Yours Truly witnessing the Quiet Strength of the Pacific Ocean

Some insights come from serendipitous occurrences.

Like this one I just had: that “Solution-Focus” has the quality of Quiet Strength.

This insight was triggered by three unrelated events:

- via @dChickadee4Life, stumbling upon this blog post: Three Keys to Mindful Leadership Coaching. The three keys mentioned by Douglas Riddle are: an open mind; non reactivity; permissive attention. These are all characteristics of  the “Not-Knowing” Stance which is one of the distinctive features of Solution – Focus. One particular sentence by Douglas Riddle resonated deeply in me: How does a coach do that? By creating in the conversation with the coachee a sense of open, reflective exploration. The coaches who expand my mind, emotions and performance come to the coaching relationship from a place of inner calm. They have quiet minds. They are not beguiled by fancy techniques or elegant coaching models.

- reading the book: Quiet. The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I had a profound sense of recognition while reading it. I made peace with my style of coaching – I am definitely not a Tony Robbins. I do not talk much. I do not raise my voice. I am not “in your face” and I definitely do not pump my fists in the air!  I like to create space for reflection. Gently but purposefully. There is strength in quiet and deliberate effort.

- having to confront  the same misunderstanding about Solution-Focus three times in the past week. I discovered, in 3 separate conversations with fellow Executive Coaches, that “Solution-Focus” is understood as task-focused. One Coach characterized “being too solution-focused” as going straight to the solution and prescribing a task as opposed to patiently listening to the Client first. I was taken aback – because this is the opposite of what “Solution-Focus” is! But, alas, that is what those words evoke, apparently. So I had to articulate what “Solution-Focus’ is.

These 3 separate events listed above made me realize that Solution-Focus is Quiet Strength.

Quiet strength in the “Not-Knowing” stance and curiosity of the Solution-Focused practitioners; in our  faith that Clients have already experienced bits and pieces of the solution.

Quiet strength in not adding anything to what Clients bring, yet keeping them accountable. Leading from behind, gently but steadfastly, in the interaction.

Quiet strength in being a witness to the Clients’ strengths – and honoring those strengths with our compliments.

Quiet Strength.

I think I like that.

Tags: being with the client, coaching, creating space, deliberate practice, executive coaching, Introvert, leadership, listening, mindfulness, misunderstanding, not-knowing stance, Quiet, quiet strength, reflection, Solution-Focused coaching, strength, Tony Robbins

Solutionsurfers’ PURE Brief Coach Training – participants busy in coaching conversations

“Embodied Learning” Coaching, “Limbic” Coaching, “Emotional Intelligence” Coaching, “Law of Attraction” Coaching, “Somatic” Coaching… and what about “Solution-Focused” Coaching itself?  So confusing!!  Too many names, too many claims.

But Coaching is simplicity itself.

Becoming an effective Coach is a different matter – if Coaching is a simple concept, that does not mean it is easy to execute.

Here is my own take on Coaching:

1. Coaching is a purposeful conversation. Nothing more, nothing less.
   According to the ICF (International Coach Federation), the purpose of a Coaching conversation is to “help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives.”
   To do that, Coaches are trained in different “protocols” (i.e. sets of assumptions, questions, communication strategies…).
   I use ‘Solution-Focused‘ protocols: they are well supported by research and they have at their core the assumption that is featured in the ICF definition of Coaching:   “the Client is the expert in his/her life and work and … every Client is creative, resourceful, and whole.”
   What kind of change can a conversation bring about? As Liselotte Baeijaert brilliantly put it, a Solution-Focused Coaching conversation “leaves the client changed: with more hope, with more creative ideas, with a feeling of competence, with a clearer view on possibilities“.
   No quantum mechanics or spiritual laws need be involved.
2. Coaching can also be Observing and Giving Feedback (i.e. constructive comments on the performance observed, with the aim of improving the performance itself). This kind of Coaching is often referred to as “Behavioral Coaching“.
   ‘Behavioral Coaching” is not that different from coaching in Sports. It is at the root of “Deliberate Practice“.
   Clients might want to develop some specific behaviors or skills (e.g. public speaking, interviewing skills…) and the Coach helps Clients practice. By simulating and observing the Client’s performance and by giving appropriate feedback, the Coach helps the Client acquire the desired capability. Think a tennis / swimming / ski… instructor. With a sprinkle of psychology.
   Again, there is an art in observing and giving feedback and the Coach is an expert on that.
   But that’s it.

   A good conversation. Strategic and scripted in the mind of the Coach, but naturally flowing (if the Coach is good) from the Client’s perspective.
   Or a keen eye and a good checklist.
   I know, no glamour here – in terms of marketing appeal no competition with terms like  ’energy boundaries” or “somatic matrix”.
   But conversations and checklists have something going for them – they work.

Tags: back to basics, Checklists, coaching, Coaching Definition, deliberate practice, ICF, simplicity, Solution-Focused coaching, the Art of Conversation, the Art of Giving Feedback

This year the SFBTA (Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Association) conference was held in Banff, Alberta – in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, in one of the most amazing Natural Parks that North America has to offer.

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate: it was snowing and overcast most of the time, with temperatures well below zero (C and F). On the other hand, this might have been a blessing in disguise: less tempted to roam around, participants all pretty much stayed in the warm and cozy Banff Centre, a fact that favored workshop attendance and the forming of new great professional connections.

What follows is a very personal account of the highlights of the SFBTA 2010 Conference based on my own experiences and interests – the good, the excellent and the just OK.

Continue reading…

Tags: Banff, conference, deliberate practice, Haesun Moon, Janet Bavelas, microanalysis, Peter De Jong, SF research, SFBTA 2010, Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Association, TIC, workshops, Yvonne Dolan

The point is, 99% of what you do in life I classify as laundry. It’s stuff that has to be done, but you don’t do it better than anybody else, and it’s not worth that much. Once in a while, though, you do something that changes your life dramatically. You decide to get married, you have a baby – or, if you’re an investor, you buy a stock that goes up twentyfold. So these rare events tend to dominate things. (Ralph Wanger in an interview in Money Magazine; as quoted by Keith E. Stanovich in his latest book What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought.)

This is an excellent point.

I would qualify it by adding a little distinction:

• - 99% of the decisions me make are laundry (in the sense explained above); 1% are the real deal – 20 or 30 decisions that shape our life
• - 80% or more (my arbitrary estimate) of what we do is “laundry” – stuff that we have to do, activities in which we are no better than the average; but 10% or more of what we do is based on our unique skills, it is something that we do better than average – we can make this 10% or more of our activities either deliberate practice that leads us to excel in what we do that is “us”, or actual doing that makes a difference in the world.

And this is where coaching comes into play.

A coaching conversation while facing one of those non-laundry moments in life can make all the difference:

- coaching can make the difference between a good decision, i.e., a rational decision based on our long-term interest and a bad decision, i.e., an impulsive, knee-jerk reaction based on automatic patterns of thinking. Automatic patterns of thinking are good for the laundry moments of life, they might be dangerous in the “non-laundry” scenario where our evolutionary-determined instincts might lead us astray

- coaching can make the difference between focusing our best efforts on that 10 to 20% of our activities that allow us to have a real impact on the world or squandering our unique skills, talents and dreams.

The whole point of Stanovich’s book is that while IQ tests measure our algorithmic mind, sort of like our “mental horsepower”, they do not measure the abilities of the reflective mind, sort of like the driver’s skills of our mind – so even people with high IQ can fail in making the rational choice IF they are not cued first (i.e., if they reflective mind is not engaged and brought online).

What better way of engaging the reflective mind than having a conversation with a professional coach? One session is often all my clients need to figure out where to go and how to get there!

Are you tired of doing laundry yet?

Tags: algorithmic mind, brief coaching, Decision Making, deliberate practice, my clients, reflective mind, Solution Focused

My friend Coert Visser mentioned the book “Talent is Overrated” in one of his interesting postings (here).
I’ve just finished reading that book, and there are quite a few noteworthy concepts in there.

First, though, my critique.
My main complaint about the book is that, as Coert again succinctly put it in a personal note, it should have been titled “Deliberate Practice”.
The author, in an attempt to give more relevance to the concept of “deliberate practice”, sets out by criticizing the notion of talent as an explanation of expert performance.
Granted, the author does a good job in highlighting the limits of talent-based explanations; however, the most one can say about these explanations is that they are incomplete – not that they are not valid.
His overall attack is based on a handful of studies and falls flat: all he achieves to do, in my opinion, is to note that the concept of talent still needs to be worked out in the details and that it is still debated among researchers.
It kind of reminds me of the creationists’ attacks on evolution: since biologists are still arguing about the details of evolution (e.g., punctuated equilibrium), then evolution is false.
The author, moreover, in an attempt to convince readers of the vital importance of skill-development and expert performance, dedicates a full chapter to explain that because companies and banks are awash in cash and money is everywhere, the only area where businesses can build a competitive edge is in the development of human resources.
That chapter written in 2007 before the current financial meltdown can either make you cry or make you laugh out loud.

Having said that, the core of the book is pretty good.
The main idea is that the way to excellence is practice. Deliberate practice.
Deliberate means that:
- it is designed specifically to improve performance
- it can be repeated a lot
- feedback is continuously available
- it is highly demanding mentally
- it isn’t fun
Jogging 5 times a week, same route, same amount of time–that is practice.
It is maintaining an acceptable level of performance.
Running 3 or 4 times a week, alternating between long runs, speedwork, tempo runs and different routes, following a program, monitored by a coach—that is deliberate practice!!
It is about stretching the limits.
In this process, a key role is given to the COACH.

As the author points out:
- an expert coach can observe you in ways that you cannot see yourself
- an expert coach can design a program that fits your needs, based on the body of knowledge on how performance is developed in that field
- an expert coach can tell which specific elements are needed for a specific performance and need to be developed by working intently on them.
Therefore, starting out on a path of deliberate practice is “extremely difficult to do without the help of a teacher or coach“.

The author illustrates these points by using some interesting examples: a study done in then West Berlin on talented violinists; studies done on chess players; stories about football star players.
He also distinguishes between different models of deliberate practice: the music model, the chess model and the sports model.

Interestingly enough, the advantage of practice is cumulative.
I remember reading a book written by a SAS member (Special Air Service, the elite British Army unit) on his experiences with that outfit. He said that the motto of the SAS should be changed from “who dares wins” to “practice, practice, practice”, because of the mind-numbing, continuos rehearsals. Yet that is the very key to their successes: they could not have dared, let alone won, without all that practice!!

The book “Talent is Overrated” reminded me of how much we as coaches need deliberate practice too.
That is why I loved Solutionsurfers advanced brief coaching training program, more specifically the “live coaching days”: 3 days of live coaching with real clients.
Intense; a lot of practice; real time feedback; stretching the limits.
I learned more in those 3 days than in hour after hour of “regular” coaching.
I am looking forward to the next “live coaching days” in April 2009!
Top Gun for Solution Focused Coaches.

Tags: coaching, deliberate practice, performance, talent