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Effective Conversations: Train the Trainer
By the end of this training you will be able to run a half or one day Effective Conversations course. The theory
content here needs to come in the order it needs to come in – that will not always be the same
All we ask is that you do it at no cost to your delegates.
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Philosophy:
This is about unlearning
We model the 3D Coaching
Simple
People don’t arrive until they have spoken
There will be new learning on the edges
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Authority, Presence, Impact1
1 Adapted from Hawkins, P and Smith, N (2007) Coaching, Mentoring and Organizational Consultancy: Supervision and Development McGraw Hill
Presence (now) – How I am in the moment, body
language, tone, pace, presentation, intention
Impact (Future related) – Potential - through
shifting agenda, mindset, creating
emotional shift
Authority (Past) -Experience, achievements, what people say about us,
training, qualifications, what we know, research.
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My Useful Stories
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Ethics - me in my role
Contract - us together
Presence - How I therefore a
Trust and Intimacy - how we
are together
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Kit List Postcards
Ribbons
Bell
Pens etc
Downloadable free from the website http://www.3dcoaching.com/developing-skills/develop/train-trainer-open-
programme/ Password: ballofresponsibility
Handouts
Flip Manager
Buy from our online shop http://www.3dcoaching.com/about-3d/shop/
STOKeRS Cards
Principles Cards
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ROOM SET UP
Cabaret style helps people talk and breaks the normal pattern of rows
2 chairs at the front so you can move between them when speaking about coach or thinker role
Tables – piles of cards for icebreaker
Prewrite flips
Welcome FLIP 1
Introduce facilitator(s)
Housekeeping - fire, loos, tea/coffee, lunch
What are we doing today?
Key skills in having better conversations at work
Some of the things we do may feel weird – coaching conversations are weird – very different to other conversations we have at work
Afternoon is for practice – need real stuff to talk/think about – will need a volunteer for the demo to think about a problem. After lunch all will need a SITUATION to think about - needs to be within your gift to move forwards on, rather than other people – and where you are not completely stuck (ideas in handout)
What’s my A?
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MODEL THE COACHING CONTAINER IN SET UP
What are we doing today? FLIP 2
Observe
Practice
Apply
How are we going to do it? FLIP 3
Mobiles off
Real stuff
Stay all day
All participate
They should add confidential – keep names in the room, take away learning
How will we know today has been useful? FLIP 3
Select a postcard that you’d like to be different in you tomorrow at work as a result of today
Intros at table. Then plenary: Around room – say your name, brief description of postcard, and one word to represent how you’d like to be different at the end of today WRITE ON BLANK FLIP
People don’t arrive until they have spoken (Nancy Kline) TO WHAT ARE WE NOTICING FLIP
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LISTENING EXERCISE: Please stand in 2 lines opposite each other - one row are speakers, other row are listeners
2 mins – speakers speak without interruption on topic of their choice eg what happened this weekend. Listeners listen to everything – will be repeating what heard
1 min – listeners repeat back what heard
Swap over and repeat with same partner
DEBRIEF Ask SPEAKERS - Did you feel heard? Do you know anything you didn’t know before?
1 row move down so each person is facing someone else
REPEAT this time provide headline of what heard. Explain headline is not a summary of what’s been said. It is THEMES – give example …2 mins – speakers speak without interruption on topic of their choice eg what happened this weekend. Listeners listen to headlines – will be repeating 3-4 themes
Listeners to think for a few seconds – then invite them to provide 3-4 headlines 30 SECONDS MAX
Swap over and repeat with same partner
DEBRIEF Ask SPEAKERS – Did you feel heard? Do you know something you didn’t know before?
Ask LISTENERS - How does it feel as a listener not to have to feed back everything?
1 row move by one person so that each person is facing someone else again
REPEAT talk about what passionate about – 90 secs – listen with eyes, emotions as well as ears and other senses - feedback one word to represent what saw or sensed
Speakers – did you feel heard? Even though they only said one word? Did anyone hear anything they hadn’t heard before about their stuff?
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LISTENING THEORY
When they speak normally people tell us a story
To feel heard we feel we need to repeat the story. Takes time and doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know before. Coaching is a conversation in which someone feels heard and knows something at the end that they did not know at the beginning that will make a difference to what they see or hear or sense. That’s transformation
Listening to the story is exhausting
Talking to the story keeps people in it
Wavy people might go here
Headlines and the underbelly (emotions) Handout p6 FLIP
Short headlines lightly dropped make great questions
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AFTER COFFEE
Recontract - What are we noticing about good conversations?
Write on the WHAT ARE WE NOTICING flip delegates’ learning eg reflecting back briefly, no point in telling people things they already know
Theory Moment: THE COACHING CONTAINER (Handout p4&5)2
Flip with pre drawn lozenge
In Chemistry if you want change to happen put in test tube add chemicals and a catalyst and things happen
Conversations are more effective if we can create a container…. Gives potential for transformation
Write Hawkins and Smith – CLEAR across the lozenge – CONTRACT – LISTEN – EXPLORE – ACTION – REVIEW
Can be any conversation, not just coaching
2 Coaching Container and STOKeRS have been developed by 3D Coaching
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COACHING DEMO SET UP
Demo 15-20 min coaching session
Volunteer or 2nd facilitator as the thinker – ask a few people for headlines of what they might bring – choose one which is about lots of complexity and which you can shift to be about them and what they do
Both coach and thinker standing up
Groundrules
All to please be quiet, no interruptions, no joining in
Watching coach and what coach does and the in between space
Not about what Thinker is saying, don’t talk to thinker about their stuff, leave it in the room, confidentiality
Group Task
Watch the coach and listen for 3 things
1 how did it begin?
2 notice who did the work?
3 write down the questions that were asked?
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DEMO DEBRIEF
Keep the volunteer away from the group (once you have set the debrief discussion), thank them and ask
Was it supportive
Was it challenging
On tables
What did you notice
Who did the work
How did it begin
What were the questions?
All together
Thinker – how did you find it? Was it similar to normal conversations? What was different?
What did we notice about how the coach started?
Who did the work?
Who had responsibility for moving the problem forwards?
What questions were asked?
Write the beginning questions on the lozenge flip
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Theory Moment – STOKERS
Give out stokers card – this is about a GREAT BEGINNING
Reconnect with the beginning questions
Subject
Time
Outcome
Know
Role – how are we going to do this?
Start – where shall we start?
Stoker is the person on the back of a tandem – can’t start a tandem without their hard work and balance
We need to talk about time – positively
Ask time question second – give example of difference between what do you want to think about today? Work
And Given that we have 10 minutes which bit of that do you want to think about
Effectiveness increases in inverse proportion to my anxiety – the less anxious I am the more effective the conversation
Recontract every time we don’t know what to do
Why did we stand up? People do what they normally do when they sit like they normally do WHAT ARE WE LEARNING FLIP -> Move – sit somewhere different
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WAVY PEOPLE EXERCISE
Who is kept awake at night with other people’s problems?
Easy to take responsibility for others’ problems
Inflatable ball – is taking responsibility for others problems
Who is very busy at the moment? Feeling a bit grumpy with work? - Come and sit in chair
What are you grumpy about? When get answer ask a delegate to represent X and stand behind chair and wave arms
What else is on your mind? That’s really interesting. Other delegates stand up and wave
Tell me more… Repeat questions til got a group of wavy people
Facilitator - I’m really interested all these things – wavy people please come and stand between us
Can you hear me? Are you feeling listened to? Answer is no
If we’re talking to their stuff then we’re not listening to the thinker. Coach knows all about the problem and Thinker hasn’t learnt anything new
To cut through the wavy people…. right here right now what to we need to talk about?
When interested in the Thinkers problems then these start to become a barrier to the coaching - Inflatable ball
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PRACTICE CONVERSATIONS
Over lunch - Think about how to split into groups of 4 for practice
take off 3 from total delegates til get a number that is divisible by 4 – that’s how many 3s and how many 4s
If a group of 3 then remove the green ribbon to work out how many groups
Arrange chairs with ribbons on them Coach opposite observer, listener opposite thinker
SET UP (Prewritten Flip) WRITE THE TIME THEY NEED TO RETURN ON FLIP
Purpose is to help the Thinker to think
20min coaching + 10mins debrief then swap so everyone has a go at being the Thinker
– need Stokers card – ask the questions on card – when you get stuck try a question from the back - If thinker has lots in their head – give them paper and pens
– need pad and pens and a situation to think through - make it easy for the coach – talk
about something real -don’t know the answer to the problem – coach will help you to think
– focus on listening to the thinker, not trying to diagnose the problem, nothing else to do – will be surprised at what you notice – no kit!!
– need the book – in charge of the process - role is to check that everyone is doing what they’re meant to do
COACH for 20 mins – coach keeps time
10 mins debrief – observer/green manages feedback – one thing did well and 1 thing do differently – order of feedback is coach – thinker – observer – listener
Change roles – observer moves to coach, coach moves to listener, listener moved to thinker, thinker moves to observer
Repeat so everyone is (they will have a break when they finish)
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PLENARY AFTER COACHING PRACTICE
How did it go?
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Theory Moment: Drama Triangle3
Fill in pre-prepared flip with triangle
Based on transactional analysis
Persecutor – rescuer – victim
How many times have you heard ‘we’re being done to’? point to victim
How many times have you heard ‘I’m going to fix it’? point to rescuer
When get into drama triangle we start to go around it
We start of as rescuer them move to victim (annoyed) then persecutor (angry). We feel the problem is started by persecutor/ rescuer when in fact often started by victim
We need to try ensure the power/ responsibility is in the middle and don’t get stuck
THAT’S WHY A COACHING STYLE IS USEFUL – KEEPS RESPONSIBILITY IN THE MIDDLE
Explains why grievances often result in a counter grievance
If trust is low – sit in chair (as if colleague) – what do I want people to believe about me?
Move to other chair – what do I need to do to make sure I believe about them what I want people to believe about
me?
3 Karpman
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Theory Moment: Blakey and Day (also credited as Daloz)4
Support – challenge grid – prewritten flip Handout p7
What does each of these boxes feel like? Go through each one and flip
Low support - low challenge = inertia
Low support - high challenge = stress . What happens when trust is low and others challenge us? defensive
High support – low challenge = cosy
High support – high challenge – coach/lobbing boot. Need this for coaching to happen
When inertia – what needs to happen for us to have enough trust to do this work?
NB In Faith context, after initial explanation challenge can be replaced by truth and support by grace
4 Challenging Coaching
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CLOSING
Apply learning
When applying learning from today – start with someone you know and trust – not with a difficult person where trust is low
Practice with the card – it’s OK to use it as in support of other person
You could practice in the groups from today if you wish
We judge ourselves by our intentions and others judge us on our impact - Real play
practice difficult conversations with someone else.
You are not in role
Just let them talk to you as if you were the other person
STAND UP and if difficult – get them to start talking to you and then move your hand as a representative
Ask them how was that?
TRY THIS IN TRUSTING WORK RELATIONSHIPS
Let’s hear from 4/5 people – what’s the most important thing you’re taking away from today?
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