The director of the conference I attended in France made a short presentation at the last session in which he encapsulated what he and the management had been doing for the 8 days of our experience.
“We have been managing boundaries, not policing rules”
That’s the most concise description of management and leadership I have ever come across. If we’re managing boundaries then we are on the edge of difference. If we’re policing rules then we are imposing conformity. All problems in systems are caused by an attempt to control someone else’s actions and behaviours. Attempting to police those situations more often than not results in the suppression of difference and generates the fantasy of collaboration. If we’re brave enough to accept that difference exists and is enriching and is part and parcel of all systems, then the task becomes one of managing and engaging with that difference. If there is room for difference then there can be a realistic and authentic agreement to move forward from that perspective. That, to me, sounds like a more authentic form of consensus than an imposed “rule” that we all have to be the same.
“In terms of clarity, strategy has become an ever more obtuse art” (Micklethwait J and Wooldridge A, 1996, pp159).
We are regularly invited to assist organisations in the generation of strategic plans. The generation of a document or report is very often seen as the “end product” of a process and in some cases the plan itself then needs to be “sold” to the organisation. Increasingly we find management teams wanting to approach this task in a more creative way. The following are some thoughts, garnered from conversations with our clients about how it might be done differently.
Controlling the future
Why do organisations strategically plan? This question is rarely asked because of the dominant discourse in business that suggests that not to plan is somewhat reckless. Banks require plans in order to release funds. Marketing departments require plans in order to position the company or product. Most business engagement with state or central government requires a written plan that serves to reassure the parties that some kind of certainty exists as to who the primary actors are. Plans and strategic plans in particular are a primary map and compass of the business world. This raises one of the fundamental aspects of strategic planning – i.e. the hope that in producing a plan, uncertainty will be controlled and the future predicted.
Many strategic planning processes are predicated on the assumption that the “future” exists as a separate tangible place and the role of the strategic planner is to identify which aspects of the organisation’s mission and activities can be made to “fit” with that expected arrival. This can sometimes set up a defensive pattern within organisations that may turn a strategising process into one which seeks to prevent the organisation from experiencing any risk whatsoever, thereby protecting it from uncertainty and potentially from growthful risk and challenge.
The Paradox of Plans
The paradox can often look like this:
Increasingly I’m working with clients to create strategic planning processes whereby the strategising is fluid and evolving while at the same time visible and tangible. A plan is delivered but it is the result of and beginning of strategic thinking. If we are fixated on “one” future, then any unpredictability or deviation from that future can leave us feeling unprepared which is what we’re supposed to be addressing by doing a strategic plan in the first place!
Strategising vs Strategy
The contracting phase is now a time when I work with clients to re-frame the possibility of strategising and planning as one where the future is co-created in the present and is seen as a plurality rather than a single certainty. As a consultant I assist clients create safe enough spaces to imagine a different way of working, and more importantly, a jointly constructed future that embraces change, challenge and uncertainty.
Graetz draws a distinction between strategic thinking and strategic planning.
“..Planning concerns analysis – establishing and formalising systems and procedures; thinking involves synthesis - encouraging intuitive, innovative and creative thinking at all levels of the organisation”.
Hypothesising, de-constructing, re-framing etc are all tools for creative thinking and strategising which fit within my consultancy tool kit.
“So long as contrasting right versions not all reducible to one are countenanced, unity is to be sought not in an ambivalent or neutral something beneath these versions but in an overall organization embracing them” (Goodman, 1978, pp5).
In revisiting some of the work I have undertaken with clients strategising has been a way of asking creative questions with a view to generating new possibilities and new futures. The other insight of course is that we strategise all the time – whether how to sneak out of the house in our teens or securing additional finance for a business venture – strategic thinking comes naturally!
The Challenge for Consultants
The primary challenge to those of us involved in assisting organisations to strategise is the co-creation of a secure enough environment in which to envision a future that is insecure.
An un-attributed quote states – “Martin Luther King did not say, ‘I have a strategic plan,” he said “I have a dream’” – and has a lot to offer those of us in the midst of strategising. The dilemmas about outputs become secondary to the strategising itself and business plans, marketing material, bank proposals etc become obvious ways of developing contextually situated conversations that can only enhance understanding.
Goodman, Nelson, (1978), Ways of Worldmaking, Hackett Publishing Company
Graetz, Fiona (2002), Strategic Thinking Versus Strategic Planning: Towards Understanding the Complementarities, Management and Decision, Volume 40, Number 5, pp456 - 463
Micklethwait J and Wooldridge A, (1996), The Witch Doctors, Heinemann, London,
As I mentioned in the previous post, I use a process called Dynamic Participation as a methodology for consulting and facilitating. Increasingly we live in an age where "participation" is thrown around like snuff at a wake - what exactly does it mean? and more to the point, what does it look like? Here are some of the principles that I work by:
- Always work in the “here and now”. Who said what to whom a week ago; a month ago or a year ago is rarely useful in terms of moving a situation forward. Working with what is going on in the room right now is.
- Always work on a live issue. Role plays and case studies can be really interesting ways of getting a group to work on a task, but they rarely result in that group applying the learning in their work environment after the workshop/session has finished. Working on something that is a live issue for everyone in the room is one sure fired way to ensuring that learning sticks.
- Context is as important as content. How someone decides to "put something into the room" is always as important as what they say and is a huge source of information about how this group works together in helpful and unhelpful ways.
- Making a difference starts with being in the room. If people can’t understand why you have invited them together then the process is pointless. If however, you can show people by the way in which you interact with them that their presence and view is essential then you create immediate buy in.
- Keep the process public. Have the conversations about why you are there, what is expected and hoped for, boundaries around time etc out loud and with those you invite into your process. Take a risk and produce notes of the meeting that summarise what has been discussed and distribute these openly to all who attend.
- Dialogue, not monologue. Are you sure you are consulting/facilitating? And not disseminating? A real dialogue involves myriad views…are you open to changing yours on the basis of what you hear? If so, then a real and genuine dialogue can yield exciting results. If not, then you are engaged in a monologue and people will rarely come back for a second lecture.
- Roles come with responsibilities and that goes for everyone in the conversation. Dynamic Participation offers a space to ask each participant – what is my role? And what is my responsibility? Taking the blame culture out of organisational life can only be done if both of these questions are asked and answered by everyone in the room (including the consultant).
- Attend to boundaries, not rules. By attending to the boundaries of the process you leave room for difference. By attending to rules you impose conformity.
- Ask those who present with negative statements to offer positive alternatives, thereby focussing on what is possible as distinct from what is not.
- Defensive people are usually trying to protect something important. Instead of getting frustrated with the defence try asking “what is so important here that it needs this kind of protection?”
I am very regularly asked about the differences between coaching and therapy. I frequently read marketing blurb that suggests that therapy focuses on the “past” and coaching on the “future”; that therapy is about “resolving issues” and coaching is about “improvement”. Therapy is also accused of not offering “tools” for action thereby distinguishing it from its coaching cousin.
The similarities between both are important to note:
- All individuals who work with a coach or a therapist are interested in a “better” future
- Therapy and Coaching offer skills and possibilities for that future – the methodologies employed are different
- The quality of the relationship is the essential mechanism by which change is effected
- Self awareness on the part of the coach and therapist is essential for successful work with clients
- Unconditional positive regard, empathy and a person-centred approach are key to both approaches
While I apply psychodynamic thinking to my coaching relationships the key difference is about the permission sought to inquire into a client’s personal story and how that information is worked with in the coaching relationship. There are times when it is helpful to know more about family of origin – it may help to understand a dynamic being played out in organisational contexts. But unless a coach is trained to work with this material they run the risk of opening up emotional responses that may be difficult to contain. It’s also essential to know when to refer a coaching client to a therapist. Very often this is when a repeating pattern of unhelpful behaviour, rooted in unresolved personal relationships in the past, is unhelpful in the present.
Clients are not referred (self or other) to a coach because of an academic difficulty – it’s generally a behavioural one and as such a coach needs to meet a client in all their humanity.
As a therapist and a coach I bring distinctive skills to the client relationship that are based on my psychodynamic training and which allow me to:
- Meet a client in an authentic person-to-person encounter.
- Process my own feelings in the coaching relationship and to use them as constructive interventions.
- Spot a client who may need a therapeutic relationship and to refer on appropriately.
- Translate psychodynamic insights into powerful work related interventions that impact on work performance and behaviour.
Coaching asks defining questions about which behaviours, skills and strategies have assisted the executive reach this level of success and which have hindered that progress. The context that is created for asking those questions is the defining difference between coaching and therapy.
How much responsibility does a facilitator take on for what happens in a room with a group with whom he or she is working? This is something I think about quite a bit depending on the kind of relationship, the longevity of it and what the task in hand is.
I am a believer in keeping the planning conversations about the process in the room and out loud. Any other approach infantilises clients and results in the facilitator having more control than s/he needs to. If the ultimate aim of the process is to generate action then this set up can stifle that before you even begin.
The “difficult” or “angry” person in a group is the place where this approach is really tested and I’ve worked with this in myriad ways over the course of my consulting career. Now if I’m working over an extended period of time then I can process what that hostility may be communicating on behalf of the group. You need a good working alliance and time and space to do that kind of work. If I am in a situation where I have a short amount of time and a clear piece of work the group needs to engage with then my approach is more direct.
If someone is “interrupting” the task of the group by complaining (usually about a deficit of some kind) then instead of dealing with them directly about it I put the following into the room.
I appreciate the fact that people feel comfortable speaking freely about what they wish to talk about
However, the context for the meeting is that we are here to discuss the following items – and then I refer to the invitation or agenda.
There are resources available to the group including my facilitating skill, time, physical resources etc and they need, as a group, to make a choice about how they want to do that. We can talk about what’s “not” happening or we can talk about what is….They can choose to change the agenda and focus on other items and I will willingly go with them there and facilitate that discussion. What I am not willing to do is make a decision for them and then find out that many people in the room are disappointed that we didn’t talk about the agenda which was agreed.
I generally find that putting that out into a group does several things
- It respects the diversion from the topic at hand, and the person who is brave enough to say out loud what some people may not be able to articulate.
- It puts responsibility for the content of the conversation where it belongs – with the group
- It puts responsibility for the context and boundary of the conversation where it belongs – with the facilitator
- It engages with the participants as adults, with choices about how they use the resources available to them
- It requires action on the part of the group, which if the outcomes of the meeting are to be successful will require the same kind of action.
The alternative is for the facilitator to take all the responsibility which in turn means that you prevent a group from learning how they choose to include and exclude.
So far I’ve never encountered a group that hasn’t been able to engage with that task and make a decision about how to continue to work together.
I’ve embarked on a PhD programme this year which is throwing up all kinds of challenges and delights (so far, in equal measure). I’m in that beginning phase where as each day goes by I realise what I don’t know. There are times when it’s incredibly dispiriting because I know it is going to be a long time before I can speak with any confidence about what it is I do know.
I’ve found this little tool useful in the past in helping me position myself in relation to learning and newness. It’s generally outlined in a matrix but I prefer a circular model because there’s never a point at which learning “ends”. We’re always at some point in this circle in relation to something.
Right now I’m in the unconscious incompetence phase of learning and it’s uncomfortable beyond belief. However, I‘m in the unconscious competence phase in relation to the process of learning – I have been here before and while I can experience the uncomfortableness of it, I know it will shift and abate somewhat when the time is right.
When I’m working with clients I refer to this model to help people position themselves in relation to what they “do” know. There’s so much of what we do in organisational life that we take for granted and by taking it for granted, we often dismiss it. When a learning opportunity arrives we then feel inadequate in some way instead of seeing learning as a cyclical process. Often, taking the time to sit with what we take for granted can lessen the anxiety about “starting over” with something new.
Johnnie Moore has an interesting post on the Fetish of Change where he references a fascinating article by Christopher Grey
Grey’s article is a
critique of the current orthodoxy that the world is changing at an ever faster rate, that organizations must adapt to this change in order to survive, and that change management techniques enable organizations to do this. There is no basis to evaluate the proposition that thewe face unprecedented rates of change, and change is not something to which organizations must respond, but is instead an outcome of organizational actions. Change management initiatives are largely failures, and the usual explanations for these failures are inadequate.
He goes on to talk about change management in these terms:
change management rests upon the conceit that it is possible systematically to control social and organisational relations, a conceit shared by the social sciences in general
The article is a great read and Johnnie offers his own take on the change process at the end with which I completely agree.
too often, conversations about change treat it as something done to other people at another time; as something that people must be talked into.
I’d offer an additional perspective which is that (a) we are always resistant to change and (b) we are always changing. So many managers and leaders I work with are grappling with having to implement or deal with the fallout from change. They enter into the relationship feeling scared, utterly inadequate and hiding in their academic understanding of the “value” of change. I have moments when I genuinely think they’ve been brainwashed into believing that it should be simple and straightforward. Which of course it’s not. How could it be when we are grappling with that paradox?
Ask anyone about the value of an academic approach to fitness, weight loss, saving for a rainy day and see how effective it is to talk at people about something they are willingly losing or giving up by not doing things the “new” way. It simply doesn’t work. Most of the time people are scared about what they are losing – sense of self, dignity, finance, position etc…our identity is completely challenged by change processes and yet…
We all change
- we recover from relationships that don’t work
- We learn to move on from the death of significant others
- We adapt to being in relationships with others where our sense of self has to evolve and accommodate difference
- We deal with our children leaving home
And somehow, at the end of it all we survive. Change processes that tap into what we already know about change, our capacity for both hating and managing together with our ability to survive and move on are the most meaningful change interventions I have seen work. I’m privileged to have been part of designing some of those processes also and like Johnnie I believe in the power of open spaces (using that technology and others) for genuine and meaningful connections between people. Safe places that address and manage power relationships are they only ways to effective real change in my humble opinion.
I contributed to a comment stream over at
Creating Passionate Users recently and meant to come back to it to post something here in response.
Kathy posted a really interesting article on criticism. She says
The tricky part is that the criticisms aren't always wrong. It really might be all hype. It might be BS. It might be just a fad, or the same s*** with a new name. But things are rarely that black and white. Where there is passion (not just fad or fashion), there is something real there. Something that some people see and feel. But the key point to keep in mind--and the one that offers a simple solution--is this:
People will sometimes diss things they know very little about
In my response to a really great article about the value of passion (in all its forms) I said:
Sometimes the uninformed criticism is a reaction to being patronised and I think advocates and evangelists for various products/services need to be careful that they don’t cross the boundary between enthusiasm/passion and being patronising. Ultimately, we have to make it possible for people to say “I don’t like that” or “I don’t know” without imposing a value judgement. I’ll never get golf…I don’t think my life is in any way diminished as a result…the more I can admit that then the less I am likely to take a cudgel and bludgeon golf lovers to metaphorical death!
I sometimes come across this situation with client organisations which are so enthusiastic to promote the value of what they do that they sometimes forget that not everyone sees it the same way. Take golf for example (and I apologise in advance to any golf playing readers). I don’t play it, I probably never will and I remember feeling distinctly patronised by a friend on one occasion who suggested that I was missing something by not trying it out. I didn’t feel like I was missing anything and felt then that I’d never walk onto a golf course because it would be proving him right, me wrong and as a result I haven’t entertained the notion since. He made it difficult for me to see the value of it by assuming a high moral ground about the value and I made it impossible for myself to see the invitation by reacting to it.
I agree with Kathy that passion comes in all shapes and sizes and needs to be attended to. I also believe that creators, consultants or whomever need to moderate our enthusiasm so that it comes across as an invitation and not the potential sound of a door slamming.
I contributed to a comment stream over at Management Craft where Lisa has a great rant about the intrusive nature of mobile phones (I am soo with her on this one). The post is about the message we give to the person we are with when we ask them to hold on a moment while we answer our phones. The overt and covert message is that the person on the other end of the phone is more important than the person we’re talking with.I’ve seen the increase in this type of behaviour rocket in the past 24 months here in Ireland. As Lisa says
Unless you are the President (of a country), an on call neurosurgeon, or the only person with nuclear launch codes, you do not need to answer the phone. If you are talking with someone in person, it is rude and inconsiderate to interrupt that conversation. In addition, doing both things is pretty close to multitasking which we know is not an effective way to use time.
But the point I made over there and I’ll make it here again, is that this idea of being available 24/7 is a myth. I think there are a few things going on. Sometimes our sense of self is reliant on external sources. Being “available” is one way of feeling better about ourselves and in turn convincing ourselves that we really "matter". The 24/7 thing with phones/blackberries is also a way of saying we are available to everyone all of the time which in turns means – to no one body most of the time. The relentless availability culture is in my opinion a charade that is an avoidance of “intimacy”. If I’m scanning my text messages or waiting to answer a call then I’m not available to the person I am with. My mind is wandering, my attention is frayed and I’m simply “not there”. “Showing up” then takes on a vacuous quality that undermines and gets in the way of an authentic meeting.
If I can’t pay attention and be present when I’m with someone – be it a personal friend or a business colleague then I’m wasting their time, being disrespectful and ultimately pretending to be interested. How can authentic communication happen under those circumstances? Being present is the best way we have of making the people we know "matter" and in turn having the same experience ourselves. So switch off the phone/blackberry and pay attention to the moment...yes, this moment, right now...
I spent a great day yesterday delivering a training seminar for a group of crafts people from north and south of the border. One of the interesting issues that emerged at one point in the proceedings was the difference in how men and women deal with money. Most of the people present were solopreneurs and working independently, the quality of their work from the brief tour of websites I undertook is superb. Yet many of the women in particular professed a degree of discomfort when negotiating face to face with clients about fees.
We talked about some practical strategies for dealing with the very real issue of getting paid for your work but there seemed to be something more profound going on that reminded me of my training as a therapist. There comes a point when you have to feel comfortable asking for a suitable fee for the work you have done – particularly when that work is personal – and can only be undertaken by you. It’s a paradox. You are charging for a service, but you are also valuing your particular view, craft, skill or way of doing business. That’s why someone is standing in front of you asking you to do something for them. In a large corporation there’s a department that deals with the mucky stuff of invoicing and credit control. Many creative types have agents and managers…then there are those who have to manage both the creative stuff and the mucky stuff together – it’s hard to separate out the personal from the professional. The men present yesterday seemed to have no problem whatsoever in charging for their work, placing a value on what they do and asking for money.
There is a cultural discourse about women asking for money for “personal” service that inevitably plays into this whole discussion. The fine line between prostitution and therapy has been written about extensively and when there is no external “object” around which a discussion takes place it can be deeply uncomfortable for some people. As I have mentioned before, I don’t have a bag of tricks or a “thing” I sell. What I bring to a client is myself, my experience, my wisdom and my skill. It is personal – it has to be. But it can only work if there are good boundaries and I am a fond fan of that cliché that good fences make very good neighbours.
Some of the strategies we discussed that might be useful for crafts people yesterday included:
Writing up a “terms and conditions” document, framed in positive language about what you can and will provide and how you expect payment – post it on your website so people can see this before they contact you. The chances are they won’t bat an eyelid about payment terms if you’ve outlined it in advance.
Follow up “informal” discussions about commissions or work with a friendly email – put your understanding of what the client is looking for in writing, this will serve to clarify your own thinking and prompt some similar thinking on the part of the client. It also serves as the starting point to the assignment.
Keep a log or a diary of a project from the outset and include in it the time you spend thinking about a client and designs as well as the time you spend making – you’ll be surprised at how much work you are actually doing and how little value you may be attributing to it.
Sometimes small interventions can be the most meaningful of all and I hope that some of the people who came to the workshop yesterday will find those three suggestions useful in creating a boundary around what needs to be protected – their personal skill and ability and what can sometimes be eroded – their sense of worth and value.
I generally work on my own with groups and while it’s always great to get feedback at the end of a session or in subsequent days it can be difficult to get critical feedback that can help next time out.
This week, for the first time, I invited a colleague to observe my training work and I was very interested in how I responded. I was nervous before the session (I’m generally a bit nervous but this was off the scale!), left my office without part of my equipment and had to improvise and it took me a good hour or so to forget he was in the room. As the day progressed I settled into myself a bit more.
When the session was over there was an opportunity for the participants to offer feedback and I also had some time with my colleague. Both sets of feedback focussed on different aspects of the day and I was curious to see what my colleague had made of the work I was doing. I won’t go into the detail of his comments - but what struck me as really interesting was his ability to see me working in a way that I take totally for granted. He observed me “remembering” what had happened earlier in the day and bringing it back at a relevant moment. He also watched me restructure a segment of the day when something more interesting came along and the energy of the group went there etc. These are all standard things I “do” with a group and it was so helpful for me to have them noticed.
Asking my colleague into the room is part of a series of interventions I am making around languaging and describing what I do. More recently I asked a group with whom I had worked to write up their experience of the “problem” and the “intervention” as feedback for me and again, it was huge learning and a reminder that when I move into a comfort zone I tend to “forget” what it is I’m doing – I’m in that unconscious competence place.
It takes a risk to ask for feedback because so much of what we do is personal…but so far I’ve learned a lot about how I work in ways that would have been inaccessible to me. How do you know what you do? And how well it’s working?
One of the lessons I learnt from working as a therapist (and something that this post from The Relaxed Therapist prompted me to think about again) is that it isn't always helpful to be helpful. It's a lesson I have taken into other areas of my work life also. And before you say "Huh?" let me explain.
When a client demands my attention - be that a reasonable or an unreasonable demand I have to ask myself the question - who's pressure is this? and "what is the request contained in the demand?" Sometimes a client can't tolerate an unbearable pressure emanating from without and will seek ways to alleviate that pressure by passing it on to me. I've seen this quite a bit in my coaching practice. The request contained within a demand for a shorter/longer/revised meeting is generally "make what is intolerable go away". Now there are times when it may be appropriate to step in and take action. But more often than not "helping" in this instance isn't helping my client address his or her need to acquiesce to their pressure. If I jump and say "yes of course" then the pressure is just passed down the line and learning leaves with it.
It's really important to hold a boundary when a client is pushing against it. This isn't the same as saying "no" but it's more to do with hovering on the edge of the boundary and trying to use it as a learning experience. Here's what I've learned about being helpful:
- Any request for help from a client that comes with a hidden tinge of pressure should be questioned. The chances are they may be unable to tolerate their own pressure and want you to alleviate it for them.
- Holding the boundary between an immediate "yes"and an immediate "no" is a very uncomfortable place to be. The chances are that uncomfortableness is the same feeling a client wants to get rid of.
- Checking in with our own need to "help" from time to time is a useful way to stay on top of unconsciously colluding with clients.
- When we feel the uncomfortable urge to "help" ask yourself - "what am I trying to get rid of here" the chances are - it's the same thing that the client wants to get rid of.
- If you can tolerate the pressure a client brings to your relationship then you can teach a client how to make sense of their own pressure instead of removing what may be a powerful symptom of a more profound issue.
Maybe it's just me, but I find myself sighing when I read about "time management"...so much of what I read appears to be predicated on two things (a) there's limited amounts of it (yup, I get that bit) and (b) it's possible to operate in a linear way within a given time frame (here's where I have problems)...
My life simply doesn't work in straight lines. I can't start the day with at "to do" list, work my way systematically through it, while ignoring all other interruptions so that I can feel a self satisfied glow at the end of the day with that line of "ticks". i just can't do it!
I remember attending a talk by psychoanalyst Adam Phillips a couple of months ago. He was talking about how psychoanalysis 'works" and he described it as the theory and practice of side effects. He talked about how people come into therapy with a list of things they want to talk about and/or resolve and then something happens to derail the process and it's in attending to the derailment that the real work begins. I laughed heartily at that description because in some way it describes my approach to consulting and getting things done. I am not in the habit of missing client deadlines. My work is done on time and on budget. I get the stuff done. But I rarely get up and work though my list systematically. I wander around, I think out loud, I allow myself to be distracted, heck I even day dream. And sometimes when I'm pottering about the most interesting insights will land in my lap. I know they wouldn't arrive as fully formed if I was on a schedule and waiting patiently for them to materialise by 3.04pm.
I'm all for time management, but it needs to be congruent with the way in which we actually work and how we allow ourselves to be open to derailments that fuel our creativity and don't close it down.
In Manfred Kets de Vries' presentation at the recent ISPSO conference he highlighted the key concerns of top executives. I captured 9 of them and there may have been more – but here you go:
1 Interpersonal conflict
2 Management of disappointment
3 Nobel Prize complex – can I be number 1?
4 Feeling like an imposter/fake
5 Faust syndrome (boredom)
6 Life balance
7 Fuck you money – how much money is enough?
8 Relationships with others
9 Body stress
I found this list fascinating – because all of these issues are “personal” and “inter-personal” – I don’t see much here in the way of organisational or business angst – even the issue of “fuck you money” is one of value and how we know what we are worth. It appears that there comes a time when existential issues take over. There’s much to think about that relates to every level of organisational functioning in here – leadership, power, politics, management etc etc… I’m sure this list could be extended by miles. I also suspect this list could be re-drawn for different stages of career development (mmm I might think about that a bit more).
On a side issue, number 2 is the precise topic I’m researching for my PhD and to be honest, there is not much in the way of management literature about this subject (which presents a great challenge and opportunity for me naturally!).
I came across Come Gather Round (via Management Craft) where there's a great post about questions (and you know me and my questions by now!). In it Dirk Richards says
What is the most significant question that you have ever been asked, or have ever asked yourself? My quest for great questions continues. These are questions that may be life-changing because they somehow address the soul. I am unsure what the exact criteria are for inclusion on my list. For now I can only say, “I know it when I see it.”
Here are the questions that so far have met my fuzzy and entirely subjective criteria:
Is my genius on pupose?
What kind of me is my work creating?
For what has my life been preparing me?
Am I making good use of my life?
Who needs my gift now?
Ooo they're great questions and I'm particularly taken with the second one "what kind of me is my work creating?" Apart from being a great coaching question it seems to me that it's one we should all be asking regardless of role, job or outlook. I'm not sure I could offer a coherent answer to that right now...I'm sure I could share an aspirational one, but one based on the reality of my work...now that's a tough and very interesting challenge.
It's just over three months since I started the interactions blog and last week I penned the last entry in a personal blog I've been writing for three years so it's about time for some review and reflection I think. I suspect that the things I've learned from blogging (reading, writing and commenting) are lessons that will continue to stand me well in all areas of life. But for now, here's what I think I've learned so far:
Find your voice - It takes time to find your voice. It took me the guts of a year to settle into the personal blog - I'd experimented with all kinds of ways of telling my stories and decided at the end of it all that I was writing for myself and if someone else found me interesting then they would listen in and chat back. I'm still struggling with this space in that regard. I guess it's a bit like starting a new job - you know where the desk and water cooler are but you have to sit it out a bit to find out when and where to make a contribution!
Stay connected - I realised that at the end of three years with the personal blog I had said what I wanted to say and I didn't want to continue filling in blanks on a web space just because that's what I'd always done. It was a tough decision to make but ultimately the right one. Likewise with this space - I'll write when the muse strikes and if I find that I've nothing more to say then I'll re-invent myself or move on.
Talking to yourself is a good thing - that's effectively what I did on the personal blog and I guess to a certain extent what I'm doing here. It'll take a while to build a readership (and I'm delighted to say that's growing so thank you to the faithful regulars who stop by). But if I'm not interested in what I'm writing about - how can I expect anyone else to be?
Be yourself - this is connected to all of the others but it's particularly relevant in the world of business blogging. I'm very conscious of audience in this space...much more than I was while writing a personal blog. What happens if I screw up royally in public here? How the heck can you hide? And of course this is precisely why I started a business blog - so I can actually be and show myself (Believe me I have the suit and formidable glasses for the other occasions as well!).
It's all about the space between - regardless of whether I'm consulting, training, coaching, having lunch or reading the newspaper - life happens in the spaces between people and blogging is my way of creating a mechanism for more in-between spaces. For now I'll stuggle on with the other stuff but every time someone comments or takes up something I've said in another forum or offers me the opportunity to do that here I count my blessings.
So that's the current list of learnings...continually being added to of course but not a bad way to start the second trimester of business blogging?
Lorianne posted a comment on my last entry and I think it deserves a bit more space on the main page:
Lots of folks here in the States at least see business blogs as being a silver bullet: start a blog, and instantaneously you’ll have a following, your website will get tons of traffic, and you’ll get loads of new clients. Of course, blogs don’t work that way. Although a “blog buzz” builds virally, it still takes a long time to build a faithful readership. In order for things to spread by word of mouth, you have to attract “mouths” one at a time, at least in the beginning.
That’s where the “betweeness” comes in, I think. I’m sure a lot of folks are reading this because, like me, they started reading your personal blog first: in one sense, this business blog is 3 years & 3 months old. Unless you’re in the business consulting/coaching biz (and those folks are your competitors, not your clients), you probably don’t want/need to read about business consulting/coaching every day. BUT, if a blog has enough “between bits”–if it includes interesting things about human nature, books, current events, etc. in between the strictly business stuff–people will keep reading.
It’s a lesson I learned while doing retail sales in a previous life. If *all* you talk about is the product you’re trying to sell, potential customers tune out. Sometimes you have to ease your way into their confidence by talking about other, seemingly unrelated things.
You know this, of course. I just wish the folks hyping business blogs as the Next Biggest Thing new this, too.
I think there's loads of material here to think about. I know that I've maintained a long list of business blogs in my bloglines account (most of which isn't published here on the side bar until I work out how the tech bits work) and while there are a number of favourites, I am changing the list regularly depending on the voices I hear. I do get a wee bit weary of blogs that are established to push a particular book or a training course or authors who consistently reference their own published work..I feel as though I'm being given the "hard sell" or that posts are contrived so that the link with the published work can be made so I've become a bit more ruthless in my pursuit of interesting stories and compelling voices. I wonder what other readers think?
I do a lot of work with boards of directors and management committees wanting to take time out to review where they are and where they are going. Sometimes this involves organising and facilitating "retreats" (I use that word advisedly because in Ireland 'retreat' has religious connotations!). But I digress.. A recurring theme is often that of board composition - Who do we need? What skill base are we looking for? Do we need to think of retiring and asking others to step in etc? When it gets down to thinking about real people groups can often get stuck. Loyalties, allegiances, politics and favouritism sometimes get in the way of the task at hand.
Increasingly I'm using other methodologies for getting at what's needed and a favourite technique I use is the fantasy board game. In this, each person in the room gets to pick a person - real or imagined, alive or dead to place on the board. It's a fun brainstorming session and the more it is played the wilder the suggestions get (and you can tell a lot about someone by who they suggest!). It's easier to pick a fantasy person than name someone you might know in a personal capacity. I then do an exercise with people about why they picked the person they did - and the list of attributes and qualities simply flows! We then have a list of all of the skills and qualities needed to populate the board that will look to the future and it's not a difficult task at this point to compare that list with the skill base of people currently sitting on the board. Augmenting, changing or moving around tends to be a much more logical task once the illogical one of picking fantasy people has been completed.
There's a lot to be said for playfullness in consulting - I really enjoy these sessions, and for what it's worth Katharine Hepburn is always on my list (for everything now that I think of it). Why? She's independent, sassy, not afraid to call it as she sees it and can stand up to Humphrey Bogart in a boat while at the time being a four time academy award winner and remaining fabulously feminine. Now I wonder what that says about me eh?
Photo courtesy of rest-in-peace.info
The disclaimer at the beginning of this piece is that I coach – I work primarily with people in business contexts, I have also worked with people in a personal capacity and as a psychotherapist, I’ve seen another side of what I’m about to write about.
So many coaching services are predicated on helping people achieve their dreams – be they wild, moderate or down right sensible. There are lots of approaches, tricks, methodologies etc – but at the end of the day it’s largely about one thing – achieving the dream. I’m sceptical…and the reason I’m sceptical is that many, many people don’t know how to dream. And if you don’t know how to dream – how can a coach or a strategist be of use to you? How can you progress your life if all around you you are getting two messages (1) You are responsible for the choices you make (2) You can make a dream come true –if you have one, that is.
I grew up not knowing how to dream. In my case it was the result of living in a household where one parent suffered from depression. My survival mechanism and what I learned early on was that to dream meant disappointment so it was better to modify that disappointment by not dreaming – therefore I could be in control of what was going on around me. And it worked very well for me. Until I realised that all around me people were achieving, and targeting, and dreaming and promoting and getting help with progressing themselves – I simply didn’t know how to step into that world. I hired a coach at one point who simply tried to bully me through what he thought was my resistance – but I simply didn’t understand how to take that next step and he didn’t have the skills to help me. So I get it when people say they don’t know how to dream.
The desire and expectation cycle looks something like this. When there’s a depressed atmosphere (and this doesn’t have to relate to clinical depression it can be related to a “glass half full” kind of position) there’s a modification of expectation (like I outlined above). It’s simply pointless to want so you have to make alternative arrangements. Then there’s a reluctance to dream anything at all because…well, you never really know if this is going to fall through again. This leads to an ongoing absence of desire – people become self contained and can sometimes end up with a depressed or glass half empty sensibility themselves (thankfully, in my case I avoided this!). Possibilities become limited – have you met those people who no matter how often you make a suggestion can come back with a “that’s not good enough” answer? And as a result you learn that there is no point in dreaming and to live without desire. Now that’s a pretty bleak picture and a cycle like this can be broken but it means a going back to basics approach and not a “here’s an action plan” approach. In many cases people feel guilty for desiring – because they feel they “shouldn’t”.
Helping people dream means giving people permission to “live”; to “succeed”; to “stand out” and ultimately to rediscover who they were before they started to put someone else’s emotional welfare before their own. In business contexts it’s working with underachievers; the anxious and neurotic; the worriers; the perfectionists - holding a space for them while they work out how to connect with their inner sense of “good enough”. It’s poignant and very meaningful work and each time I meet someone who’s confounded by trying to dream someone else’s dream I smile because I know what that feels like and I know how much work it takes to connect. So I don’t offer magical solutions to achieving goals in the absence of inquiring into how it might be that my clients don’t know to dream. It’s only starting from that point that we can move forward together.
Mark Hollander writes something that resonates with me:
It is interesting that for a field as collaborative as ours just how much time we spend in complete isolation. I look at my weekly time sheets and am amazed at just how much time I am alone, staring at a computer screen. Writers are confronted by a taunting empty document waiting to be filled. The editors I work with can spend as much as 60 hours a week alone in a dark room working on their AVIDs. Directors break out scripts in isolation. And even Producers with the million phone calls that must be made to get one simple shoot set up are still isolated. Long term happiness (not to mention mental health) requires a steady diet of human interaction. We are by nature social creatures... and when denied interaction by the demands of work or the allure of email, it takes it's toll.
I spend a lot of time alone - thinking, writing, planning etc and there are times when I'm in one of those contemplative moods that I have to remind myself to reach out and make contact. Solitary periods are a necessary part of my work but I contrast that with being an extroverted thinker - which means that I rarely know what's on my mind until I start talking to someone.
I don't experience solitary times as lonely but they can sometimes be isolating so my rules (for myself) around this when I know I am going into one of these phases are:
- Make plans to meet friends or colleagues for lunch on a regular basis
- Pick up the phone and chat with a friend or colleague either about the work or about a social matter at least once a day
- Make sure to get out of the office for a walk, coffee or some other "outside" activity during the working day
- Recognise the difference between needing to talk to think and needing to talk to forget!
- Mind the boundary around time because it often blurrs when there's nobody to remind me the working day is over
Do you experience working on your own as isolating or lonely? How do you manage social context in oe of those phases?
I was a guest on Saturday with Susan McReynolds on RTE 1 this morning in the good company of Damien and Claire. The piece was a general introduction to blogging and why people blog etc but we also touched on issues of privacy and work related matters such as the recent La Petite Anglaise situation (ie workers being suspended and/or fired for blogging). I think this latter one is going to grow and grow. The point I made in the interview is that it's not only how much (if any - and not much in the above example) of a company's information a blogger might reveal it's also about how much of our personal selves we bring into the office even via virtual methods. We have highly codified rules about how we behave in work settings. One of those rules is that emotional or intimate behaviour belongs at the front door. When a "boss" discovers a personal blog they are faced with the reality that the blogger is a whole human being - they can read about who this person is outside of that door and they are then faced with the dilemma of what to do with that information back at base. We can't not know what we know. If I have a personal blog and write salacious details of my comings and goings that has nothing to do with work - is it becoming behaviour? Likewise if I write an innocuous post about various other interests. Am I the kind of person my company want's to hire? What happens when the personalised water cooler conversations are broadcast loud and proud? And what business is it of my employer who or what I am outside of the front door if I am not breaching any confidentialities? What kind of image building do bloggers contribute to by how they blog outside of company hours? How much control can and should employers have over the people who work for them? How much responsibility do bloggers have for what they say and write inside or outside of company time?
Here's my prediction: Employers that don't get blogging will increasingly use information garnered online to make decisions on hiring and one of these days a blogger is going to slap a pre-emptive strike on a company because they failed to hire them due to irrelevant information garnered online. A new type of prejudice will come into the daily parlance and while companies think they have the upper hand right now because most of the focus is on bloggers who reveal company business, I think business in general needs to take a long hard look at the kind of information it is ethically disposed to gathering and using and under what circumstances. Having a policy on blogging is a start (preferably one that is negotiated) but there are much wider ethical issues here which we're only beginning to touch on and it's incumbent on bloggers to be part of that conversation, not merely reacting and responding to it.
You can access the programme by clicking on this link, scoot forward to 41.08 minutes in where our interview begins. Cian from Irish Election did a phone interview towards the end of the programme (scoot forward to 1.25.36 for the beginning of his segment).
Referencing Fast Company, Shawn over at Anecdote comments:
Andrew says we should be more comfortable with not knowing and I have to admit I don’t entirely know what he means.
I also have real issues with the way in which the benefits of "not knowing" are bandied about sometimes. In fairness, the Fast Company article is interesting and the following suggestions are offered:
Practice admitting when you're stuck or don't know what you're doing (perhaps in safer environments at first)
Open up to others to help you begin to find answers to your challenges.
Begin to notice the sense of freedom that can come from not having to "know" all the time.
For me, the issue is less about being comfortable "not knowing" but more - can I manage the anxiety of not having the answer? It's a bit like our relationship with silence. Most of us find certain kinds of silence uncomfortable - there's an expectation of dread; something awful might happen; I am expected to come up with an answer and if I don't then I'll get into trouble etc. Most people will rush to fill that silence because it can be an awkward place to be. So adopting a position of "not knowing" is, in fact a sophisticated response to managing my own and others' anxiety. My own suggestions for managing those moments are:
- Talk about the pressure to know - if you are experiencing this the chances are others are too. Naming the pressure to "know" can relieve the tension of "not knowing"
- Adopt a position of curiosity about the stuckness - what's the useful information contained in the dilemma that is related to the question we can't answer? Very often they are related
- Stand back from the dilemma and wonder what a stranger looking in at this conversation might see
- Pay attention to the emotional temperature of the discussion - if necessary, use imagery to describe what's being felt but not being said in the moment
- Ask yourself - if I don't know the answer - what is the question that is causing us to feel stuck? What is it about the way in which we're asking the question that's evoking "not knowing"?
So far from "not knowing" - those moments offer a creative way of engaging with what we
do know - we just need to pay attention to different kinds of communication.
Another great post from
Kathy has sparked my thinking about creative process,
“not knowing” and all that stuff that’s a challenge to certainty and control. This has been particularly relevant for me in a recent project – the overt task was the creation of a strategic plan which went well but the covert task was managing the anxiety of my client about outcomes. Each time we’d take a break of a few days from the process my client would redesign the task and focus on the outcomes and actions to the detriment of the high level thinking we needed to stay with. The images in my head were of me physically pulling her back.
Thankfully we have a great working relationship so I moved into coach mode (with her permission) and we looked at what the gaps and the attention to outcomes was about. A complex political environment, uncertainty about her own position, a distrust of how well the consultation process we had designed was going etc all conspired to make her cautious about trusting her own and my instincts and processes for getting the outcome in the end. The process we designed was based on my rules for dynamic participation and was effectively about listening to the conversations with participants and modifying our consulting approach in response – allowing the process to unfold organically if you will. Cathy talks about this and quotes a section from Getting Real which really speaks to me about the value of holding back:
It's a Problem When It's a Problem
"Don't waste time on problems you don't have yet. Do you really need to worry about scaling to 100,000 users today...?"
Just Wing It
"Bottom Line: Make decisions just in time, when you have access to the real information you need."
"Real things lead to real reactions. And that's how you get to the truth."
Work in iterations
"Let the app grow and speak to you. Let it morph and evolve. Instead of banking on getting everything right upfront, the iterative process lets you continue to make informed decisions as you go along. The result is real feedback and real guidance..."
There's often an assumption that if you're not controlling the outcome it will slip away. I beg to differ - I hold the outcome but I don't attempt to control it because if I do that I miss the evolving processes that make that outcome authentic and rooted in real experience. At the end of the day it's that balance between authenticity and task that gets plans owend and acted upon
Photo credit
It seemed oddly synchronistic to come across this
Guardian interview (and photo) with
Adam Philips after my
last entry
When Adam Phillips' American publishers were planning a US edition of his book Going Sane, they insisted on giving it an upbeat subtitle. The idea drove him, if not insane, then to distraction. "The woman at the publishers said to me: 'How about Maps of Happiness.' I thought she was joking, so I said: 'How about Maps Against Happiness?' And she said: "I don't think so. Against is such a negative word.'
The proposed subtitle rankled because Phillips is against guidebooks to happiness. "A culture that is obsessed with happiness must really be in despair, mustn't it? Otherwise why would anybody be bothered about it at all?" asks the psychoanalyst, closing his eyes as he does repeatedly during the interview when he wants to clinch a thought, and then leaning forward to put his head in his hands. "It's become a preoccupation because there's so much unhappiness. The idea that if you just reiterate the word enough and we'll all cheer up is preposterous.
Oh I wanted to clap and cheer when I read that. Philips is railing against the instant-fix, one-size-fits-all approach to being perfect, happy, sorted - call it what you will. I, like him, believe that you can only be happy if you are able to experience the darker side of life - I mean - how would you know what happiness was if you couldn't relate to not happy? And if we don't attend to not-happy then happy is merely a myth that can never be realised in real life. Consulting and coaching must attend to the "nots" in a meaningful way. Simply glossing over them won't work and the energy expended (particularly on change projects) will be wasted.
Is he saying suffering is necessary to the examined life? No: suffering is not essential. It's just unavoidable. All forms of sufferings are bad but some are unavoidable. We need to come to terms with them or be able to bear them.
And on the current craze for books on happiness he has this to add:
I've looked at them. They seem to me to be the problem rather than the solution.
We've got to move out of seeing things in such stark polarities - Adams is merely saying that our ability to be happy, be fulfilled is as a direct result of our being able to handle happiness, unhappiness and all that comes in between. Life isn't one or the other - it's both.
It's like [Beckett's play] Endgame: 'We're on Earth. There's no cure for that.
Hat tip:
Mind Hacks
There's a great thought provoking post at Anecdote that asks the question - are organisations losing their humanity? I'm going to re-post Andrew's piece here with my own thoughts to follow:
For some time now we have wondered whether organisations may be starting to lose their humanity. Maybe its a good question whether they ever had it, but the “Time is money” metaphor predominant in business today seems to have a lot to answer for. Tick Tock. To busy to spend time in dialogue. To busy to explore, we need to know the outcome. “How are you today” – “Busy”. To busy. Time is money.
And then, what about the “no asshole” rule suggested recently by Harvard professor, Bob Sutton.
Don’t hire assholes regardless of their earning potential and if someone has developed into one, help them see the light or get rid of them.
Its interesting and ironic that things have gotten so bad that we need to become more mindful of assholes and asshole behaviour in organisations.
And all this is not without cost. Organisations should care. As Leon Gettler a senior business journalist and blogger at The Age has found:
Workplace bullying is estimated to cost Australian business in excess of $3 billion a year and employers could be liable under a stack of laws, including Occupational Health and Safety, discrimination and workers' compensation.
So, I wonder, are organisations losing their humanity? What do you think?
I think organisations were and continue to be "humane" places - however, the discourse has been changed in the past 10 years with as Andrew rightly points out, increased legislation to protect organisations from being liable for what in many cases is ordinary behaviour. I think we have to move to a situation where we recognise, that to be human means bumping into each other, pissing each other off, falling in love etc - we do those things and we recover from them. If we teach people that the only way in which humane behaviour can be expressed is as a negative, potentially litigious and costly endeavour is it any wonder that we're becoming more “inhumane" – the rule then becomes – do not show your humanity here – it is dangerous.
Not withstanding serious infringements (which should be dealt with under existing laws anyway) a lot of what ends up in formal processes is ordinary behaviour which generally has at its root one of three issues (each one leads to the other if they are not attended to)
I am hurt
I am disappointed
I am angry
Let's start listening to those conversations first and putting in place mechanisms for attending to them before any formal processes get underway. We need a “before” process which looks at the systemic issues behind behaviour that is deemed to be “inhumane” – I don’t believe that people come to work having made a firm decision that this is how they will be at work today – there is always a more sophisticated picture and legal processes, while important sometimes, rarely deliver a win-win for anyone. They really are the end game. The processes I’ve designed (with brave and risk taking clients!) have done that – allowed room for the feelings to be vented, looked at individual and systemic responsibility and allowed everyone to contribute to a better solution. But I also know that those clients were unusual - it's not everyone who is able to unpack the emotional environment in which they are working and then wonder what their contribution to that is. But I'm hopeful...so longs as organisations are networks of people - they will always be humane!
Over at the Fast Company Michael Docherty is looking for a coach and he's facing some challenges that are ringing bells for me because I've been thinking in the last few months that perhaps I need to work with a coach myself but I keep procrastinating - Is a coach coachable?
So it was with great apprehension that I've just undertaken my personal search for a 'business coach' to help me regain focus and take my own business to a higher level....Yet while I've faced a lot of challenges in my career (including some corporate business turnaround experience), this time has been different. I've personalized it, become so obsessed with it that I've become fearful of the inevitable failures along the way. I've let my perfectionism get the better of me and it's slowed me down even more. So, that's why I'm willing to give this business coaching thing a try. And besides, I'm the CEO, so if I'm not coachable, I still don't have to fire myself (but maybe the coach will have a different opinion).
He then goes on to talk about the initial interviews he set up to find the right coach
First interview: a sympathetic ear, a clinical background and philosophy of purpose-driven life (vs. goal-driven life). All in all sounds like a good fit, reasonably coherent and practical. But $3600 for 3 months of weekly 45 minute phone calls?? Ouch.
Second interview: Here's a walking example of 'if you can't do, coach'. Proud of the fact he's getting coached right now, and he's just back from a coaching conference. Ready to spew out all of the buzzwords and quick-fixes he just learned. Only $500/month, but no thanks.
Third interview: Scheduled a time, then moved it. Twice. Scolded me for by email for not confirming the final time (which I had). I re-sent my response. Sent me another note claiming to have found my original, but not acknowledging my re-sent note. Now hasn't responded with the time. I haven't heard the fees yet, but perhaps I can bartar for the help she needs in client management and time management. No thanks.
I know many people who have had a similar experience and many others who have had the same kind of experience when trying to find the right therapist. I think it becomes even more complicated if you are a therapist and a coach and you're thinking of hiring someone to work with you. I know all the tricks, the jargon and have seen a lot of empty promises - I am not sure I'm coachable at all or if so I think I'd need a really special kind of coach - one that wouldn't put up with my smart alecness :) But seriously folks - are there coaches out there who are coachees? If so, how did you find the right coach for you:?
I met up with a consultant colleague of mine last week for lunch. We were discussing the dilemmas presented by the initial client encounter and the (sometimes) "impossible" tasks we are asked to perform. In his case he'd been asked to solve a dilemma he knew, and they knew, couldn't be solved. He seemed a bit stressed out by the impossible task and wasn't sure how he was going to proceed.
We kicked around the dilemma for a while until I asked him - what's your dilemma telling you about the client, the client's system and their dilemma? That seemed to be a lightbulb moment for him becuse his experience of dealing with them, was in fact, their own experience transferred on to him. While I'm glad the conversation was useful for my colleage it did get me thinking (apropos a previous post on whether coaches are coachable) as to whether consultants are consultable to (am I still speaking English??). I would love to run some workshops for Consultants - particularly those working on their own, where we could explore our innate intelligence and how working with our emotional reactions to clients tells us more than we imagine. I' not sure of the format right now - online? offline? Or whether consultants would be interested in this kind of intervention. I would love some feedback from those of you who work on your own as to how you reflect on your practice? and whether you would be interested in a workshop designed to help you capitalise on your emotional intelligence about clients?
Some time ago Mark Hollander from Coaching Creative Minds, in a comment on this post, asked me
What advice would you offer to those individuals who work at home? They have to *force* themselves out of the house. And they sometimes report it to me as thought it were a personal short-coming. Might they consider this it a "good mental health habit" like "brushing your teeth". There's no judgment there. You have to do it or you get cavities. You have to go out regularly if you work at home to keep things in balance?
Working from home is an interesting one…On one hand you can work all day in your pyjamas – and as someone who has occasionally done that – there’s definite merit in a dress down Monday to Friday :) Apart from everything that’s been written about the lack of commuting time, reduction in expenses etc etc the main challenge is managing boundaries.
I discovered this for myself when writing up my Masters’ dissertation and now that I’m writing up a paper to send to my PhD supervisor – I get very creative about distraction and procrastination strategies. Because I don’t have a group of peers or colleagues around me to chat with the day sometimes disappears and before I know it I have written 4 blog posts, done the laundry and have no word count worth talking about when it comes to my main task. So far so normal eh?
The real issue comes when it’s past 6 O’Clock and technically personal time. The guilt kicks in “I should have more done”; “I can’t go out and meet friends because I’ve wasted the day” and the inner dialogue proceeds. (I'm not assuming that everyone's boundary is 6pm, but I do think there needs to be a defined time between work and play!)
This entire conversation in my head can turn quite pathological – and I have also seen it with clients. The inability to manage the boundary between work and personal time means they blend together with neither being productive. We need the water cooler conversations, the trips for a coffee in our work lives as social encounters that get us out of our own self referring worlds. Sometimes our pathological chat can lead to a self perpetuating perfectionism that never gets addressed – comparing what we’re doing to what someone else is struggling with builds camaraderie and can be sustaining in the tough times – those who work from home need to develop a system for sustenece in the absence of those casual work rituals.
So in answer to Mark’s question I would say:
- Strategically Socialise: Working from home, particularly if you work alone can drive you crazy – we all need social interation so you are going to have to deliberately and strategically manufacture that for yourself if you are a home worker. Pick up the phone, make an arrangement to meet a friend for coffee or lunch.
- Prioritise the Personal: It’s never “if” you go out of the house if you are working from home it’s always “when” – you’d never stay tied to your chair in the office at work? Why would you do that if your office happens to be in your home? Schedule a workout at the gym or the pool into your diary directly before or after your work day and don’t negotiate on that unless it’s a world war 3 emergency.
- Creatively Rejuvenate: If the work is not flowing give yourself permission to take a guilt free hour/day off. Unproductive time off is simply guilt time and leads to more pathologising and no creative rejuvenation.
- Ritualise: Create rituals around the beginning and ending of your work day – this is particularly pertinent if you don’t have an official work space in your home. I sometimes burn different aromatherapy oils to transition from one space to another. Clients of mine dress in a particular way if they are in work mode and another when they are not – simply to create a boundary.
There’s also a great post on this topic over at
Escape from Cubicle Nation.
If you are in the consulting business you are going to do a lot of tendering for work. A good quality Terms of Reference (TOR) from a potential client is a joy to behold. It gives me the opportunity to ask two critical questions (a) Am I the right consultant for the job? and (b) Can I, on the basis of the information provided, compete creatively?
Why, oh why are so many of the TOR documents I see so badly constructed? Isn’t it in the best interests of all parties that the client gets good quality, creative, impressive and comparable tenders so that the right decision can be made? I’ve seen TORs with no information on the scope of the assignment, the duration of the assignment, the context out of which the project is being conceived, little or no information on the desired outcome and the most frequent one – a request for a feasibility study and a development plan for the outcome? So here are my top tips for clients wishing to generate the best quality tendering information on which to base their decision.
• Disclose the budget. Yes, you heard me correctly. If not the full amount then a bandwidth. The reason? If you give all tenderers the budget then you immediately have a benchmark with which to compare like with like. How I spend that budget will give you a clear indication of whether I’ve thought through the assignment thoroughly or not. Competition on price is a very limited way of selecting the best person to work with you.
• If you can’t disclose the budget, disclose the total number of consulting days you reckon this assignment will take – again, you’ll get a better idea of how individual tenderers will address your dilemma and utilise your resources.
• Don’t ask for a feasibility study and a development or action plan. A feasibility study means I can take your money and tell you that this project isn’t feasible. If you want an action plan as well then you’ve already made your mind up that the project is feasible.
• Be clear about the questions you want to ask and allow the tenderer to demonstrate their creativity in coming up with a methodology for tackling them. Too often TORs focus on methodology as distinct from purpose.
• Tell me why you are commissioning this piece of work – what’s the history? What’s the context? Why is this assignment of importance to you?
• Tell me what deliverables you expect.
• What is your desired outcome? Fixed? Flexible? A process? Tell me what you want to be different as a result of undertaking this assignment.
• If you are going to call me for interview give me some idea of when that might be – that way I can mark it in my diary.
The Tony Blair-Gordon Brown drama is such a fine example of the dilemmas facing family businesses – albeit on a much larger canvas. By family business I not only mean a business that is started and operated by a family but also those that are run by close colleagues. In both – the boundaries between what’s personal and what’s professional are very closely aligned. Think for a moment about your own family. Think about the innate ability of your (insert appropriate person here) to push precisely that button that makes you revert to being 10….now think about that person being a work colleague, boss or staff member and you are only scratching the surface of what working in a family business can be like.
The biggest challenge facing family businesses is that of succession. At what point does “Parent” move over and let “Child” take over the operation? Is it when s/he dies? Does s/he have to commit suicide? Can s/he plan that at some point in the future he will step aside and oversee an orderly transition. Unfortunately the latter happens less often than you would think.
In the first instance there’s never a right time – the second generation has to wait until their Parent is dead in order to step into running the operation. It’s a constant waiting role for the “top job”…(another prominent family in the UK springs to mind..)…and the reality is it may never arrive if the second generation departs (either through death, resignation or other). It may also generate fantasies of “murder” – hoping that someone or something else takes out the leader so that the second generation may step in.
In the second scenario the Parent must commit “suicide” – i.e. killing themselves off as head of the family in order that the next generation may live.
Children can find it difficult to leave the family home and build lives of their own - add to this the guilt of any “Child” wanting to avoid it all by not participating in the business (i.e. abandoning the family); how that gets talked (or not talked about) and suddenly there are Shakesperian dramas that sound very pertinent.
Why does this sound so dramatic? Suicide/murder/succession/power/politics/guilt – they all weave a very dramatic context in which identity and role are negotiated and acted out. Parent isn’t only the head of the family – s/he is head of the business. If s/he steps down as the business leader – what does this mean for their role as the leader of the family – will s/he still be respected? Will s/he still maintain a powerful position in the family – will anyone listen to him or her?
How then can a second generation evolve into being who they are if they are waiting to literally and metaphorically step into their parent's shoes? Is it possible to be your “own person” if the role has been already defined? If your Parent always knows better? It’s one thing thinking about the Super-Ego as a psychological concept and another if the Super-Ego is staring at you across the board room table!
Now back to Tony and Gordon for a moment. Tony has said he will leave (some day) he won’t say exactly when so the family is getting anxious. Meanwhile the second generation (Gordon) is waiting, and waiting and waiting. Recent news reports talk of the mounting frustration in the family that Tony won’t roll over. There is talk of “murder” and of wishing Tony would do the “decent thing” and commit “suicide” by stepping down. On the surface there is a desire for an orderly transition, beneath the surface there are dramatic tensions worthy of a Greek tragedy.
I’ve always enjoyed working with family businesses because it is the closest we get to seeing where the personal and professional overlap. It’s not enough to know how business works – you also have to know how families work. Boundary building; core issues of life and death; identity; ownership and leadership are critical issues to be worked with. At the end of the day – it’s about working out what works for the business and what works for the family – sometimes, but not always they are the same thing. But in a family business it’s not possible to say “it’s business, not personal” because it’s always “personal” and sometimes “business.”
A propos of a previous post - Tony and Gordon as Family Business - on the day in which Tony Blair, father of the Labour Party in the UK and current Prime Minister announces he will go (just not yet though so hang on again for a date...), Mary Harney, Mother of the Irish Progressive Democrats, Coalition partner and Minister for Health takes the country by surprise by announcing her resignation as leader of the party. Nominations for a replacement are due next Monday - no waiting, no agonising about naming the date - no scandal, no gossip, she gets to control her departure, the "children" get to plan her replacement, clean, clean, clean...Who says there aren't any life lessons from politics?
Are creatives really all that special? Mark seems to think so and has a post outlining the top 10 characteristics of creative personalities. Looking through the list each of the ten have one thing in common – an ability to manage ambivalence. Now before I go any further, I am one of those people who believes that everyone is creative – it’s a matter of finding out how your creativity manifests itself that’s the tricky bit (and that’s also very doable). So many people spend their lives working at creatively draining pursuits which reinforces the stereotype that there are certain professions where creativity lies and others where it doesn’t.
Put it like this – a successful bank robber is a pretty creative individual in my humble opinion, as are obsessive and neurotic people who have to choose an outlet to express themselves in that way. But I digress.
The point I was attempting to make before I got side tracked is that the ability to manage ambivalence i.e. recognise that perfection doesn’t exist – is a central characteristic of maturity. Think about it for a minute – perfectionists are only perfect at one thing – being imperfect…the rest of us muddle along making decisions; weighing up options; managing the fantasies and realities – all of that is a creative edeavour and I would venture so far as to say that maturity is an expression of that creative ability to be in the multi-coloured pieces between the black and white edges. The real trick is finding an outlet for that ability and that’s where coaching can be really helpful. Mark coaches creative types and I wonder if he’d ever admit to meeting non creative types in the creative industries? I know I have, and I’ve also met amazingly creative and resourceful people in the “non” creative industries. Our creativity doesn’t have anything to do with what we “do” – it can do, but aligning personal and occupational creativity is the real challenge and one that I love when working with clients. How many people do you know that live between the black and white edges?
PS: Speaking of creativity I've added a link to my Flickr photos in the side bar!
Later this evening I'm participating in Enterprise Offaly Week. I'll be in the Tullamore Court Hotel, Co Offaly running a workshop entitled "A Slice of the Pie?" aimed at helping people in the creative industries identify and maximise opportunities for commissioning. Increasingly Enterprise Boards in Ireland are looking outside of mainstream business for ways of helping their clients achieve success and with the range and amount of commissioning opportunities now available in the public sector it's a timely seminar.
Stop by and say hello if you're about.
Do you have an elevator pitch about your business? I have tried and failed (repeatedly) to invent one. I sometimes think I need to be in a very tall building where the lift occasionally goes to the top floor.
I’ve written here previously about Dynamic Participation – the principles that inform how I facilitate and consult and I’ve refined those 10 points into a 3 point plan for working with groups
1 Keep the process in the room
2 Consult with curiosity
3 Respect the resistence
Will that get me to the top floor?
Sometimes the worst situations offer the best learning. In a gathering of colleagues recently we shared stories of some challenging consulting assignments. Yes, there were difficult clients and some harrowing stories, but each of my colleagues had reflected on their experiences, learned some lessons and allowed the learning to inform how they are in relationship with clients subsequently.
I extrapolated some of my learning from reflecting on my own practice and from participating in the above discussion and here are some of the questions I ask myself when the going seems tough.
• How am I being “used” here?
• In the service of who’s truth and reality?
• How is what’s happening to me relevant to my client’s dilemma?
• In what way is this situation my client’s experience?
• What have I contributed to the situation?
• What problem did my contribution solve for me?
• What’s useful about my dilemma?
What kinds of questions would help you reflect on your practice?
According to the tenets of DIY psychotherapy, the idea is to re-record the past by repeating "I am a beautiful, creative, successful person" 50 times a day. And no one, except the congenitally malign, would think it remotely appropriate to pipe up: "Actually, you're rather plain and I can absolutely see why you would have been impossible as a child."
Apparently people lie on their cvs because we live in a culture populated by diy psychotherapists and
psychoanalytically derived psychotherapy, when patients are coaxed to produce a more helpful account of how they got to be the person they are. Damaging beliefs that have become internalised ("I was a bad child who made my mother unhappy") are reframed so they become less toxic ("My mother was often depressed, which meant she found it difficult to say she loved me").
So goes the argument from Kathryn Hughes in last Saturday’s Guardian. The piece really irritated me because of the sloppy transitions and casual way in which the genuine art of reframing is now a co-conspiritor with reality tv, makeover programmes and virtually any other media fabrication that makes it possible to avoid work in the hope of an instant makeover.
Interestingly Ms Hughes seems to think that there is only one version of the truth and re-framing is a way of avoiding it. The whole point of reframing is to see a situation from disparate perspectives. When we’re locked into seeing the world in one way our choices disappear and we are immediately disempowered. Most good psychotherapists will encourage clients to not only see their own “stuckness” from a different perspective, but also their own less than useful behaviour. It’s not about avoiding “reality” it’s an acknowledgement that reality looks different depending on who’s shoes your standing in.
Re-framing is one of the most useful interventions I can make as a consultant and if a client is willing to look at their situation differently – well, that means change is already a reality and the work has already begun.
David Chase made a rare public appearance last night at a public interview at the Centre for Communication in New York. Before a packed house (at which yours truly had a front row seat) he talked about the evolution of The Sopranos, how similar Olivia is to his own mother and how that relationship sent him into psychotherapy. I was able to share with him my view that the therapy scenes in The Sopranos are the most accurate description of "real" therapy I've seen on the screen to date.
Chase seemed genuinely surprised at how popular the series is outside of America after people from (Ireland), Italy, Israel, Cuba and further afield shared their enthusiasm for the show. After much discussion about it being quintessentially an "American" tale it struck me that it's a very small family story and ultimately it doesn't matter what kind of control we have in our external lives - it's generally the internal stories that perplex us. Tony is a smart guy and applies the learning he gains in therapy about his family of origin to his business family.
Not all of us have a sabotaging mother like Olivia, but we've all got a family story that we bring with us into the work place. Some of us join the dots and make the connections between our family of origin and how our experience therein influences how we are at work - others don't and relive many of the episodes from the past in the present. We mightn't like Tony's lifestyle but in my mind there's no doubt that the success of the show internationally (apart from the stupenduous writing) is that he's everyman - neither all good nor all bad; generally in control in his external working life and somewhat at sea in his internal and emotional life. I, for one, am eagerly anticipating the final 9 episodes due to broadcast in March.
Photo credit: Centre for Communication
There's a paradox in clinical practice. I get to know people very well, but they can never be my friends. This bothered me at first, but it doesn't so much any more. If there were any way of being friends, then the work we do together would become unbearable, and therefore impossible. It's a sacrifice we mutually make to make it possible to do something useful. It's a loss I've accepted.
That's a quote from a new psychoanalytically informed blog Working Through (the author of which I met while in New York recently). I recognise the dilemma he's talking about - less that clients can never be "friends" but more how difficult it can be to have a normal social life if you are a therapist. You can't drop into the local pub on a Friday night and have a casual chat about your week's work...Confidentiality is primary and those conversations are kept for Supervision. As a result most therapists I know only talk about the work with other therapists and this can make for a self referential system that is on one hand supportive and on the other unhealthy at the same time.
Having said that it was a real treat for me to attend the regional meeting of ISPSO in New York and to join psychodynamically orientated colleagues for a day and a half while we talked about the work in our own shorthand and in a way that allowed me to "breathe". I find these oportunities essential punctuations in my working year that remind me about my motivation, orientation and interests. They allow me to go back into other systems and not feel as isolated. The loneliness of the long distance consultant is eased for another 12 months at least!
One of my holiday reads was Barbara Ehrenreich's Bait and Switch in which she spends a year researching America's working poor. She goes undercover as a white collar worker looking for a job and one of the first chapters in her book is about her search for a career coach - it makes for shocking reading.
Fortunately there are about 10,000 people eager to assist me - "career coaches" - who, according to the coaching websites, can help you discover your true occupational "passion" retool your resumé, and hold your hand at every step along the way.
She meets with a variety of coaches offering watered down counselling and new age religion. Others are in need of severe coaching themselves; one in particular invites her to "design me as your best coach". They are a sorry bunch and most of them seem to have stepped into coaching as a way of avoiding the very thing that Ehrenreich is looking for - a job.
Not all of us who coach are as disconnected from the real world as the people Ehrenreich met but I've met a few dodgy practitioners in my day (both as client and peer). No amount o
