If you’re like me, at least a little bit, you want to know why stuff works. I’ve a long history of pulling things apart to see what makes them tick. It’s just something I need to do. I can appreciate magic but I can’t help thinking of an explanation for the effect. Perhaps you do too.
That’s why I was initially a bit sceptical about coaching. I know there are lots of great true-to-life examples of coaching success, especially from the sports world. Which great Olympian doesn’t have a coach? And team sports just wouldn’t be the same or, perhaps exist, without the Coach alongside the players. So why the hesitation?
I just had to have a framework, some foundation, to understand why a coach isn’t simply an expensive nag. Well I found it when I started to explore the neuroscience-based approach taken by David Rock. He’s built on relatively recent discoveries about how our brains actually work to construct a coaching model and process that takes advantage of our innate behaviour to instill new thoughts and habits without undue pain and stress.
“… we never understand a thing so well, and make it our own, when we learn it from another as when we have discovered it for ourselves.” – René Descartes
None of us likes being told what to do. Even if direction is given with the benefit of context and clear rationale, we tend to resist adopting new ideas and behaviour. Unless, of course, the idea is our own.
Ownership, it has been clearly demonstrated, brings along an increased sense of value. We consistently place a higher value on our possessions than others do. The typical spread between our asking price and bids for physical items such cars or houses reveal this tendency without fail. The same principle applies to ideas. They, too, are rarely valued equally by owners and others. Given the value we attach to them, letting go of our ideas generates a very real sense of loss – which is why we’re reluctant to abandon them.
This plays out in many ways each day in our personal and working lives. Recognizing this pattern will help when you’re trying to get people to do things differently. Rather than declaring “the way it must be,” supporting insight through focused conversation can effectively lead to ownership of ideas. This is much more likely to foster and motivate change. Choosing to own an idea both supports adopting new behavior and mitigates the “loss” of giving up on existing ideas.
Conversations often result in unexpected actions. Despite our belief that clear communication has happened it becomes clear that participants walked away with very different conclusions – and proceeded to act on them. The issue is typically one of common context – a key component in the It’s Understood communication model. Establishing common context is an important prerequisite to effective communication.
Abbot and Costello provide a classic (and hilarious) example of this type of miscommunication:
It’s important to remind ourselves that no two brains think alike. We need to establish common ground to ensure the content we discuss during our contact results in meaningful connection. Effective conversation requires conscious attention to each of these factors.
One of my intentions for 2008 is to stop reading the comments after stories in the online version of the Globe & Mail, our national newspaper. They showcase uninspired and uninspiring nonsense posted by people who seem, with a few exceptions, to be ill-informed, ethnocentric, regionally oriented and partisan conspiracy theorists hiding behind anonymity. The outpouring of ignorance and intolerance is especially disturbing because these creatures are my fellow citizens. The news is bad enough; witnessing people at their least charitable makes it even worse.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve read nearly a dozen books on leadership, communication and change as I prepare to lead two new workshops. My creative process seems to demand that I read up on the subject, just to make sure I haven’t missed some new and breathtaking idea that will render my current knowledge obsolete. Though I discovered nothing that will rearrange life as I know it, I did spot a pattern that seems to lead to success.
A few key behaviours seem to improve our communication as leaders, as change agents and as human beings.
As the last page of the calendar streaks by with alarming speed, let’s grab a few minutes to check the rear view mirror and invest some precious time to assess where we (and our organizations) have been. Noticing what we’ve achieved in the past 12 months is an excellent way to launch the plans we make for the new year.
With our eyes firmly fixed on where we’re headed, we often forget to celebrate or even notice what we’ve already accomplished. As a coach, I often ask clients to catch themselves doing something well and stop to savour the moment. I can, sometimes, forget to take my own advice.
Last week, I made time to do that, as I joined with a friend and fellow solopreneur to refine our business plans and set action priorities for 2008. Our first activity was to make a note of what we’d each achieved. At her suggestion, we also listed the names of people who had helped us get there.
If you’re like me, at least a little bit, you want to know why stuff works. I’ve a long history of pulling things apart to see what makes them tick. It’s just something I need to do. I can appreciate magic but I can’t help thinking of an explanation for the effect. Perhaps you do too.
