coaching questions
Tips to Make Difficult Conversations Easier
Tips to Make Difficult Conversations Easier...
by Karen Amos
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Difficult Conversations and Leadership training I deliver – particularly how people’s language and mindset affect their success. The usual expectation for this type of training is that if only we could learn a nifty phrase or approach, then we’d smash every difficult conversation, or be that amazing, inspirational leader.
Having an ethical business, I have to be honest and say, unfortunately there’s no such thing.
BUT… Don’t despair!
By being more conscious of our language and mindset through a coaching approach, we can instantly change a ‘difficult conversation’ to… just a ‘conversation’.
How much positive impact would that have on your life, both at work and personally? You need to speak to someone about something and you do. No worry, no dread, no hysterics - and no stress!
Here’s how it works. Let’s take the words ‘Difficult Conversation’. By using the word ‘difficult’, we have already set an expectation – that it’s going to be difficult/problematic/tough/upsetting, etc. This means we approach the situation from a negative or defensive standpoint from the start.
We frequently use the same type of language about people. They’re ‘difficult’, ‘awkward’, ‘a nightmare’ and on it goes. I’m sure you can see how this can taint our approach from the outset and set us on the wrong trajectory.
Now don’t get me wrong – I’m certainly not suggesting that we can magically transform people’s behaviour and attitudes just by changing a word, but you’d be surprised at the difference it can make.
Here are some coaching questions to get you thinking about your own mindset on these issues…
- What is it about this conversation that I see as difficult?
- What’s my evidence this is correct? Or is this assumption or fear on my part? (NB: there may be objective evidence and you should certainly act on this.)
- What would I need to think and feel differently in order to see this situation or person in neutral, or even positive terms? (e.g. If we’ve labelled someone as ‘difficult’, could we perhaps see they’re ‘anxious’, or ‘disliking uncertainty’? Or that we’re ‘helping to solve a problem’?)
- What would I lose or risk by changing my current thinking or beliefs about the situation or person?
- What could I gain from describing the situation or person in more neutral or positive terms?
If you’d like to develop People Management or Difficult Conversations skills for yourself or your team, check out our latest Autumn training offers below. If you’ve any questions, or would like to discuss alternatives, do get in touch for an informal chat.
Click on the link below to find out more:
Or why not EMAIL US, or book in an informal chat using the button below. We'll find out about the support you need and provide you with a no-obligation quote.
Karen Amos is an executive coach and Director and Founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports business owners, managers and education leaders to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a down-to-earth approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships.
Tel: 07714 855757 or email: karen@bright-bird.co.uk[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Tips to Turn a Coaching Approach into your Leadership Superpower
Tips to Turn a Coaching Approach into your Leadership Superpower
by Karen Amos
I’ve just finished facilitating BrightBird’s latest Effective People Management programme. As with the previous programmes, participants bring along concerns, anxieties and ‘Is it me…?’ feelings around the challenges of managing people.
Interestingly, there are always common themes. Most people come with a sense of frustration of how they can’t just, ‘Get on with the job,’ and a feeling of, ‘Why is this always so difficult?’
This is usually accompanied by some sense of one step forward and two steps back, or feeling that managing people is like trying to nail jelly to a tree.
As a consequence, I find many managers of all levels feel they end up playing a role, rather than being themselves. And it’s not a role they enjoy. It’s often the role of ‘bad guy’ and whilst they’re prepared to step up and do this, it’s not one most of us would choose given an alternative.
My view is that no-one needs to ‘play’ anything. The ‘bad guy’ scenario inevitably leads us down a one-way street, with all concerned doubling down into increasingly entrenched positions. This is difficult if not impossible to step away from and often results in demotivated teams, or even a brain drain from your organisation.
I genuinely don’t believe working life needs to be so difficult – for managers and employees alike.
That’s why I’m on a mission to improve the quality of working life for everyone.
The problem is, most people in my experience, embark on a management career because they’re great at what they do. I mean, who seriously sets out in their career thinking, ‘I know, I’d love to be the line manager of tons of awkward people!’ Probably the same ones who look up ‘How to herd cats’ on google.
No, the fact is that we usually gain promotion because we’re the expert in our field. The best sales-person, the best teacher, etc., etc. The problem is, no-one told us how to be managers. Very few people are born with an innate ability to lead other people. But it can be learned.
And this is where a coaching approach becomes a bit of a superpower in my experience. I’ve used this approach personally and seen my clients implement this with fantastic results. It’s definitely an approach that sees compound benefits, with exponential growth in performance over a relatively short period of time. On the surface, it’s counterintuitive. Management is about putting the right people in the right place isn’t it? Well, yes… and no. How about seeing successful management as having your people put themselves in the right place?
So where to start? Here are a few tips to improve your coaching leadership style, along with some questions to help build insight into what’s going on for you.
1. Listen – I mean really listen. Listening isn’t about waiting for your turn to speak, or jumping in to close down the other person half way through a sentence.
Ask yourself – How would my peers and team members rate me as a listener?
2. Understand – Only when we’ve listened will we understand the other person’s viewpoint. The challenge is to show them we understand – even when we don’t agree with them!
Ask yourself – How often do I find myself or the other person saying some variation of, ‘Yeah, but…’ in my conversations? (This is a classic sign of a lack of understanding being demonstrated.)
3. Collaborate – It’s not your responsibility as a manager to solve everything on your own. That’s why you have a team and why it’s important to know who is responsible and accountable for what.
Ask yourself – Do I feel I’m carrying a burden of responsibility that other people don’t share in my team and how can I share this more equally?
4. Challenge – There are many types of challenge, but I like to call a coaching approach ‘challenge with a small ‘c’’. This doesn’t mean going out of your way to make people uncomfortable, or being on some kind of power trip. Instead, it means not accepting everything at face value and using coaching questions to explore and promote personal responsibility and accountability.
Ask yourself – Do I feel that members of your team are tying me in knots, or I come out of conversations wondering what just happened? If so, how can I be more enquiring in my conversations to find out more?
5. Problem solve – Coaching at its heart, is a problem-solving approach. You want something better and have a plan on how to get there. This is a gift for any effective manager to get the right results.
Ask yourself – Do my team get bogged down in problems and look to me to solve them, or do they naturally seek solutions themselves? If it’s the former, what can I do to enable them to problem-solve naturally?
Hopefully, you’ve now a few pointers to begin to develop your coaching leadership style.
If you’d like to learn more about how to take a coaching approach to Managing Difficult Conversations and people management, we’ve just launched our Summer 2024 public courses.
Click on the link below to find out more:
Or why not EMAIL US, or book in an informal chat using the button below. We’ll find out about the support you need and provide you with a no-obligation quote.
Karen Amos is an executive coach and Director and Founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports business owners, managers and education leaders to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a down-to-earth approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships.
Tel: 07714 855757 or email: karen@bright-bird.co.uk
Why it's not normal to be happy - and what you should do instead...
Why it's not normal to be happy - and what you should do instead...
by Karen Amos
I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently – around happiness. Actually, that’s not exactly true – I’ve been reading about how so many of us have drunk the ‘happiness Kool Aid’ and ironically, find ourselves miserable that we’re failing at happiness. As an occasionally grumpy, middle-aged Yorkshire woman, I find this fascinating.
Recent publications, such as Bad Therapy, The Antidote and The Anxious Generation are showing that for many of us, modern living standards have never been better, yet increasing numbers of young people and adults find themselves so unhappy they resort to therapy, including medication. The question surely is, if this is such an effective cure, why are people still unhappy?
Many years ago I was a student nurse. There are many stand outs from my training, good and bad, but one that changed my life was a sentence uttered by a lecturer on Mental Health…
‘The most you can expect is to be reasonably content most of the time.’
That’s it. And it profoundly changed the way I viewed my world and my expectations. To the extent that I am – reasonably content most of the time. So to that lecturer, wherever you are – thank you.
This may seem a bit lack-lustre for a coach, I admit. After all, aren’t we meant to be uber positive and seeking Nirvana-like states of happiness and success? Well some are I guess, but not me. I’m about doing.
Don’t get me wrong, I do believe there is a right time to seek therapy. I refer clients to specialist therapists if I find we’re addressing something that’s out of my area of expertise. In fact, I have sought counselling on occasions at certain points in my life and regularly use psychoanalytical models with my clients to help them make sense of their world.
But there is a danger in rumination. We won’t make ourselves or others resilient to the pressures of life by constantly going over the past and looking inwards.
So what is the answer?
I believe the answer lies in a stoical approach to coaching. This isn’t the ‘British stiff upper lip’ version, but the true version of Stoicism that says…
In life, circumstances will continue to challenge us, but it is within our gift to decide how we will respond to them.
Often coaching is seen as a bit ‘Pollyanna – all in the garden is rosy’, which is why many people (justifiably) call out, ‘toxic positivity’ at the relentless ‘just think positive’ messages. In fact coaching at its best is nothing of the sort. Tony Robbins has a great approach to this. I paraphrase:
Just relying on positive thinking alone is like going into your garden and chanting ‘there are no weeds, there are no weeds’, when your garden’s clearly full of weeds. You need to get in there and pull them out!
We need to accept that life is frequently challenging and bad stuff happens. Rather than passively accepting that, drowning in self-misery, or railing against the universe, we need to roll up our sleeves and deal with it. We need to take action that will serve us well.
My clients know I’m always going to come around to some version of this question…
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
That’s it – you want something to change – go change it! And if it’s not in your control to change it? Then work out what you’ll do to deal with that.
Here are a few coaching questions to get you started:
- What’s my main challenge here?
- What small, practical action I can take right now that will serve me well?
- Is trying to fix this, worth the energy and time?
- Is there anything I need to accept isn’t in my control? And what will I do to focus my energies elsewhere?
Remember, we’re all human and it’s important to acknowledge our feelings. If something bad happens, it’s perfectly natural and healthy to feel down, upset or angry. The problem is that simply dwelling on these feelings and responses will not serve us well, or help our situation. It’s therefore in your gift and best interests to start to coach yourself to a better way forward that will.
If you’d like to learn more about how to take a coaching approach to Managing Difficult Conversations and people management, we’ve just launched our Summer 2024 public courses.
Click on the link below to find out more:
If you would like to find out more about BrightBird’s 1-to-1 and team coaching, check out our web pages using the links below:
Or why not EMAIL US, or book in an informal chat using the button below. We'll find out about the support you need and provide you with a no-obligation quote.
Further reading:
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up - By Abigail Shrier. Publisher: Sentinel
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - By Jonathon Haidt. Publisher: Allen Lane
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking - By Oliver Burkeman. Publisher: Vintage
Happy: Why More or Less Everything Is Absolutely Fine - By Derren Brown. Publisher: Corgi
Karen Amos is an executive coach and Director and Founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports business owners, managers and education leaders to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a down-to-earth approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships.
Tel: 07714 855757 or email: karen@bright-bird.co.uk
Challenge or opportunity? You decide...
Challenge or opportunity? You decide...
By Karen Amos
As a small business owner, I don’t always have the luxury of lots of spare capacity or fall-backs when things quickly change. Such a thing happened recently when one of my support team decided to take up a new job opportunity. Whilst I’m gutted to be losing a key support, I do understand their reasons for moving on and wish them every success. Inevitably though, this still caused pressures within my business.
After my initial OMG moment, feeling like I should be a model for a Munch painting, I remembered what I did for a living, gave myself a shake and put my coaching hat on. This helped me to re-frame the situation and ask myself:
Is there another way to see this?
It was hard not to focus solely on the multitude of upcoming challenges - our brains are wired to concentrate on perceived dangers, so that's our default setting. Once I'd named what was going on, there were also many positive opportunities for my business that I might otherwise not considered. These included building future capacity, re-prioritising my offer to clients, revisiting my pricing policy and many others. It’s easy to just go with the flow, particularly when things are going well, rather than giving things a bit of a shake up. Let’s face it, who doesn’t like a bit of comfort zone now and again - again, we can thank our brain for this - keeping us out of danger and seeking safety.
It's so easy for businesses and organisations to just grow organically in response to our market or circumstances, in good times and bad, but now and again we need a good reason to go back to the drawing board.
I would just like to add this isn’t about being all Pollyanna about things. As a slightly grumpy, middle-aged Yorkshire woman, Pollyanna isn’t my default setting I can assure you! As good old Tony Robbins says, ‘There’s no point standing in the garden chanting “There are no weeds, there are no weeds” when you’re surrounded by freaking weeds! The only thing that will help is to roll up your sleeves and pull them up!’
So let’s start to see the challenges as practical opportunities for change and getting out of our comfort zone and make the most of things!
If you’re struggling with a challenge or change, ask yourself the following coaching questions:
- What are the opportunities, or positives in this challenge?
- Is there a way to slow things down a little to create some thinking space?
- If so, what are the priority things and what can I put down?
- If I was starting from scratch here, what would I choose to do?
Have you turned a challenge into an opportunity recently? Let’s share the positive mindset!
If you’d like to find out how our 1-to-1 and team coaching programmes and training can help you get ‘unstuck’ and move forward this year…
Check out our website: www.bright-bird.co.uk
Call us: 07714 855757
or click HERE to book in a short, no-obligation chat
Karen Amos is an executive coach and founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports leaders and managers to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a down-to-earth, practical approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships.