Life Skills Coaching second module days 2-6

I didn't do so well to update every day, so here are the last few days of the course.

Day 2

The air conditioning is on! It’s weak but better than the sweltering heat yesterday. We’re off to a good start today. We are each tasked to come up with warm up exercises to start the mornings and afternoons.

This is good practice in devising and running an exercise. We’ll also get feedback on what went well. “Appreciative inquiry”.

Feedback is good. I think it is hard to accept sometimes, but if I can remember that what we’re focusing on is the good stuff, so what went well, it should be easier than worrying about what went bad. Or the better way to put it – what could I have done better.

Learning to appreciate feedback is something I’m not always sure I’m ready for. Oh don’t get me wrong, I love compliments and hearing good things about myself. It’s taking that good feedback and using that to motivate myself to do better. I’m sure I’m like others in that it’s embarrassing to hear someone compliment you at times.

So the real lesson I take away from this is to genuinely thank the person for the good feedback and take that as proof that I’m doing something good.

We also tackled active listening this morning. Something that I keep seeing in every course I’ve done in the last month. It is such a powerful tool in a coaching or teach role. Simply hearing isn’t enough; keeping the group engaged is important as a speaker, but I’ve also got to ensure that I listen to the group needs from what they say in their feedback. It can help to redirect the group, clarify or to help create a new lesson.

Active listening is giving back to the speaker. Showing that I care about what they are saying. I can see that this can be ‘work’ to some as the topic may not be interesting or I’m just plain tired. So keeping focused can be a challenge, but to the listener it’s so important that they feel heard.

I’ve actually listened to someone as they had wanted to ask my opinion on something or advice, but after they got out what they needed to, they seemed to answer it themselves. I now see that my active listening and some probing questions, helped them reach what they were looking for. I still gave them the credit for it. And this seems to happen to me regularly.

Does that make me a good listener? Or a really good actor? Hmm. They may never know…
So I’m journaling the next morning about the afternoon as I got all excited about the third season opener of Mad Men; in HD no less. So you understand, right?
We started the afternoon with a warm up by Silvia. She had us each read a quote from a list and tell the group what our feeling was. The quotes were great; they were positive and inspiring. It re-energized the team for the afternoon. I have noticed, and the instructor mentioned it as well, that Silvia has really gained some confidence in participating in the class. It’s not that she doesn’t speak, she does. But in this module, as compared to last module, I noticed her stand out sooner. I think in module one, I only got to really ‘see’ her when we were working on our team assignment.

The group then went through a review of the theory from module one on building a lesson plan. It all came back pretty quick. The group seems to be right on the ball with this stuff. I do admit that I reviewed all the material in the car a Saturday as we drove to the family party in Niagara in the Lake.

The practice to build the lesson plans was a little scary. I mean, I’ve developed lots of different training material over the years, but I’ve determined what I’m really learning is how to develop life skills type training.

I started on this journey looking to backfill my technical group facilitation skills. Which are still being sharpened as we go along. I think that my ah-ha came as I realized that I can build some good life skills lessons into other courses that I teach.
The practice lesson was tough in coming up with goals, but the trick was to not get too complicated. It seems keeping it simple is the best way. Remember the lesson breaking things down. It’s not hard to fill a 2 hour session. And now I’m thinking of what topic I’ll use for my assignment – but now I need to narrow it down to something fairly simple.

Day 3

Today the class started with a group discussion on the lack of class dynamic. Again we need to reenergize the team, open up the disclosure floodgates, participate like crazy, and so on.

My personal challenge is staying in the here and now. I’ve trained to use past experiences to guide others on making choices. Using what I know and have done to advise on the future for others. Not so here and now, is it?

So my ‘ah-ha’ moment yesterday about how I’m going to take away the learnings of the class to better my life skills focus, comes in to play. I’m trying to be much more aware to stay in the here and now, be relevant to the conversations at hand, and to increase the quality of what I’m saying rather than quantity. I’m good at talking, adding humour, but I need to keep it in line with the group needs. Not just add to the talking but add to the content and experience the class.

Creativity was the lesson of the morning. How we use out creativity and in what areas of our lives is fascinating. Often I would think of creativity in art or drawing, or maybe even in my theatre work. But I can now see how it works in problem solving, either for myself or in a group setting. Thinking outside of the box is an overused phrase in work settings, so maybe I’ll start asking people to put their creative hats on when they need to work something out.

I am challenged by brainstorming. Why? I think I’m always trying to problem solve – jump to the end. When brainstorming with others, I let someone else start the ball rolling and then I jump in with ideas. Still, I seem to want to self-edit as others in the class do. I worry my idea sounds dumb or that people won’t like the idea at all.

The ground rules to brainstorming help. No criticizing is great. No idea needs explaining to justify it. The group can edit the items on the list later. Just pour out the ideas; let the creative juices flow. Team brainstorming is easier for me. They are a trusty resource of ideas.

Brainstorming alone is worse. I am my own worst critic and again try to jump to the end goal. The exercises to just list ideas out is good. No end goal; just pump out the ideas.
The group is much more energized this afternoon. There is more discussion which leads to great sharing. I am most energized when the group opens up and shares. This is some real learning. We’re also more focused and in the moment on the topic at hand.

Sometimes the group needs a little prodding to get working together. I don’t feel I’m one of 2 or 3 people answering first all the time. But don’t get me wrong, I do jump in and go first from time to time. Just let someone try to beat me!

Day 4

Revisiting yesterday’s topics, we discuss if we’re back on track and energized to go forth. We did a self evaluation at the end of the day yesterday. From the responses how we feel we’re participating, the range is from 2 to 10. And no, I did not put 10 on mine, so someone else thinks they’re participating even more! Great.

Someone brought up that they felt they were holding themselves back from participating as to give others a chance to jump in with their thoughts. This is so OD (other determined) and I do it too. I propose a competition over who starts first. I guess that’s a little too SD (self determined).

Our topic this morning is on problem solving. The emphasis is not on solving, as I would normally do. I’m told I’m a solver; I like to help fix it or make it work. Sometimes that’s not what’s wanted or needed. My other half likes to talk things out and wants me to just listen. It’s about process not solutions. I tend to jump to solve.

Consulting has taught me that as an expert I need to come with ideas already in hand to fix the problem. Again, this not always the need. What I seem to jump over or make assumptions on is defining the problem.

In our exercise today, we assumed the problem and then jumped to solve it. We then backtracked to justify our solution and to employ more lateral thinking. After the fact of course. Once we regroup and discuss, it becomes evident that we didn’t take the time to explore the problem. We as a team needed to work the problem over to ensure we understand what we’re trying to work on.

We still solved the problem, but there was a great option we totally missed as we didn’t see the problem from another perspective. Funny how I now think back to my IT days and how I used to be the one to propose looking at all the perspectives before tackling a particular solution approach. Maybe I need to listen to myself more often.

Problem solving was the theme for the day. We worked on the 6 WHs (who, what, etc.) and how to keep on with lateral thinking. We talked about how vertical thinking is like digging the same hole deeper where lateral thinking is starting a new hole.

We worked on puzzles and I found it fairly frustrating. It was fun; the group had a great time. Exploring digging deeper with questions was a great way to try and work around breaking barriers. Uh ha! Everything is coming together from the past few days. Don’t you just hate when learning sneaks up on you like that?

The group has also risen to the challenge and has engaged in richer conversation, more disclosure, and much better energy. The sharing is good. Not everyone is up to the level of the whole group, but most are trying to be more involved.

My big learning of the day is that I need to challenge my set assumptions when tackling a problem. My tendency to jump to the solution can hinder the options I might come up with. Understanding the true problem and questioning to break the assumptions is important.

Day 5

We roll into decision making by consensus. First thing I learn is that what I thought was consensus was not. It’s a true group decision making process. And everybody involved needs to know how to play the game.

Seems many of us have experienced meetings that were in the guise of consensus. But usually they had some people that were out to promote their own agendas. The main goal is to achieve win-win for the group.

It’s not about me getting what I want, but giving the group what it wants. Or can accept. So I don’t inflict my wants on others, I get involved and promote a balanced approach. I may have some definite things that I believe in and cannot live with. But many times, even if the option presented is not my favourite, so long as I can ‘live with it’ it is consensus.
This doesn’t mean that I give in to what others want all the time. If I have a strong belief, I can make myself heard by the group and as a group it’s considered, analyzed, until the group decides (and I as part of that group) that we agree on the final choice.

This was a very hard topic and exercise for the group to digest. I think I’m still digesting and wondering how I could ever apply this to a group setting outside this class. At least here, I have people who try to stay in the balanced self determined frame of mind. Out there, my mind fills with past experiences of people inflicting their agendas on me and others.

Perhaps what I need is how to defuse a situation that could benefit from a true consensus process and put it back on track to a win-win.
Continuing in the afternoon with more problem solving, we get into the 6 step process. This is much easier to work with than consensus. Perhaps because on the wheel to working the problem, we have a feedback loop.

Everything we’ve learned and experienced this week is all coming together now. All the tools and techniques that we’ve practiced are coming into play. We’re crossing the hump over from being students to being coaches. We’ve worked on the angles and practiced all the things we need to be effective coaches.

I think we have some of our richest discussions this afternoon. We actually practice solving real problems with a couple of examples from people in the room. Real problems meaning they are actually looking for some help in making a decision or coming up with a plan.

As we had realized the other day, the best way to start is to identify there is a problem and then to define what it is. From there we can brainstorm some ideas which will leads towards being able to make a decision. Along the way, we can review if we’re still on the right track. We could even go back to determine we don’t even have a real problem.
The feedback loop lets us review the past step or steps to ensure we’re ready to move forward or if other problems may have surfaced.

We finish off the day talking about emotions and how they can play out in a group. As coaches we need to remember we’re not counselors, so getting caught up in someone’s emotional issue is not the focus for the coach. Obviously, we can ask if the person needs something and we can help that, but we don’t need to focus on them. The group is the focus and the team can help with the issue or move on if it’s not hindering.

Today was long and tiring, but I’ve come to the place where I think that I have what I need to make the jump into the role of a life skills coach. Remember this wasn’t my original focus, so I’ve come around to seeing how I can apply all that I’ve done in the past week.

Day 6

And the end is near; a day early even! Today is when it should all come together. Our last lesson is about bridging and connecting. This is connecting people in the group during discussions. We apparently are a good class in that we are connecting on our own and don’t need as much help. But in our practice role plays, we are reminded not to be too good! We’re role playing a coach, but the rest are being group members – members who are not coaches though.

This is tougher than I thought. Trying not to help the practice coach or automatically using something out of our coaches’ tool bag is hard and requires some very conscious effort.
The practice was fun; both as when doing the coach role and playing member. It was a good exercise to practice giving positive feedback. I saw lots of things that I would have normally given constructive feedback, but that wasn’t what we were working on. Giving only good feedback is empowering to the person.

When I did my practice, I was fairly sure I was doing some good stuff and I tried to ensure that I was using all the tools we learned this week. Listening to all the great feedback made me feel even more sure of myself. I do wish I knew if there was something I could do better, but I felt really good about how the group worked through the exercise with me.

Each person brought a quote or picture for the group as the stimulus and then worked through the feelings and the evocation. The quotes were good and one of the pictures was so good it dumbfounded the group. The discussions were good too.

The group closure brought us all to the place where we could see how we got to this place. I now feel that I have more confidence to use the techniques and tools from this week. Feels good. Of course, I still need to do the lesson plan assignment.

Life Skills Coaching second module

I started the second module of the George Brown certificate program. It's another intense week so I've decided to again blog each day. I of course have to journal each day anyway, so this just adds to the blog. Enjoy.

Day 1

Back in the hot seat. Literally. Starting classes on a Sunday in what is now the hot summer days produced a very hot classroom due to the air conditioning not be on. If it were the first class I ever took here or if I didn’t know anyone in it, the nervousness would have been much higher and thus would have made me sweatier. But not likely much more.

It was great to see some of the previous session’s people back for more. This made it easier to slip back in to building the relationships. Although 2 months have passed, it seems that it was much shorter.

We had a few new people in the class too and they seemed to me to fit in quite well.
It helped that we spent the day getting to know each other. Either introducing ourselves or reacquainting with those we knew before. It took days in the first class for us get comfortable and trust one another. I think that we’ll adjust to each other quickly and be able to have good sharing going on in no time.

We talked a bit about what we learned or brought from the first class. I had an experience yesterday where I realized some very Other Determined behavior in going to a family event. We discussed why were going and what was expected by others. It was pretty clear that we were going to keep the family happy even though it wasn’t the most convenient for us to go. But now that we did go, we can feel good about keeping everyone happy and that next time, we can decide what we want out of it as well.

Others talked about being able to trust better, openly sharing, trusting their feelings, etc. I even think the newbies to our little group will openly share as well. It’s a small group so we’re getting to know all each other better already.

We left with our feelings on how the rest of the week will go. I said excited, but I feel energized. Although drenched in sweat after walking back up to the car, I got home and headed to the gym for a workout. I was really drenched after that, but took all that energy and put it to good use. Now I’m tired and hungry.