Section 3. The way of being
This is an excerpt from Being an Effective Value Coach: Leading by Creating Value by Al Shalloway and Paula Stewart
It is part of the Amplio University's Coaching, Consulting, and Training Curriculum where more chapters can be seen.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” - Peter Drucker
Learning Outcome: Coaches and leaders realize that any lasting organizational change, even improvements, often involve a fundamental reorientation of identity and mindset. In “Positive Intelligence”, Dr. Chamine postulates that change itself often causes people’s Judges and Saboteurs to be triggered. As a coach, you become more effective if you can consider and start with interrupting these default ways of being and thinking. Ways of being, thinking, and communicating shape an organization’s culture and as Peter Drucker stated, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Yet, this is often ignored.
The benefit of this section is learning that people communicate and behave based on past conversations that they have had to “survive.” Once you know that, you already become more effective through empathy. Seeing this in real-time allows you and the people you coach to enjoy greater freedom, empathy, generosity, and peace of mind. During transitions, you learn how to create the space for people to communicate with each other and gain confidence by observing people's behavior in different situations.
The benefit of the benefit is you powerfully guide people towards understanding why they hold onto ways of communicating and being that no longer serve them. You provide them with simple tools that give them freedom through an approach they can apply anywhere. These tools allow them to connect and fully empathize with the people around them. Rather than just talking to people about a fixed mindset, you can help them notice and see when they are pulled into old mental models. You know that they can embrace change as an opportunity once they have these tools. You create clarity and space for people to become more effective, which leads to greater collaboration and high-performance teams. More importantly, it positively alters an individual’s life trajectory, which impacts everyone around them.
Runways and relationships
It is critical to build relationships first. As part of building relationships, it matters where and how you come into an organization. You can consider this a runway. Much like a successful take-off and landing, the runway is critical to who you can talk to, the kind of conversations you will have, the impact you can make, the partnerships you can create, and how long it will take for you to make an impact. It is critical to be clear about the sponsorship you, your company, and your team have for the improvements they are making before you start, which allows you to see the scope and impact you can make proactively. Ultimately, you will know the scope of influence you will likely have and if this is the work to engage in.
For more, see this Sevawise.blog.
The Runway
In the same way a pilot relies on a well-built runway for takeoff and landing, your journey within an organization as a change agent relies on a critical runway. It's a runway that shapes your ability to connect with others, the type of communications you engage in, the influence you'll exert, and the speed at which you can contribute to your organization reaching its goals.
All coaches and leaders have a runway. It shapes your ability to connect with others, the conversations you will be part of the influence you exert, and the speed at which you can contribute.
Sometimes, the organizational landscape resembles a crowded airport runway where many consultants or different groups race against each other to achieve their transformation goals. The runway itself may have cracks because there is no clarity on what transformation means. There may be an adherence to a particular air traffic control system that is not a good fit, along with the fact that this air control system is built on top of faulty and inconsistent radar systems, faulty communication systems, and inadequate navigation aids. You notice this creates a lot of work and little actual results, leaving many pilots exhausted, disengaged, and ready to leave their routes. This is an example of where systems thinking, including Lean and the Theory of Constraints, is an asset. You can quickly see where the impactful delays and waste come from.
You must consider whether you are consulting or coming into an organization via a staffing firm or as a permanent employee. In all cases, it's essential to know who hired you, their goals for bringing in another resource, and their influence within the organization. Let’s talk about some of the common patterns:
How you come into the organization
●????? If you are consulting with your own company, you at least know the sponsor who creates bridges and communication opportunities for you. Expectations about stakeholders and stakeholder time, as well as communications, can be written into contracts and tied to the change initiative's success.
●????? To create change, the higher up in the organization the sponsor is, the more runway you have. The runway you have gives you an idea of the context in which you are stepping.
●????? If you work for a consulting company, they can help you achieve success. This depends on the influence of that consulting firm.
●????? Staffing firms may not have real sponsors and often see you as a “resource.” You may be considered a journeyman. A journeyman has completed an apprenticeship and is fully educated in a trade or craft but not yet recognized as a master craftsman. This could be how you are treated regardless of your mastery.
●????? There are specific differences between an employee and a consultant with their own company. Unlike a consultant with your own company, you often do not have the opportunity to talk with decision-makers or write a contract that not only goes over your deliverables and outcomes but also includes time from stakeholders in the organization to be successful. Unlike owning your own consulting company, you do not have the opportunity to do an upfront feasibility analysis or readiness assessment to determine the scope of your work. Also, a consultant’s contract often stipulates the scope upfront and the date of completion. That date causes internal leaders to commit resources. It motivates the internal leaders, not just the consulting company.
●????? There is almost always a difference between full-time employees and consultants.
* As an employee, you need to consider long-term relationships and power dynamics of you making any change and how this positions you in the future or how others perceive your future position.
* Some leaders “listen” to consultants more than their employees.
??? * Other organizations may treat their consultants as temporary and exclude them from critical conversations.
????* Finally, consider that some organizations have multiple Agile consulting teams or teams leading the organization in a slightly different direction. Where that is occurring, your ability to influence becomes even narrower.?
The consultant mystique exists. Some leaders “listen” to consultants even when consultants are repeating what the employees have been saying.
Your sponsor and their influence
Before engaging, check out LinkedIn profiles about your sponsor. Consider the following:
●????? Where has your sponsor worked? What types of organizations? Where else have they experienced Agile? What kind of Agile might they have experienced?
●????? Have they hosted webinars, written articles, published books, taught, provided content?
●????? Where are they in the organization? Are they high enough in the hierarchy? How much influence do they have?
●????? Does this person have hands-on engineering or development experience? There are advantages:
* They can be proactive. They have critical domain experience. They are not coming just from methodology and process.
????* Their relationships with key technical stakeholders will generally be stronger if they are known for delivering solutions.
????* Have they been in one organization or many? Do they know more than one flavor of Agile?
????* Have they worked on the business side or very directly with the business?
? ????* This is critical in including the business proactively.
? ????* They can create partnerships upfront with the business.
The organization and its readiness
●????? How many consulting groups are engaged in organizational transformation?
????* Which consulting group is responsible for what part of the transformation?
????* How are differences in opinion dealt with?
????* Is there a North Star, strategic goals, and a common roadmap for the transformation itself?
????* Who sponsors which consulting group, and where is the sponsor in the organizational structure?
????* Are you working against established mindsets and mental models due to people who have always worked a certain way or has coaching and practices addressed those?
????* If there are multiple sponsors, how much influence and decision-making authority does each have? What is their background, approach, and commitment?
If you know the answers to these questions prior to your engagement or opportunity, you can make a decision to engage or not. You can also talk about the impact and share case studies with your business sponsor. You can more accurately define upfront what you can deliver and manage expectations. If you are already in an organization today with challenges, expand your stakeholder analysis to include other players. Building relationships knowing who all of your stakeholders are with this upfront analysis sets you up for success.
Consider motivations
We would love to think that everyone is motivated for the right reasons. Sometimes that is not true. Keep key roles such as a Solution Architect in-house, if you can. Always start with empathy and consider “The Constraint” people are working with. Some people will avoid requests or communications when they are overwhelmed and not sure what to do. When an executive is saying they are supporting a leader, gently be curious and ask questions both of that leader and other members of the team. It is not uncommon for leaders to think they are providing support that will make the difference when they are not.
A personal story by Paula Stewart
I assisted an enterprise Agile Coach who was frustrated that all the application development teams were missing integration environments. As much as he tried, he could not get the Vice President of infrastructure and platform to talk to him. He thought it was her personality. I asked him to look a little deeper. Was the Vice President feeling pressure because “The Constraint” was in infrastructure and platform? I recommended that he be empathetic and curious and talk to leaders in Infrastructure and Platform. I recommended that he ask if they were moving to the cloud. From my experience working in various organizations and with a system integrator, most organizations underestimate these initiatives.
In our next coaching session, I asked him a series of questions and coached him on putting together information that would identify cost and benefit, plus focus on the impact on the flow of work, churn, quality, and delivery of value with small feedback loops.
When he went to the Solution Architect to provide his solution directing resources to relieve the constraint and eliminate significant waste, the Solution Architect acknowledged him and then did nothing about it. He was frustrated. This is where I walked the Enterprise Agile Coach through understanding the Solution Architect’s world.
Coach: “Tell me about the Solution Architect. How experienced is he? Is he good at communicating with product management? Does he understand the impact? Has he been involved in Agile Transformations as a Solution Architect before?”
These questions would clarify if the issue came from a lack of experience, understanding of theory and impact, and even his ability to influence Product Management.
Enterprise Coach: “He is very experienced. He has a great relationship with the Product Manager, and I have seen him influence the Product Manager.”
Coach: “Who does he report to? Perhaps it is his leadership?”
Enterprise Coach: “He works for Consultant Company B.”
Coach: “Wait. Previously you said that all the Scrum Masters for the Application Development teams worked for Consultant Company B. Is that right? How are the infrastructure and platform teams staffed?
Enterprise Coach: “Yes. That is right. The infrastructure and platform teams are from another consulting firm, or they are internal.”
Coach: “Objectively, your Solution Architect may be motivated to keep the application development teams as they are and not to move resources to focus on infrastructure and platform. It could be six months before they get feedback due to the inability to integrate code and a lack of environments. How much influence does this Solution Architect and Consultant Company B have? Are there other plans to build integration environments by decoupling the move to the cloud?”
Enterprise Coach: “He has a great deal of influence as does Consultant Company B. I have not heard them talk about building the integration environments until they move to the cloud.”
Coach: “You have already laid out all of the costs of this. Can you meet with leadership in infrastructure and platform and share your analysis with them? Is there a way to come up with another solution for the integration environment at least?”
Enterprise Coach: “I have already asked. It is as if everyone is at a stalemate.”
Coach: “Can you bring the leader in infrastructure and platform, the Solution Architect, the Product Manager together, and your technical lead together and facilitate a brainstorming conversation after you get them all on the same page as to the costs?”
Enterprise Coach: “It’s worth a try.”
This did move things forward. However, after not feeling supported, the Vice President resigned.
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Building relationships first
Focus on building strong relationships in all cases. In an Agile Transformation, consider everyone in the organization as your customer. Some coaches do this without even thinking about it. Coaches can learn this if it does not come naturally to them.
Before an engagement or interview, please take a moment to dig a little deeper and get to know the other person(s) you will be meeting in the same way we described above. When you start creating relationships with others, take time to get to know them. Be interested in who they are, their goals, values, and commitments. Look for common ground and shared interests that you can genuinely connect on by being authentically curious about their world and challenges rather than focusing solely on your solutions. Ask them about their ideal engagement and what they value the most.
After your conversation, express your gratitude for their time and follow up with a personalized proposal or e-mail that addresses their specific needs and includes relevant case studies demonstrating how you have tackled similar challenges. Above all, keep their business and technical goals front and center for crafting an approach aligned with their desired outcomes and context.
As you talk to people, listen for their commitment, not just the principles or values they have. With open questions, you can find out what people are committed to. Commitment is essential for you to know. Alignment is when they can see the connection between the outcome they want to create and their commitment.
Be prepared for identities to surface
It is essential for organizational coaches to recognize that change often causes people’s identities to surface. They revert, in many cases, to a survival mechanism. That survival mechanism is about self-preservation. Many people have a default way of reacting to change. You will learn the origins of people's identity and understand how identity can impact people's acceptance of new ideas. This provides you with tools to support leaders, other coaches, and team members through transitions and coach them to have more collaborative relationships.
Core to people’s identities
Notice that someone’s identity is not only connected to their family of origin, friendships, partnerships, jobs, roles, industries, and organizations but also to their sense of purpose, recognition, and accomplishment associated with a particular profession or position.
People often select a particular profession because of their upbringing and past experiences. Telling people to embrace a “growth mindset” will not work. People get triggered or have blind spots and often do not know why. In the moment, it is easier to revert to ways of being that allowed someone to be successful in the past, even if the world has changed, and anything you have said, such as “have this mindset,” doesn’t work. Let’s take someone who is used to competing and achieving. They can show up having a scarcity mindset. Over the years, they have relied too much on achieving and competing to the point where they regularly step over other people. They may not see it.
Make sure there are not competing motivations
Look around at the system and consider that what you may be labeling as a personal identity issue may be competing motivations and influences from leadership or the organization. Until those are dealt with, don’t expect to address the related behaviors. Also, the people impacted may not notice that they have competing influences and motivations. Don’t assume that they do. This is part of your discovery.
If you are a coach who cares about what’s under the covers, you will have noticed that people may jump to conclusions and solutions. These result in actions that are in direct opposition to the transformation. This comes from oversimplifying what will resolve an issue and picking a worse solution than the original issue. We call these anti-patterns.
Consider using a manual of me
Early in the transformation, you can request anyone you will be talking to and is either a significant part of the transformation, a sponsor, or a decision-maker to provide a “Manual of Me”. which is a personal manual created by an individual to outline how they work best, including their strengths, weaknesses, communication preferences, and needs. This should also include the Agile Transformation team.
The first thing we focus on is creating relationships. As we meet people, we can provide a template, a complete example, the location where these are stored for everyone to share, and request that they complete a? "Manual of Me."[1] You want to be clear about the why which is to facilitate communications and relationships. How and when you meet different stakeholders has a lot to do with the context and your runway. To the extent possible, you meet with groups of people. We strongly recommend an individual picture, a picture of your family, including with your pet(s), and perhaps a picture of the person enjoying their hobby. We recommend one page or an easy-to-use e-brochure.
Here's an example of what to include in a Manual of Me:
Title Page:??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Photo of Jane Doe
Name: Jane Doe?????????
Position: Agile Coach
Date: January 7, 2024
Contact: [email protected]
Introduction: Why this Manual
My Role
A description of your current role, responsibilities, and what you're passionate about in your job.
Communication Preferences
Best way to contact me: Email for non-urgent matters, phone for urgent ones.
Feedback: I prefer direct and constructive feedback given in private.
Meetings: I value concise, scheduled meetings with a clear agenda.
My Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths: Strategic thinking, problem-solving, coaching.
Weaknesses: Tendency to overlook details, discomfort with confrontation.
How I Like to Work
Environment: Quiet space for deep work, collaborative space for team activities.
Work Hours: Prefer a flexible schedule but usually available 9-5.
Decision Making: I like to gather all necessary information and consult with key stakeholders before making a decision.
What I Value
Professionalism: Honesty, integrity, and respect in all interactions.
Work-Life Balance: Being able to disconnect after work hours and on weekends.
Continual Learning: Regularly updating my skills and knowledge.
How to Help Me
Support: Clear expectations and timely responses.
Challenges: Let me know about potential challenges early on.
Motivation: Recognition of achievements and constructive feedback.
领英推荐
Miscellaneous
Family and Pets: Picture, family role, first name
Hobbies and Interests: Hiking, reading, and community volunteer work. - Add a few pictures
Dislikes: Being late, unstructured meetings.
Closing
Please provide your Manual of Me or send me comments about mine
Contact Information
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 123-456-7890
We thank Andrew Sanyal for suggesting this approach with leadership.
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More critical than talking about mental models
People will only change once they can see, feel, and experience exactly what they win.
Asking open-ended questions, mirroring what people are saying, and using clean language (that is, keeping questions free from the coach's assumptions, interpretations, or bias, thus creating a neutral and non-judgmental space for the client). can support people in seeing the real impact. Once someone is clear about the impact, they are much more open to change. You can support people through transition and coach them to move towards collaboration.
Identities invariably create separation between people, leading to transactional relationships instead of ones based on shared vision, commitment, and collaboration. Notice what people focus on. Are they focusing on shared interests for everyone or their own? Do they look for win-wins?
In transitioning from traditional leadership roles to Product Management, Scrum Master, or Agile Coaching roles, it is not uncommon for individuals to occasionally return to their comfort level. Asking them questions so that they see that developing competencies and behaviors for their new roles gives them new ways to deal with changing organizational and socio-economic environments. We can respect their journey while encouraging them to approach new experiences with the curiosity and openness of a beginner.
This approach allows for continuous learning and adaptation, shedding limitations imposed by past knowledge and embracing fresh perspectives. As Leaders and Coaches, cultivating a "beginner's mind" is a powerful tool for personal and professional growth, leading to more significant insights and transformative change. You also model a mindset that makes change easier.
Zen Buddhism's "beginner's mind" philosophy, known as shoshin, encourages approaching every conversation and situation with eagerness and open-mindedness, even in familiar scenarios. Having a “beginner’s mind” might seem counterintuitive to some, but it can be immensely valuable. While you may know a lot about what goes on in general, you must always remember that you often don’t know what’s going on with the person in front of you. This is important to remember as a coach; sometimes, sharing this with the people you coach is important. The critical point is that approaching anything with a beginner’s mind allows you to eliminate biases, blind spots, and limiting beliefs of all kinds. Regardless of whether you are an expert or not, it is a good idea. You learn different perspectives on the same concepts which often are very valuable.
Coaching a beginner’s mind
A personal story by Paula Stewart
I was working in an organization that decided to move project managers into the Product Manager role. I took the opportunity to use what I independently identified as just-in-time targeted training. I started with an assessment tool I used to look at strengths and opportunities in core competencies, and from there, I created an individual roadmap emphasizing core training on a personal roadmap. I noticed that a new Product Manager demonstrated behaviors over and over again that she was much more comfortable with and that she was very defensive about when the team questioned her. The behaviors included:
I could empathize that she has been highly successful in her old role. I saw what I had seen with others. People who have successfully worked a certain way see this as part of their identity. It is not just about asking someone to do something different. It is asking them to do something different from what they were very successful at.? Everyone comes from survival to some extent, and we learn to lean on certain aspects of our mental models and thinking.
Her insistence on maintaining what was comfortable created tension between her and other team members. We discussed how her past success meant so much to her and her experience of changing how she worked, developing new skills, and working with the team. I acknowledged what she had accomplished in the past and asked her to try an experiment. What was in it for her was the team having come up with a better solution, feeling included in the solution, and creating alignment between her and other team members.
At this point, I led a story workshop, and she saw the impact on the team. She started to see her blind spot and the cost. So, we created an image of how she wanted to be. We labeled that “curiously engaged”. She began to use this phrase every time she began to go back to her previous role. This phrase, “curious engagement,” allowed her to interrupt her default way of being. She enjoyed the events much more and started to feel confident in her abilities.
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In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few. – Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki
An observation about psychological safety
One hears a lot about the need for psychological safety for people.
And it is vital. In many situations, people are not in a safe environment. The changing state of Agile is another cause for fear. Organizations continue to focus on cutting costs and often look first at eliminating positions. In addition, artificial intelligence is already making certain roles obsolete and reducing the number of employees required for a specific role. There are clear reasons why leaders do not have psychological safety themselves. For example, in organizations where they have been operating with their own budgets and are asked to move to a Lean Budget model. Those leaders report feeling less in control and having less psychological safety. ?In one organization where we were recently coaching leadership, a group provided a half-day course on psychological safety while not looking first at what was impacting the psychological safety of leaders When a leader’s words of reassurance are not congruent with their energy or actions, trust is lost.
But it’s also important to realize that people are often their worst critics and can get hurt more by what they say to themselves than others.
Creating psychological safety in the environment for leaders and employees is necessary. Coaches need to be aware of how people associate their value with how well they are working. Some fears are more significant than others. ?
If someone identifies their inherent worth with their value on the job, this can be devastating. They may recover from losing their job, but it is hard to recover from the feeling of failure.
People experience disruption in their lives and losing a job in a tight job market usually causes additional stress.
Then there are those employees who are left behind and ask themselves questions like: “I am now doing the job of three people. Am I going to be able to carry this load to my employer’s satisfaction? If I don’t, will the company fire me as well?” “Has this employer invested as much in me as I have invested in them, or are they not clearly seeing my contribution?” “Do they have empathy for me or am I simply another resource for them?”
This means that at a time when it is most critical for leaders to provide psychological safety, they are most likely not able to do so.? Individuals can find creative ways to bolster their own sense of security. However, many people do not know where to begin, especially if they are already overwhelmed. At the end of the day, it is even more important to have empathy and compassion for ourselves and others.
Remember that psychological safety comes from inside and outside. Our internal fears are often greater than the real ones outside of us. Right now, is the time to have greater empathy and compassion for ourselves and others.
You are walking into past conversations
A coach must recognize that people communicate through past conversations and not react from their own triggers or in response to someone else.
If someone is upset or stressed during conversations, focus on empathy. Their reaction is often a mix of current and past events. You can learn to recognize when people are listening and speaking to you from an old conversation. You’ll also learn practices to manage your energy in these conversations.
When you notice someone is coming from a past conversation, pause and don’t react. Think about where this past conversation came from and how you might communicate more effectively based on the filter they have. Show people in your organization how to do this in the moment. Coaches can ask questions, listen to what's said, and support clients in clarifying their thoughts. They can also watch their energy. People pick up on energy and each other’s emotions more than we realize. They can also coach other people to listen to exactly what’s said without adding anything to it.
Many people say, “Consider your audience.” However, they are talking about bias or a role. We are talking about something much deeper. You’re walking into past conversations. People often react not to what was just said but to things they’ve heard and said in the past that seem similar. It’s important to realize that they don’t consciously think about this - the reptilian brain does this for them automatically. The past filters what they hear and say today. Unless someone has an ongoing practice dealing with their own “listening,” they are not listening from nothing.
Dealing with past conversations happens to coaches regularly. For example, suppose you are coming into a situation after multiple Agile Coaches have already come and left. In that case, people will not hear what you say but will hear without an internal conversation, such as: “Oh, we’ve seen this before. This time won’t be any different.” This internal conversation is called “one’s listening.”
People’s filters
We have each had the opportunity to be mentored by and coached with world class coaches that focus on transformational communications, team building, relationships, goal achievement, and organizational transformation. Imagine coaching and communication distinctions related to how people do and do not communicate to two hundred people weekend after weekend with a world class coach like Sandy Robbins of Vanto Group. Not only do you witness people of all ages, different socioeconomic classes, different talents and experiences, different races, genders, ethnicities, and sexual orientations, but even religious and government leaders have these filters. You are the coach responsible for many of them moving past these filters in follow-up coaching groups of four and one-on-one coaching calls. You even see people who have all the insights and yet continue to struggle with a certain listening and speaking that comes from a past conversation.
Most of the time the past conversation came from something in childhood, that a person felt they had to survive. For many, it was the loss of love. As you coach people, it is common to hear, “Wait, that isn’t what happened, that is what I interpreted at five years old.” Then people begin to see that some or all of their major life decisions came from an interpretation made by their five-year-old self. Of course, some were more serious and traumatic.
Every single person has some past conversation. Until they can see the impact on them currently, have different practices, and take different actions, it is too easy to ignore.
What were the lessons this experience taught us:
●????? People are often triggered by their past conversations, regardless of whom they are talking to in the moment
●????? People’s connections to the people in their life could become deeper giving up filters
●????? The root of people’s blind spots are often these past conversations
●????? All human beings, until they distinguish the impact on themselves and take different actions, are surviving past conversations most of the time
●????? Insights alone do nothing, practice and committed actions are what transforms
●????? True transformation is messy. People often have to grieve how they have lived their lives
●????? If multiple people have past conversations going, then no one is really hearing the other person
●????? Knowing how impactful this is provides you with greater empathy and compassion
●????? You realize that whole families and organizations are impacted by this so it’s worth addressing your own past conversations
●????? Past conversations and related filters are why communication is so fraught with misunderstanding
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“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw
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If people have different understandings when one person says something, another person may hear something else (not in their ears but in their head). In fact, as a coach and leader, it is essential to check our listening by asking questions.
Coaches also attend to other people’s listening. Asking the audience what they are hearing is foundational. We often co-create training materials and ensure we receive feedback frequently throughout training. The more interactive those communications, the better.
Coaches can also make clear when they are in a past conversation.
People don’t listen to you, they listen to their listening
Fernando Flores introduced the notion of people’s listening (as a noun, not a verb). By “people’s listening,” he means the conversation they are having in their heads. If you’re wondering what conversation we are talking about, it’s the “what do they mean?” you may have in your head while reading this.
When you speak to someone, they mostly listen to the conversation they are having in their head more than the words you are saying. This listening is full of judgment and happens without conscious creation - it just happens. The judgment immediately stops the possibility of having a quality communication. It robs the person who is judging, and the person being judged. People do this to themselves all of the time. It is the human condition.
It’s essential to understand this because their “listening” has more impact on them most of the time than the words you are saying. We’ll learn more about this throughout the book. One way to become more adept at attending to other people’s listening is to start attending to your listening. Notice that it is full of judgment much of the time. Start identifying when you are judging and interrupt those judgments. In his book, “Positive Intelligence”, Dr. Chamine has people label their Judge, name it, and say things like: “Darth Vader thinks Bill is doing this wrong.” versus “I think Bill is doing this wrong.” Starting to create space and disassociating with your internal Judge is very powerful.
Active speaking is a great help here. It means attending to the person’s listening of what you are saying. While you can’t stop their filtering, by being attentive to it you can often weaken its impact.
Listening without filters
Listening without filters goes beyond active listening. It is the practice of hearing what people say and what they don’t say. When you do this, you can often infer what their commitment is but you must be aware that you are inferring it. When you are communicating back the commitment you hear, you can say,” What I hear is your commitment to your team being successful. Is that correct, or do you have a different commitment?” This often connects someone to their why. Another approach that works best one-on-one is Future Pacing where they see their True North and then based on that, they start making decisions and taking actions consistent with that True North. It means adding nothing, absolutely nothing, to what someone is telling you. Pure coaching practice is a great way to become proficient with this.
One must let go of one's knowledge, judgments, and desire to control, fix something, or reach a specific outcome. This is an incredibly effective way for someone to see what is in their way, get in touch with their commitment, and develop new behaviors and ways of being. They see for themselves what their blind spots are.
To hear people this way requires having a beginner’s mind. This is even more valuable for coaches with a background in their coaching roles or those with a lot of experience and knowledge. To be effective as a coach or consultant, you must dispel the belief that you have the answers. You start with your coachees’ inner knowledge. This is where organic change happens.
Weigh the pros and cons. If people are experiencing something that they have dealt with for years, being open like this can be very impactful, and you can guide them to a solution quickly. When you notice that you are coaching someone in the organization who is not hearing their teammates, leadership, or employees and stakeholders, they may have a blind spot. Sometimes, you will discover that there is something in the way of them being able to truly “listen.” Signs you someone is dealing with a blind spot: 1-They are sure the other person is wrong. 2-They say they know this and always have. 3-This is old news. This is a blind spot. They are not fully listening to their team. Blind spots often take more than one conversation.
Listening at a whole new level
You have probably done this yourself at times. Sometimes when you listen to someone they may react by saying “I don’t think I have ever been heard like that.”
We often think that this is just a freak, uncontrollable event - but it isn’t. When you listen without judgment people will feel as if you are in their world. They notice it.
This is what coaches mean when they talk about “creating space.”
Parents have experiences of moments like this with their children when they put aside their fears and identities and simply listen to their children.
It allows people to quiet their identity and change their position. They can grow in empathy and compassion and take on different perspectives. They became less focused on their position. This was almost always the case when changing their position would make their life, business partnerships, familial, and romantic relationships more dynamic and generative.
It seems like magic, but it is not. When you intentionally practice this, you can often hear what people are “not saying.”
One of the keys to doing this is to not be manipulating the people you are listening to. Your intentions must include focusing on the benefit for the individual and who they work with.
Blind spots
Blind spots are things we don’t see about ourselves. They relate to how we behave and how we think. Coaches must learn to work on their blind spots. They can also learn to see other people’s blind spots.
Coaches can learn to recognize blind spots and how they impact how people listen, speak, and behave. You learn why it is beneficial to coach people through blind spots and an approach to do so. You learn to recognize your own blind spots. Empowering people to work through their blind spots changes someone’s life trajectory. It impacts teams and organizational culture.
Blind spots are universal
Everyone has blind spots. Blind spots are ways we behave that other people can see and we cannot. They come from how we “listen” to something. Blind spots also occur between two people. This causes people to talk past each other. Identifying the blind spots between people can allow a coach to resolve interpersonal conflict effectively. It is important to recognize when two people are dealing with conflict due to blind spots. You’ll learn how to recognize your own, become open to people who authentically identify your blind spots, and will recognize blind spots in others. When people identify and address their blind spots, their sense of freedom, peace of mind, self-efficacy, and connection to others increases. As a coach, you can create a safe environment where your team members can discover and address their blind spots. You can profoundly impact the lives of the people you coach by empowering them to uncover and resolve their blind spots authentically and compassionately. This significantly impacts team dynamics.
Since people are dealing with past conversations, it is understandable that blind spots surface when people are triggered. When people are dealing with blind spots, they are not fully aware of what they are doing or how they act. Instead, they are seeing the world through a lens, and this is when a compassionate, authentic coach is most valuable.?
There may be an ongoing dialogue where someone we are coaching sounds completely disempowered and blames that on others. They may sound judgmental and focused on being right and making others wrong. When they come to us for coaching, we may ask them to authentically check in with different types of people in the organization. They may hear about a blind spot. When the people we coach identify their blind spots and address the underlying cause, this can change the trajectory of their lives.
Blind spots: How do you know if you have them? (first be sure you do)
●????? Do you see a repeating pattern that makes you feel like a victim?
●????? Is there a type of person or conversation you think frequently "causes" you to react?
●????? Are you judging anyone in your life for being a certain way? What was your role in what happened?
●????? Is there an area in your life where you say: “Been there, bought the T-shirt”?
●????? Are there places where you are sure you are right, and the other person is wrong?
●????? Are you in an echo chamber and unwilling to venture out of that echo chamber?
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You can say this to a team member dealing with a blind spot:
●????? Identify when it surfaces. It could look like you are no longer connecting with a group. Ask people around you.
●????? When you experience negative emotional responses or repeating patterns, think about what caused you to have that negative emotional response. Consider someone who did not share the same negative emotional response receiving the same communication simultaneously. Why did they perceive it differently?
●????? Does this blind spot impact any other relationship in your life? How is that showing up?
●????? Consider being curious, compassionate, empathetic, or innovative in this conversation. What do you think the outcome could be?
Advise the team member you are coaching to be compassionate and authentic with themselves about the impact on each area of their life.? The team member you are coaching may experience grief as they consider the impact on their life. Encourage them to allow themselves to grieve about the effect on their life and not to sit in that grief too long. Encourage them to have empathy for themselves. Have them consider the future and everything possible now that they know the blind spot exists. Assure them that identifying blind spots is critical to no longer being reactive. It provides them with freedom and power in their future.
Blind spots and interpersonal conflict
“When you understand every opinion is a vision loaded with personal history, you will start to understand that all judgment is a confession.”? - Nikola Tesla
Imagine an ongoing conflict between two team members. Both team members will likely have blind spots and only see a part of reality. First, you ask them what's holding them back from working together to obtain what is often their common goal. Acknowledge what they say without judgment. Secondly, ask them If they were to work with that person in an ideal world how would they do it? What would be the impact on the team? Ask about the shared vision and commitment. As Positive Intelligence instructs, ask them to envision themselves as that other person as a beautiful child who only wants to serve and to use “I” statements to express what the other person is experiencing. This allows the people involved in the conflict to empathetically interpret the other’s intentions. After that, you ask them how they might establish a brand-new relationship. Have them brainstorm how they can improve how they work together to create better relationships and communications. Once you have talked to both, you request that they have a conversation with each other and ask if they would like you to be there or if they are ready to have a conversation on their own. I suggest that they have this conversation over lunch, if possible. It is best when it is at another location, not the office. People often find it easier to get to know each other when they are not in the office.
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Picture Inspired by Andres Segarra
[1] We thank Andrew Sanjal for the concept.
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