coachee to do their best thinking, helping them find fresh insights and options through a combination of support and challenge. For example, helping the coachee notice their assumptions and any self-limiting beliefs that might be clouding their thinking.
Coaching is about enabling the coachee to find their own best solutions from within, rather than advising or guiding the coachee, and is a great way to build confidence and commitment by tapping into the core values and strengths of the individual.
How is employer-funded coaching different?
Employer-funded coaching involves three parties: a coachee, a client organisation and a coach.
Unlike regular coaching where the coachee and coach have a 1-2-1 relationship, employer-funded coaching recognises the interests of the client and a three-way contract is agreed. This covers any specific goals or areas the client wishes to see covered via coaching and clarified how the client will be kept informed of the outcomes of the work.
How can we contract well with three parties involved?
Given confidentiality and clear boundaries are important for enabling trust in coaching it is critical that all parties are clear about and comfortable with the arrangements.
If coaching was proposed to the coachee there may be concerns as to the employer’s intention or perception of their performance that could undermine effective coaching. Reassurance about confidentiality and the principles of coaching can help, although it’s often useful for facilitate a short 3-way conversation in the first session to clarify the context and any expectations or concerns. Typically, I speak with both client and coachee individually then both parties together.
An employer has a duty to ensure their resources are well spent so can reasonably expect to evaluate coaching and will require a level of accountability. It’s important that the coach understands in advance what information might be asked of them so that we can seek permission from the coachee and set appropriate boundaries.
And given a client often has a long-term interest in, and responsibility for, the support and development of the coachee it can be really beneficial to involve the line-manager in shaping and reviewing the coaching. Not all coachees will be comfortable with this involvement, or feel it is necessary, so the question of how best to involve the client needs to be explored as part of the contracting process.
What are the models for employer-funded coaching?
There are a two main models for working with client and coachee – these are described below:
Light touch
There are no limits on what the coaching can be used for. The client might suggest to the coachee how coaching might be used, but ultimately leaves it to them to decide.
Employer feedback and reporting is limited to the number of sessions delivered. In some cases, usually leadership programmes, some basic evaluation information might be requested – this is agreed in advance with coach and coachee.
The line-manger can invite the coachee to share what they are gaining from coaching and offer support, but recognises it is a confidential process.
The coachee is encouraged, where they feel comfortable, to share what they are focussing on and learning via coaching with their line-manager, but this is voluntary.
Partnership model
The client has specific expectations from the coaching. These are communicated directly to the coachee prior to coaching, and/or explored with the coach and coachee together as part of the introductory session. The coach can help ensure these requirements have been clearly articulated so the coachee is clear what is expected. The coach will also negotiate – at the outset – how best progress is reported to the line-manager, with the preference being for this to happen directly and outside of coaching sessions if the coachee feels comfortable doing this. Alternately, the coach can facilitate reporting back to the line-
manager as part of a session, usually at the end of a series of sessions. Involvement of the line-manager aims to offer additional support to the coachee in their development either via the provision of feedback on areas of development or via mentoring and guidance outwith and beyond the coaching series.
Tips for coachees
It is your line-manager’s role to support your development. They may have useful feedback about your performance of development that could be useful to you. Equally they might be able to offer support during or after the coaching. You might find it helpful to talk to them about your coaching as part of your regular supervisions or catch up meetings.
Formally involving line-managers in the first and final sessions can be really helpful – but it is always your choice whether this feels comfortable or useful and it is fine to say ‘no thanks’.
If there is anything you are unclear about in terms of how the coaching. can be used or what will be shared with your employer please ask.
If there is anything you are worried about in terms of confidentiality, context or scope for our work together please let your coach know at any time in the process.
Tips for line-managers
If there is something you want the coachee to improve or focus on then you will need to let them know this directly and clearly – the coach won’t act as go-between as this could lead to misunderstandings and erode trust.
We can however help you carefully frame any feedback you want the coachee to have so it is clear and useful.
Remember that coaching is based on trust and clear boundaries. It’s understandable to want to know what is being discussed and to support the coachee, but important to respect those boundaries and invite the coachee to share only if they wish and when they are ready.
As part of the final session the coachee will be encouraged to identify what has been most useful, what they have learned and what support they might need going forwards. Whether or not you’ve been formally invited to the final session it can be helpful to ask the coachee if there’s any further support they need or you could offer after that session.
Personally I love coaching. I like it so much the sometimes I have to tone down my enthusiasm for fear of scaring people off or making them wonder if I’ve joined a cult. I never actually intended to become a coach – I trained initially because I wanted to develop my leadership skills, and it was great for that. But I fell in love with the ethos and huge impact coaching can have for individuals, teams, organisations and society. And since then I have used the skills and ethos everyday in my life as a parent and through my work as a change consultant, facilitator/ trainer and a coach.
Coaching is radical and powerful
It empowers us to set our own direction, challenges us to take responsibility and dares us to ‘just do it’, rather than talk about it. It produces great results. And, it is based on values that I hold dearly: respect for one another, trust in one another’s potential and equality. I agree with Nancy Kline, coaching has the potential to improve most aspects of our society: schools, healthcare, politics, parenting. It’s better than sex or sliced bread. If you’ve not yet heard of Nancy Kline then you’re in for a treat – see my post about my favourite book about coaching.
So why do I sometimes refer to coaching as ‘the C Word’?
Because a lot of people seem to struggle with Coaching as a term and this can get in the way of people understanding what coaching offers and what it is.
For some ‘coaching’ has negative New Age, self-help connotations, especially the term ‘life coach’. Indeed, coaching is not regulated so anyone can call themselves a coach, as we over discover in one of my favourite episodes of Peep Show where perennial underachiever Jez gets himself a certificate and practises very bad (but very funny) coaching.
Coaching often gets confused with other ‘helping’ professions…
Others confuse coaching with counselling and assume it’s just for problems or attach stigma to seeking coaching (not that there should be any shame in seeking counselling – I’ve had it and so have most people I know at some stage!).
The other major confusion concerns the assumption that a coach is an expert who guides your development. Maybe that’s because for many of us our first encounter with the term is sports coaching. Many sports coaches are former professional athletes and they do advise on technique, so it’s not surprising this confusion arises. And, there are plenty of coaches who, like me, used to hold leadership positions so I think some people assume we’re going to dispense advice about ‘how to do it’ – but that would be mentoring, not coaching.
There is a huge overlap between performance coaching and sports coaching (especially sports psychology) and I’ve learned a huge amount from sports coaches about coaching. But the kind of coaching I’m talking about is ‘content-free’. As a coach it’s not my role to advise how to achieve your goals but rather to support you to figure that out for yourself.
So what is coaching then?
I like this definition from Sir John Whitmore, one of the founding figures of ‘performance’ coaching in the UK:
‘[Coaching is] unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance.’
For me coaching is fundamentally a learning process. As a coach I help others learn how to achieve their goals and achieve their full potential. That often involves developing confidence, clarity, courage and commitment (so many other C words!).
Recently I made a short video to explain what coaching is and how it works. And in this I use the metaphor of going for a walk together in the hills. As the coach I go along to offer moral support and to help you learn to use your compass, but it’s your journey and you set the direction and pace of travel. Next time you want to make a journey, if I’ve done my job well, then you’ll have the confidence and skills to travel solo.
So who it for and when can it be helpful?
Sometimes we assume coaching is only for those in certain roles or positions but I think coaching can be helpful for anyone – at any stage of their career, and in any role. And very often people are not sure when coaching might be helpful – it might have been suggested by someone else, or maybe it’s last resort when they are feeling really stuck and don’t know what else to try…
So whilst not wishing to suggest there are the only four ways to use coaching, continuing on my hiking theme, I have tried to describe some very common scenarios as follows:
New adventures – new job/role, returning to work after parental leave, redundancy, career change, new to management/ leadership? Coaching can offer you support to navigate changes at home and work.
Feeling a bit lost or stuck? – feeling low motivation, wondering if you’re on the ‘right path’, stuck in a bog? Coaching can help get you back on track.
Lonely at the top – if you are a CEO or senior leader, coaching can offer a ‘sounding board’ or ‘space to think’ outside your organisation.
A head for heights – if you’re aiming high and wanting to achieve success (on your terms) then working with a coach can help you make decisive and rapid progress.
What else gets in the way?
Cost is a big one.
Increasingly employers will fund coaching, but in the arts and charities sector many of my clients are self-funding. And coaching isn’t cheap – for every 60 min coaching session, coaches need approximately 30 mins preparation/documentation. I ‘coach’ for 4-5 hours in a full working day to allow for this.
And the hourly rate also needs to cover a proportion of the annual professional operating costs of insurance; membership of the Association for Coaching; regular supervision; and around 40 hours CPD (including fees for courses and books etc). Then there’s all the non-coaching specific costs that any self-employed person needs to factor into their rates (equipment, pension, allowance for sickness and holidays, accountancy, software licenses, travel etc). And that’s not counting the initial training costs of becoming a coach in the first place, which I don’t factor into my prices but probably should.
So how do I try and get round that?
I try to be up-front about fees on my website, flexible about contract length and offering Pay What You Can for those on less than average income.
And conscious of cost I try and make sure a little coaching goes a long way by sharing tools with coachees so they can self-coach between and after sessions. Many of these tools are now freely available on my website too. Favourite tools I recommend to those wanting to coach themselves include:
Reflective questions – 8 simple coaching questions to ask yourself to generate feedback and learning
The Road Map – a visual thinking tool to imagine your goals and the road you want to take
ExACT goals – a key tool from performance coaching
It’s also the professional responsibility of any coach – not just the Yorkshire ones who are particularly mindful about value for money 😉 – to discourage dependency and develop the capacity to self-coach. And anyway, I just can’t help myself sharing self-coaching tips and tools because as I’ve already confessed, I’m a little bit obsessed with just how brilliant coaching is …
What do you think about coaching?
If anyone has any views or comments about coaching and how to better explain what it offers or tackle barriers to accessing it please get in touch – I would be extremely happy to hear your thoughts. Or if you’re interested in finding out whether coaching is for you juts get in touch for an no obligation 30 min chat.
It’s raining outside as I write this but I would love to be out there running right now. These days I rarely need to motivate myself to lace up my trainers, but for many years it wasn’t like that. So I’m going to tell you a story about running, but it’s not really about running. Instead I want to illustrate what I’ve learned about motivation and how to tap into it. You might hate running – and I’m really not aiming to convert you – but running is how I learn a lot of my life lessons. The secrets of endurance running certainly helped me get through the LockDown.
Over time the reasons I run have changed
When I started running in my 30s it was because I saw it as a way to lose weight. I’d been relatively fit before having kids but gained weight with both pregnancies. I’d run a few times a week to try and get back into my favourite jeans.
I entered a few 10km races to encourage myself to train more consistently. Without a race to aim for I’d not get around to training. This motivational technique is called ‘accountability’ – holding yourself to account by committing to things (or people). It wasn’t easy to fit running in at that stage in my life, there’s always a lot to do when you have small kids – and you don’t have a lot of spare energy. I didn’t really enjoy running much at this time, I had been a decent runner as a kid and plodding round slowly wasn’t great for my self-esteem. But when I entered a race, I usually managed to go out and run a bit more.
Carrot and stick
This is classic ‘extrinsic’ motivation – also known as the ‘carrot and stick’ approach. We encourage ourselves and others via rewards and threats. You tell yourself ‘if you don’t run you’ll be fat, if you keep running you’ll get back into your jeans’. It rarely gets the best out of us – and we rarely enjoy the process. If you hate running, it might be because you’ve done it for extrinsic reasons (get fit, lose weight, because you feel you ‘ought to’).
Research shows extrinsic motivation can be damaging to performance at work. It can reduce creativity and the levels of threat or reward needed to keep producing the same results have to increase over time to produce the same results. But in the short-term in can help with unpleasant tasks we don’t much want to do – like running!
I accidentally discovered the limitations of extrinsic motivation when I once bribed my kids to wash my bike for me. They were about 5-6 years old at the time, and offering them 50p for the job that seems like a good deal to me. It worked like a dream the first time and I thought I’d cracked parenting (and keeping my bike clean). But next time I asked them to clean my bike the youngest just shrugged and demanded £2.
Tapping into intrinsic motivation
So if carrot and stick is a bad idea, what works better? Research tells us the trick is to find a way to satisfy your inner motivators: mastery, purpose and autonomy. I didn’t realise it at the time but I was about to tap into mastery and purpose in my running.
I’d always wanted to do a marathon. So I decided to set myself a bigger challenge and enter a half marathon (a sense of purpose). I also set myself the target of doing it in less than 2 hours: a respectable target for a woman in my age group (ie slightly past it, athletically speaking). And I was chuffed with myself when I crossed the line in 1:56 – I felt I had done well (that’s mastery kicking in). A year later, I stepped up to train for my first marathon. I had wanted to run a marathon this since being inspired by Ingrid Kristiansen in the 80s (purpose again). Even the training felt exciting – each week the ‘long run’ in my training schedule became longer than I had every run before. Every week I was pushing myself – it was the first time I’d run 14 miles, 15 miles, 18 miles… each week felt like a new achievement (that’s mastery fuelling me, although at the time it was mainly tea and Haribo Starmix).
Again I set myself a target time – I wanted to complete in sub 4 hrs, which is considered a respectable marathon time for a beginner at my age. Paris was a good choice – a glamourous route around a city I love – that helped too (purpose – ‘any excuse to go to Paris’ I thought).
Carrots aren’t always bad for you
I crossed the line in 3:56, delighted. I had achieved my goal and work and family commitments meant I didn’t run regularly after that for a few years until I met two new friends who had just entered the York Marathon. I joined them for some of their training runs. But cheering Julie and Miyako on race day I wished I was racing not stood on the sidelines. My extrinsic motivation had been re-activated. I thought I could improve on my PB (mastery). This drive to improve saw me running at least two marathons a year for the next few years. Each time the desire to achieve a faster time helped me finds the will to make space in a very busy working-mum diary to fit in 4-5 runs a week of up to 20 miles.
Extrinsic motivation has limitations but isn’t all bad – there were times when that competitive edge drove me to dig in and perform better. One time I had set off a too fast in a race and suddenly I hit the infamous ‘wall’ around 22 miles. I went from striding easily with confidence to slowing suddenly, feeling like my legs were made of a strange combination of jelly and concrete. I reached my lowest point around mile 24 when a runner in a Bat Man costume overtook me and something snapped (pride, I think) so I dug in to beat the caped-crusader, also managing to set a new PB and qualify for London and Boston marathons.
Running for the joy of it
As a runner there comes a point when you stop getting faster, especially if you start running in your late 30s. So how do you keep running when you aren’t getting better any more and so mastery can no longer motivate you?
A few years ago my appetite for yet another gruelling 16-week marathon training schedule, where success or failure on race day rested on fine-tuning my pace by a few seconds here or there, started to wane. And few road race courses are as inspiring as Paris. Slogging around ring roads of cities and towns in huge groups; queuing for loos at the start – none of this appealed any more. So I got more and more into smaller races and off-road running. After doing a few 10km and 15km trail races I entered my first trail Ultra – a 55km loop around the Lakes. I’ve since gone on to do a 50 mile mountain race and run the 191 mile Coast-to-Coast route.
Increasingly running has become about the places I go and the people I run with – both for training runs and events. When my husband enters a big race in the alps I go along for 3-day training runs in those magnificent hills to help him prepare (purpose). And I have had many weekends away racing in the Lakes over the last few pre CV19 years with my friends. Instead of being about the races, running has become just the medium for getting into the hills with my mates, enjoying fresh air, visiting new and amazing places. My purpose and motivation has shifted – although I’m wise enough now to tap into that extrinsic motivation when I need to get up a big hill!
Making the most of motivation
Looking back on my relationship with running I can clearly see how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation has helped me, and deserted me, at times.
Understanding what can motivate us can be incredibly helpful at work, and in life. Many clients I’m working with as a coach will find themselves puzzled as to why they seem to have ‘lost’ their motivation. Managers of teams and organisations often wonder how they can motivate others better, or puzzle at why those around them are less enthusiastic or committed than them. Assessing those intrinsic motivation factors usually quickly helps us pinpoint the problem and generate ideas about how to fix it.
There are two lessons for me around motivation and how we can use it:
1. When possible, tap into intrinsic motivation: mastery, purpose and autonomy
Intrinsic motivation is like Green energy. It’s renewable and it doesn’t cause bad side effects. So wherever possible, stick to intrinsic motivation.
If you’re feeling less than excited about something you need to do simply ask yourself which of these ‘ingredients’ is missing and what options you have to increase them:
Autonomy – what would offer you more freedom around how you do this? What can you control? What are you assuming about how it needs to be done? Do you really have to do this?
Mastery – where is the opportunity for growth, learning or development? Might this task help you secure your next job or contract? Is there something you could usefully learn from this project that might be helpful for another area of your work?
Purpose – what could you achieve through this that would have meaning for you? What would it take for you to feel successful?
The same technique applies to those you are working with. If they are less excited about something than you, put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself how could I offer them more opportunities for autonomy, mastery or purpose? What might I be doing that gets in the way – am I being too controlling or prescriptive? Am I asking them to do something without explaining why or something they don’t think is useful? Am I expecting people to work in a way that doesn’t offer a chance to do things well and develop? Or better still, have that conversation with them directly.
2. Use the carrot and stick sparingly
There will always be times when we need that extra nudge to want to do something hard, boring or repetitive – and that’s when extrinsic motivation can be useful.
I often plan my longest, hardest training runs to finish where I can refuel with a hearty brunch or, better still, fish and chips. In a work context, sometimes it can be as simple as doing the tough task first in the morning, so you can then ‘enjoy’ the rest of your day. Or give yourself an incentive – once I get these invoices done I can have a cup of tea.
Habits are another way of motivating ourselves to do things we know we ought to (but find ourselves reluctant to do). The more we can ensure helpful behaviours become habitual, the more likely we are to stick to them.
We all have days when we feel more motivated than others, and parts of what we do that we enjoy more than others. Extrinsic motivation can help with those ‘necessary evils’ in life and at work, but we’ll get more done when we discover our intrinsic energy. Understanding motivation so we can spot what’s missing, decide what type of motivation to tap into and generate some ideas about how to grow our intrinsic motivators can help us get the best from ourselves, and other people around us.
Want to master your motivation? Get in touch for a chat about how coaching might help.
Seasoned runners know that whilst sometimes it can be hard to motivate yourself to get out of the door, you never regret making the effort.
I think the same applies to making time to reflect and review how things are going. It often feels like THERE IS TOO MUCH TO DO and not enough time. When I’ve been brought in as a facilitator to help a team reflect or review I often encounter resistance, irritation and impatience about stopping doing things to step back and think about how they are going. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say, after we’ve done a review, that it hasn’t been a good use of their time.
Maybe those who don’t find it useful are being polite and keeping quiet. But research has consistently shown that regular 15 min a day reflection on performance increases productivity by around 20%. So the real question I find myself asking is how can we afford not to make time for review?
I can be as guilty of this as everyone else. I rush around doing, doing, doing – not making enough time to sit still and really look and reflect. I run up and down mountains (literally, sometimes) but it’s sitting by the lakeside in the valley (like Wasdale above) or next to a summit tarn, like this cracker (below) on Haystacks, that we can find the calm and beauty we’re really looking for.
So assuming you’re not already regularly reflecting on your work (and if you are then please get in touch and share your tips – I’d love to hear them) you might be thinking – but how can I do it? And when can I fit it in?
There are three times when I’ve found it’s helpful to reflect, both for myself and with the individuals and teams I coach:
1) Post-event: the positive post-mortem held soon after significant events/ incidents when it is important to learn from experience – this might be when something went wrong or after an important new project.
2) Weekly – personally I try and find at least 30-45 mins each week to jot down notes on what I’ve discovered and might do as a result.
3) Termly – I plan my work in three terms each year and at the end of each, before I take a break, I spend around half a day undertaking a more thorough review of the past 3-4 months.
Below I’ve shared some of the tools and techniques I like to use in each of those scenarios…
1. The positive post-mortem
I regularly use two sets of reflective questions: both work for individuals or groups.
The longer version takes approx. 10-15 mins and comes from an RD1st exercise. I regularly use these questions when coaching, as well as for myself. They are beautifully simple:
It is important when doing this exercise to do two things:
Focus on action the focus on what you did rather than what happened, or what someone else did. That’s because we can only control our actions so we are only responsible for what we did or chose not to do.
Focus on the positive – many of us tend to focus on what went wrong but don’t overlook what you did that worked well. We can learn just as much from what was successful as what was less successful and yet we repeatedly focus on learning (only) from mistakes. This framework encourages you to consider both aspects: what worked well, and less so. We start with successes because then we are often more resourceful and honest about the failures.
If you’re short on time, the first-aid or 2 min version of this is Here, There, Everywhere:
1) What is my key learning here?
2) How can I apply this learning in the near future?
3) Where else could I use that learning more widely in future?
The added benefit of doing a positive post-mortem is that I have always felt better after completing it, even when what I’m reviewing went seriously tits-up.
2. The weekly Learning Log
Over a decade ago now I was fortunate to benefit from the brilliant development opportunity that is the Clore Leadership Fellowship. During my first two-week residential course I felt like I was learning so much useful stuff I didn’t know how to retain and use it – and so I created a ‘learning log’.
This began life as a simple table with two columns: observation and action. Each nugget of learning I entered into the log had to have an implication or action. Rather than take copious notes from talks or books I read which I never re-read, I started capturing the key learning points instead.
I create one document per month and save them – sometimes re-reading the logs on a quarterly or annual basis to check if there’s anything I’ve forgotten to action.
That I have been doing this fairly religiously for over a decade now probably tells you how useful I find this (here’s the proof – look at all those folders full of learning!).
Being a bit of a geek – as you can probably tell from these folders – I’ve since moved this simple table online to a Toodledo list which means I can add to it from my smart phone anytime, without needing to access my laptop to write up a learning point.
3. The termly review
I plan on a termly and annual basis, usually April-March. Three-four months is a good horizon for coaching goals – and being a coach I create goals as the backbone of this planning. This gives me direction, and also something against which to evaluate progress.
I like to set aside a whole day at the end of each ‘term’ for this kind of review. I often start by looking at the data – including financial data (have I achieved my target income, what has been my average day-rate, how many days have I worked, how many new leads did I get etc), before moving onto more reflective questions.
Sometimes I’ll use the positive post-mortem questions for that review, other times I might use the 4 Fs model. Both of these are frameworks I use when facilitating team reviews for clients – they can work even better then colleagues discuss and compare their perspectives on these questions. Sometimes I might draw my responses to the questions too, rather than just write them.
There are many other tools and frameworks you can use – I like these ones because they are simple and quick to use. Using them well by being honest, making time to collect data and using them regularly is what is most important. Doing little, but often – that’s why it’s called reflective practice.
Confidence, like trust to which it is closely related, is one of those slippery things that can take ages to grow and seconds to destroy. And whilst those around you might have bags of confidence in you, it’s not uncommon for us to have far less confidence in ourselves. Sometimes we might label this ‘imposter syndrome’, sometimes it wraps itself up as a critical voice or ‘saboteur’ like the ‘people-pleaser’. But at the heart of many of the psychological blocks that can limit our potential is self-confidence.
I’ve been thinking a lot about confidence recently, and in particularly how as a coach I can best support my clients to build theirs. When, at the start of a coaching relationship, I ask what a client wants to achieve through our work ‘more confidence’ is probably one of the most common responses I hear.
I’ve noticed many clients reporting they have ‘lost their nerve’ during Lock Down. People who have not been able to do things for a year or so, due to Lock Down, are finding them harder to resume: be that going on stage or speaking at public meetings. I’ve heard many women say similar things about returning to work after a break for maternity leave.When we stop practising the things in our lives that take nerve we can lose our confidence. When we stop stretching our comfort zone, it seems to shrink.
So as a coach I’ve noticed a few things it might be helpful to share from reflecting on progress of clients and my own experiences (which I’m able to share more freely, whereas coaching clients’ stories are confidential).
How can we build confidence?
The area in my own life where I’ve developed most confidence in recent years has been in the mountains. But I realise what I’ve learned (and earned) in the hills has built my confidence across my life and work.
I have walked with friends and family since I could walk, but it wasn’t until far more recently that I felt comfortable doing so alone. When my kids were younger the only way I could realistically get into the big hills was without them, so I did my first ever solo mountain walk in the Pyrenees in 2012. It was a day walk on a route I’d walked a few years earlier with my Dad so I knew was easy to navigate and within my comfort zone in terms of how technical it was. I was nervous but it felt so good to be back in those glorious hills. The following week I went a step further doing a solo day walk in the Massif Central and area I didn’t know at all. It was scary but exhilarating.
Taking a bigger leap can have bigger benefits…
Then in 2018 I took a big step forward: I had planned to do a long hike in the Lakes to visit some new fells, but woke to discover it had snowed overnight, adding winter conditions into the mix. Snow can cover paths making navigation harder, and progress slower. Icy rocks can lead to slips and you don’t want to bang your head in a fall or sprain an ankle in bitterly cold winter conditions with no phone reception. Then the cloud decided to top the hills too, meaning that I could find myself with limited visibility. Telling myself I would turn round if it felt too dangerous, I set off early that morning feeling really quite nervous. I left detailed info with my husband in the valley below (with the kids) about my planned route and texted him an update of my progress as I reached each stage, relieved that I had phone coverage in places. At least they would know where to find my frozen body if I slipped and knocked myself unconscious….😉
By late morning the cloud had lifted and I was euphoric. The snow covering meant the fells looked even finer than usual and I had not seen another soul: I felt like an alpine explorer. I walked for 10 hours over ridges and 12 mountains, finishing with sore legs but about a hundred times’ more confidence than I had at 8am that morning.
A year later I ran the Coast-to-Coast route, an adventure which more than any other liberated me from the lack of confidence that was holding me back. This 191 mile route saw me traverse the Lakes solo, then the Pennines and Dales before finally being joined by a friend for morale support on the final 2 legs over the NY Moors. I already knew some sections of the route, which helped a lot with confidence, but I also encountered crap weather (cloud and a lot of rain) which made everything harder and I had never run so far in my life – it was like doing a marathon a day for a week. This adventure gave me the confidence make some changes at work which I badly wanted but had felt incredibly scary. ‘If I can do that, I can do anything’ was my thinking.
What my adventures have taught me is about how to stretch out of my comfort zone. In the mountains it’s sometimes a psychological risk (as a woman I can be scared at times of the threat of male violence when I’m on my own in a forest, miles from other people) but usually safety considerations are of the physical kind. Neuroscience actually suggests the brain responds in the same way to both types of fear. What I’ve learned is that it’s easiest to grow confidence in small steps: just one new risk each time. That might be doing a route solo that you’ve done with others before or doing a route you know in winter conditions or the dark. If we combine too many new risks at once then we might be too scared to try. For example, I would not have planned that long solo walk had I known it would snow.
But also, if we do take bigger risks – whether by design or accident – our confidence can leap forward. Bigger risk, bigger reward. Last year I did my first solo wild camp and a day of rock-climbing: both terrifying but possibly the best confidence boost I’ve had yet.
Go outside your comfort zone, but not too far…
Back at work, I used to find facilitation nerve-wracking. Holding a space for a group to solve their own challenges and working out the best ways to enable equal, productive contributions can feel like herding cats. But I took up the challenge suggested by the Gamestorming team – to try a new technique or exercise each time I ran a session. Whilst it feels safer to stick with tried and tested tools I have discovered some great new techniques as a result and feel more confident to be playful and responsive with groups now.
So when I saw the Learning Zone model recently, it resonated for me. This simple model shows 3 concentric zones – with risk/fear increasing as the circles become bigger. I think we could replace the ‘term’ Learning Zone with Confidence-Building Zone: that place where small risks help us grow.
Back to coaching, there are two main techniques I suggest when clients want to grow confidence. The first is to find a small step that feels like progress, but reasonably safe to them. If that goes OK then they take another, and another. Alongside I suggest this keeping a simple list of times when I took a risk, or when I was confident and what happened. It can be any size of risk and in any part of your life. I genuinely believe confidence we grow beyond work often seeps through into our work lives.
Confidence can be contagious for other areas of life…
A coaching client (who knows I’m sharing this story) wanted to grow her confidence in work meetings. She finds social situations awkward at times and told me she’d found joining a new sports team really helped her self-confidence. And the little steps she took to dare herself to try new things each time in a work meeting helped her in incrementally begin to be able to participate in the way she wanted. As a facilitator I know a few tools to help people feel at ease in meetings, like saying something low-risk early because the longer it goes before you say something the more nervous you often get, and I’ve offered these to several clients wanting to build confidence in the big formal settings in which many find they lack confidence to speak up. They report back that these small first steps which feel easy, build confidence a little which then makes possible further steps. And they slowly grow their confidence, step by step.
So if you’re looking to grow your confidence, or experience, I’d suggest finding some small first steps that will stretch yourself. Small risks which, if it’s a bit bumpy, won’t put you at risk. Then try another step. And maybe when you’re feeling brave you might think about taking a leap…. And the great thing is they can be little steps outdoors just as much as in the boardroom.
And if you would like support on that journey – get in touch for a chat about coaching.
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