The coach’s role is to provide the attention which enables the client do their best thinking. Our challenge as coaches is not to fall into the trap of providing advice, which is often what the client requests of us, and which can also satisfy our own ego need to share wisdom. Mostly, though, the client doesn’t need our wisdom….they need their own! Oscar Wilde put it beautifully “ I always pass on good advice, it is the only thing to do with it, it is never of any use to oneself”.
But what Mr. Wilde knew, is not universally known! In today’s world the average length of time you get to explain something is 8 seconds…..if you are lucky maybe 20 seconds, before someone jumps in to say what they think; what you should do; what they would recommend. What happens then is we don’t have time to formulate and articulate our own thinking fully because we cannot help but be influenced by what the other person has said. So as a Leader one highly developmental thing you could do for yourself and those who report to you is to LISTEN ATTENTIVELY.
When someone hangs on your every word…a.k.a listening with deep attention….recall how that feels….now imagine if we provide that attention to others, the benefits are: we will get full information, we will have a better understanding of what it is the person wants from us, and they will feel understood and respected. This enables us to create Empathy and allows us to tune in to the non verbal cues of the other person as well as their spoken word. Our questions and responses come from a position of genuinely wanting to understand more fully rather than defend or influence.
In her book ‘Time to Think’, Nancy Kline contends “ There is nothing more important in developing organisational effectiveness than ensuring that people think for themselves with rigor, imagination and courage. Everyday. In every meeting. In every interaction.’
Time to Think has identified 10 key enablers to improve thinking. Nancy calls them the ‘Ten components of a Thinking Environment’. The beauty of them is their simplicity. Unfortunately simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy, and many will seem out of place in today’s organisational cultures…however she cites examples in her book of many organisations who persevered with the approach and reaped the benefits e.g.
- A global pharmaceutical company rescued a multimillion dollar project in 45 minutes
- A global communications company saved 30 days of work in 30 minutes
- An independent economy airline created a management programme that underpinned the company’s rise to No. 1 in the UK.
The Ten Components of the Thinking Environment are:
Attention – Listen with palpable respect and without interruption
Equality – Ensure equal turns to think and speak
Ease – Offer freedom from internal urgency
Incisive Questions – Find and remove untrue assumptions that distort thinking
Information – Supply the facts, dismantle denial
Diversity – Encourage divergent thinking and diverse group identities
Encouragement – Give courage for cutting edge thinking by removing internal competition
Feelings – Allow sufficient emotional release to restore thinking
Appreciation – Practice a 5:1 ratio of appreciation to criticism
Place – Create a physical environment that says to people “You Matter”
Individually each of these components will add immense value to a conversation/presentation/meeting, collectively as a way of being in an organisation they are incredibly powerful, not just for the here and now but for the seed capital of tomorrow’s leaders.
