 ‘In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer, and that gives me hope.’ (Albert Camus) The sun struggled to reach the horizon today. Looking out through frost-covered glass, I could see shimmering silhouettes and the long dark shadows of people scraping the ice off their car windows. As I too stepped outside, I could feel the bitter cold immediately biting at my skin. I pulled up my collar and slid my hands quickly into thick thermal gloves before heading up the street for a brisk winter walk. Just 2 weeks to go now until the solstice, the shortest day. Lilin, my Malaysian sister-in-law, asked, ‘Why are all the trees dead?’ It was her first experience of winter in the UK’s temperate climate and she wondered if something devastating had happened. This bleak and freezing season can feel like that. Dim light can darken our vision. The bright light and warmth of a new year will follow; yet for those who feel trapped in distress or despair, for whom spring may seem like a distant dream, don’t give up. Hold onto hope.
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 ‘We are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed.’ (Max Born) I worked with a charitable organisation that aspired honestly to be more innovative yet couldn’t tolerate failure. It felt responsible to supporters and beneficiaries for every penny spent and the thought of wasting money felt unethical and irresponsible. It was fundamentally constrained by the power of its own definition: it needed to learn that ‘waste’ was just one way of construing the cost of necessary and positive risk associated with innovation. Another would be to consider it as an experimental investment with the potential to yield a far better outcome. Test and learn. This principle came to mind yesterday while co-facilitating a coaching training workshop for managers. In conversation, we looked at different intervention modes a manager can use when working with less-experienced staff: ranging from directive (telling or showing the person what to do) to non-directive (asking questions to help the person think it through for themselves) to positive withdrawal (stepping back to allow the person to work it out and do it for themselves). The latter can feel most risky yet often result in valuable discoveries and learning that sticks. One manager commented that, when using the let-go approach, the person may well make mistakes. It could seem that it would have been faster or easier simply to have directed them. Yet, on the flip side, that could undermine the person’s ability to grow in confidence and competence for themselves. He reflected, ‘Bottom line – pay the school fee’: meaning, accept that time or resources could appear wasted in the immediate-term, and get over it. Like innovation, unless there are critical risks or issues at stake, it’s about enduring short-term pain for longer-term gain.  ‘Put your body where your mouth is.’ (Bob Hunter) There’s always a risk of irony when writing about doing, with satirical echoes of armchair activism. It is, after all, easier and often safer to speak from the comfort of the keyboard than from the stress of the streets. Words carry their own power but so more so when backed up by action. This was one of legendary Bob Hunter’s (founder of Greenpeace) 5 core insights and principles and one that he modelled personally through direct and principled interventions. This is, too, the spirit of Advent that, in Christian ritual, marks the approach of Christmas as the arrival of Jesus Christ in the world. The gospel tells us that Jesus, the eternal Word, became human and lived among us. We could say that, in Hunter’s language, God put his body, in Jesus, where his mouth, his Word, was. (Now if that doesn’t blow your mind, you possibly haven’t grasped what I just said.) This is what Christians mean by ‘incarnation’: God with us. To put one’s body where one’s mouth is is the most radical expression of intervention. Hunter placed himself in a flimsy rubber dinghy between a huge hunting ship and a helpless whale. It carried a reality and a symbolism that far transcended any petition of protest. He set off in a fragile ship toward a projected blast zone where government authorities planned to carry out nuclear weapons testing. It meant presence and self-sacrifice for something critical. Advent.  ‘In a fully developed bureaucracy there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can represent grievances, or on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. We have a tyranny without a tyrant.’ (Hannah Arendt) I’ve been astonished in recent months by numerous accounts from friends, colleagues and clients of feeling mangled in the machines of bureaucracy. Some have been in commercial business contexts and others, more depressingly in many respects, in the explicitly values-orientated not-for-profit sector. A recurring theme has been being passed from pillar to post, being subjected to impersonal policies, processes and procedures, with no account taken of the human costs. Against this background, I have been remarkably impressed by these same individuals’ resilience. I’ve been amazed at their ability to survive and persevere on the edges of systems that care on paper but demonstrate no empathy in practice. Some have attributed their endurability to trust in God, some to support from family and friends, some to techniques like mindfulness, others to a pragmatic approach in life. They are a testimony to the human spirit in the face of adversity. Ironically, when I speak with people who operate the machinery in such organisations, I don’t often encounter faceless, unfeeling bureaucrats. I do often find people trying hard to do what they or their management considers to be the right thing, or cold technology requires them to do, often against a backdrop of competing pressures and demands and far-from-adequate resources to address them. Losing the human becomes an inadvertent cultural pattern and consequence. Do you need help to rediscover the human in your organisation? Get in touch!  ‘What happens is what happens. The beauty is in the imperfection.’ (Will Moule) I can already hear those with a perfectionist streak raising shrill voices of protest. ‘Surely we should be aiming for the ideal?’ I ran an Institute of Leadership and Management recognition workshop for Action Learning Associates-trained Action Learning (AL) facilitators yesterday. One of themes we discussed is how to work with emergence in an AL set (a group of peers doing AL together). This is core to AL facilitation and often quite different to, say, managing training. How is that? What does that mean? Firstly, the agenda for an AL set lays in the hands of set members; the process in the hands of the facilitator. More often than not, the facilitator won’t know in advance what challenges set members will choose to address in a specific AL round (session) when they select and work on issues to reach a solution. Peers are unlikely to know, too, what questions they will pose and how an exploration will unfold organically during that round. Those presenting (that is, thinking through an issue with support and challenge from peers) sometimes don’t know at the outset what the crux of an issue is for them; and won’t know until the round progresses what direction an exploration may take, what discoveries may surface and what the resulting outcomes may be. AL therefore involves inviting and staying with, as far as we can, a state of curiosity – an openness in the moment to whatever of significance may arise. A paradox for the facilitators lays is that, insofar they may try to control what happens in a set to achieve an ‘ideal’ process or outcome, that same effort to control may inhibit or even prevent optimal results – a bit like how grasping a beautiful flower too tightly may squeeze the life out of it. An effective AL facilitation style entails adopting an open, agile presence and stance, trusting that what needs to be said will come up naturally. Hold the process and release the group. (See also: Emergence in coaching; Test and learn; Plan vs prepare)  'Where talents and the needs of the world collide, therein lies your vocation.' (Aristotle) Think prayerfully. (See also: A calling beyond ourselves; Sense of destiny; Diving deep in the coaching pool; Listening for a voice; Great) (Examples: Safe; Legacy; A radical heart; Pivotal points; Chosen; Leap of faith; Bread; Machine gun preacher)  ‘Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all of the darkness.’ (Desmond Tutu) A struggle I encounter existentially and in conversations with so many colleagues and clients at the moment is how to hold onto hope. Look at the news headlines and story after story of things going wrong. Not just small things but potentially world-ending things like climate disaster or nuclear war. The sense of overwhelm that this can create, along with a sense of complete powerlessness to change anything on that macro scale, can lead to feelings of deep despair. One option is to turn off the TV and social media news feed. It’s a bit like burying our head in the proverbial sand or sticking our fingers in our ears and singing, ‘La, la, la’. To be honest, on the mental health front, this kind of withdrawal can prove helpful and life-giving, at least for a while. After all, why burn ourselves out mentally, emotionally and physically for things over which we have zero influence anyway? Better, perhaps, to engage in mindfulness. Pause, breathe...relax. Except I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work for me. ‘I can’t close my eyes and make it go away.’ (U2) I’ve had to find a different way, and I’m still trying. German theologian Jürgen Moltmann wrote, ‘Hell is hopelessness.’ The need for hope is buried deep in the human psyche and the human condition. I find hope in Jesus and in taking action in my own small spheres of influence. I’m with Greenpeace on this: ‘The optimism of the action is better than the pessimism of the thought.’ How do you find and hold onto hope?  ‘Freedom of speech is a human right and the foundation upon which democracy is built. Any restriction of freedom of speech is a restriction upon democracy.’ (Deeyah Khan) Controversy over certain UK Police Forces’ over-zealous application of Non-Crime Hate Incident (NCHI) guidance, issued by a government quango rather than by a Parliamentary decision, has raged in mainstream and social media this past week. With echoes of the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report (2002), in which potential criminals are arrested in advance of their crimes being committed, some Forces are recording the actions of individuals that they believe lean towards criminality – without any actual crime having been committed by that individual. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of having a police record for a crime that I haven’t committed; and I especially don’t like the idea that anyone has the right to allege a Non-Crime Hate Incident against me over something I have said or done without (a) that person having to demonstrate any objective evidence of it and (b) the Police having to disclose to me who it was or what it was. I can see why so many headlines over this regulation have included dystopian words like ‘Orwellian’. It sounds more like Nazi Germany or the Eastern (Communist) Bloc. To be very clear, I don’t approve of expressing, inciting or acting out hatred against anyone. It’s completely against my personal values and ethics and it’s not the kind of society I want to live in. My Dad was in the police and I respect the police too. I don’t envy the tough job they have to do. The Conservatives, who naively oversaw the introduction of NCHI regulations, realised they had opened a Pandora’s Box and tried, too late, to get the lid back on. Rules intended to protect the oppressed from oppression had become oppressive. Labour has removed the lid altogether. In the meantime, friends in the Philippines and elsewhere look on with astonishment – what has happened to the UK, the world-famous cradle and seat of democracy? What has become of that legendary land of free speech – the international beacon of light to those who live under brutal regimes, with their own voices silenced and no right to say a word? I struggle to know now what to say. Of course, as you read this, you have the right to disagree with me vehemently and absolutely. That has been the bedrock, beauty and benefit of living in a democracy…until now. (See also: Free Speech and Why it Matters; Free Speech Union)  ‘You're either coming out of a storm, in a storm or heading into a storm.’ (John Easley) Urban myth: ‘If we can just get through this, there will be calm waters ahead.’ Now, I concede that things may be less turbulent for a while than they are in the midst of whatever dramas today may bring, yet the new normal is to face continual and complex change. Think back for a moment to the most significant experiences you went through in the past 12 months, personally and-or professionally. I imagine that some of those things were anticipated, some less so, and some came from completely out of the blue; appearing like a rogue wave from left field. Mixed metaphors apart…this reality was certainly true for a group of UK health and social care professionals I worked with this week. The winds of change have left some feeling buffeted, battered and bruised by waves and, at times, clinging onto what feels like a shipwreck. It was also true for a Filipina teacher this week who, on discovering corruption that impacts seriously on her poorest students, registered her protest and resigned from her post as a matter of principle: no job to go to but with her ethics intact. The officials in question are now breathing threats. The good news is that not all changes are or feel so rough. There are clearly experiences in life and work that we initiate, control or welcome. At those times, it may feel like we’re surfing the waves, enjoying the rush of the ride and savouring its benefits. So, what can we do in those situations where we do feel out of our depth? How can we grow in our resourcefulness and resilience? Here are 3 things I'm still practising: 1. Pray: open myself to God and his perspective; 2. Prioritise: focus on who or what matters most; 3. Prepare: develop myself to be more agile.  ‘Active listening creates the space for a person to hear their own voice.’ (Liz Dunphy) I had a fascinating conversation with a group of engineering managers at a coach training event with my colleague, Liz, yesterday. One of the things we looked at with the participant group was when coaching is an appropriate intervention, and when not. After all, coaching isn’t a magic bullet and it isn’t always the most efficient of effective solution to an issue. The managers were particularly concerned about the thought of delegating authority to less-experienced staff where serious health and safety risks and concerns were paramount. In order to illustrate where coaching can be useful, for instance where complex ethical or relational dilemmas are concerned and where there are no simple right-or-wrong textbook answers, I shared an example from my own personal experience. As a young apprentice in industry, two tradesmen once said they would sneak off-site to a pub. They insisted forcefully that, if the supervisor appeared, I should cover for them by saying I had seen them working behind a control panel. I felt conflicted ethically but didn't want to appear disloyal. (These managers yesterday leapt in with all kinds of different advice for how I could and should have responded, especially when I told them the supervisor did appear and I had felt forced to lie.) Shortly afterwards, the supervisor saw those same tradesmen crossing the car park, asked them where they had been, and they confessed to having been in the pub. The supervisor laughed off their misdemeanour with them but was furious with me, and it wrecked the trust in our working relationship. An integrity issue with relational consequences. Imagine, now, that I had been able to chat that situation through quickly with a colleague, a coaching-style conversation if you like, before making that fateful error of judgement. Imagine if they had given me a listening ear, space to hear myself say out loud what I was about to do. Imagine if they had reflected back my tone and expression so that I could have seen myself, as if in a mirror. Imagine if they had helped me think through a variety of different options and implications to make a better, wiser and more authentic decision. Imagine. |
Nick WrightI'm a psychological coach, trainer and OD consultant. Curious to discover how can I help you? Get in touch! 
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