 ‘Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.’ (Rumi) When training Action Learning facilitators, I’ve noticed that new facilitators are often fearful of facing silence. It’s as if they are construing silence in a group as a problem or a challenge they must somehow find a way to overcome. In doing so, they may be missing a golden opportunity for reflection, awareness and sense-making that could shift a group and individuals in it from transactional to transformational outcomes. As an Action Learning facilitator, I find it useful to consider what happens in a set through three distinct and inter-related lenses: inner world; interpersonal space and systemic context. The first looks at what individuals bring into the set; the second at how individuals in that space interact, communicate and co-create meaning; the third at broader social, cultural and structural dynamics that shape what happens in the set. Through an inner world lens, silence may indicate e.g. a person is thinking deeply; uncertain; emotionally activated; afraid to speak; having an insight; resisting or withdrawing. Through an interpersonal space lens, it may indicate e.g. waiting for permission or leadership; avoiding a hot spot; power dynamics are at play; trust is low or fragile; someone is dominating (others pull back); the group is sensing the emotional tone. Through a systemic context lens, it may indicate e.g. cultural norms about hierarchy or deference to perceived authority; organisational fear; learned habits of not questioning leadership or peers; a team or group climate where people do not feel safe; socialised patterns of who speaks first and who holds back. If we are curious about these possibilities, silence can form part of the set’s work, not be an interruption of it. In enabling silence, I contract with groups around its potential benefits, e.g. a space for deeper reflection; room for less dominant voices to speak; a pause that helps a group move from advocacy to inquiry; time for emotional processing; a shift from fast thinking to slower thinking. In the moment, I may let the silence breathe; invite the set to name what they’re experiencing; ask a process question; explore what may be going on. When working with silence, the pattern, timing, length and who is involved all matter. Prolonged silence after a bold question could indicate, say, deep thinking; after conflict, tension; after a dominant voice, caution; after a vulnerable moment, empathy; during ideation, stuck-ness; before a decision, uncertainty. Ask in an open spirit and tentative tone: ‘I’m noticing some silence. What is it telling us?’ Let the silence speak.
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 ‘Heroes need monsters to establish their heroic credentials. You need something scary to overcome.’ (Margaret Atwood) Today I received my first ever ‘digital credential’. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what it was at first. I had imagined receiving an embossed paper certificate through the post that I could laminate and put in my neatly-labelled qualifications folder. Turns out I’m old school, still catching up. I now know a credential of this type is designed as a “secure, verifiable online record of a person's qualifications or achievements.” (You can tell I Googled that). Saves on paper too, I guess. It got me thinking about this idea of credentials and how the word itself has the same linguistic root as credibility. To all intents and purposes, it’s about influencing what other people believe about us. It can have an impact on what we believe about ourselves too. After running over 100 Action Learning training and facilitation events for Action Learning Associates, I decided for congruence’s sake it was time to put myself through the same paces I put others through. I also did a postgraduate diploma in Coaching Psychology. I remember vividly how I had three critical reasons for doing it and for driving myself to achieve a distinction grade: to make a difference in clients’ lives and work by becoming the best psychological coach I could be; to honour the Christian INGO that had generously sponsored me; to prove to myself in my more insecure coaching moments that I must know something of what I’m doing and talking about. So, in my mind, confidence (what we believe about ourselves), competence (what we’re actually capable of doing) and credibility (what others believe about us) are very closely linked. Credentials are like symbols, badges, visas in passports that can open doors, make something possible, remind us of something important whilst also demonstrating it to others. For me, the most significant 'credentials' question is how to be what God values most. How about for you? [If you'd like to hear more about Action Learning and how it could benefit you, get in touch!]  ‘Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence.’ (G.K. Chesterton) At the end of this week’s Christian leadership retreat which drew on Action Learning at its core, I was struck by one participant’s feedback that, ‘This was the first time I’ve experienced authentic community.’ We had opened the event with trust-building activities, getting to know and understand one another as different people before introducing and practising Action Learning techniques. We also chose our own ground rules from the outset. The retreat was interspersed with times of prayer, biblical reflection and sharing of meals together. This reflection on community struck me as significant because it says something profound about what happened within the group, and is also a comment on outside-of the group. The participants were from very diverse personal and professional backgrounds, thrashed through some pretty tough issues together with honesty and care – and found this experience unique. It contrasted starkly with superficial conversations elsewhere, or with experiences of diversity that have resulted in avoiding, ‘othering’, polarisation, tension or conflict. I arrived home last night to hear the news on TV of a public activist’s murder, apparently by someone who didn’t agree with his views and influence. Then, today, I watched a huge protest crowd in London clash with a smaller group of counter-protestors, with embattled police holding the sides apart. It felt symptomatic of people, groups and societies that have lost their willingness and ability to tolerate difference, to tolerate truth, and to hold rigorous debates without feeling the need to silence with a bullet or with an arrest for free speech.  ‘Capabilities are freedoms conceived as real opportunities.’ (Amartya Sen) I keep coming back to this question: what is it that makes the difference? I’ve been drawn recently to reflections on this theme by Indian economist and philosopher, Amartya Sen. He distinguishes between capabilities, which are our resources (including our abilities and our potential), and conversion factors, which are influences on the real opportunities we have to use and fulfil them. Sen focuses his work on wellbeing and on the kinds of lives people and groups are effectively able to lead. He moves on to questions of what people, groups and societies need. Sen offers some interesting illustrations. Two people have the same resources. One is able-bodied and the other has physical disabilities that confine them to a wheelchair. All else being equal, the able-bodied person has more net resources because the person with disabilities has more related expenses. The former may also have greater net opportunities in society because the latter may be limited to places that are wheelchair-accessible. This could lead us to the conclusion that the person with disabilities should be given more resources to ensure equity. Sen then asks, what if the able-bodied person is hard to please and needs more resources to achieve a sense of wellbeing? What if the person with disabilities is content with their life and needs fewer resources to achieve wellbeing? If the goal is wellbeing, should we therefore provide more resources for the able-bodied person? Sen poses two challenges before we leap to this conclusion: sometimes disadvantaged people lower their expectations as a coping mechanism; and society has a moral imperative to support the disadvantaged and vulnerable. Sen provides another example of a person who owns a bicycle. The bike is a means to an end, to ensure mobility rather than an end in itself. Yet to convert the potential of bike ownership to greater mobility, certain conditions need to be in place. These could include, for instance, the physical ability to ride a bike; a social-cultural context that allows the person to ride a bike; and environmental conditions such as safe roads or suitable bike paths that make using a bike feasible. It’s a combination of capabilities and conversion factors that make this difference. So, what does this look like real situations? As far back as 2003, I wrote a research paper as part of an organisation development (OD) masters’ degree that aimed to identify and address common factors that influence engagement and effectiveness in organisations. I proposed that culture, complexity, capability and climate were critical variables. It’s about releasing and harnessing individual potential on the one hand, whilst creating the conditions in which people thrive on the other. This is, in my view, where coaching, action learning and OD intersect. What do you think?  ‘Extraordinary people are ordinary people making extraordinary decisions.’ (Sharon Pearson) Who’s in the driving seat? It’s an important question in coaching and action learning. After all, the client or presenter chooses the direction, speed, route and destination, even though we travel together. As a coach, if I find myself taking the wheel consciously or inadvertently, I would need to pause, take a breath and rethink or recontract our roles. Too much control risks distracting or disturbing the client’s own insight, potential and agency; a loss that would outweigh a gain. So, what does this look like? The client decides their own starting point, their desired goal and how they’d like to get there. I help facilitate the journey insofar as the client finds this beneficial, and offer silence, questions or reflections, or signal signposts in the road, as minimal prompts. The client navigates their own way, discovering or creating solutions to any challenges they encounter on route. I travel alongside to offer support and challenge, to sharpen awareness and skill. What have been your experiences of working with a coach? What made the difference for you?  ‘Don't be too quick to offer unsolicited advice. It certainly will not endear you to people.’ (Harvey Mackay) In Germany today a friend, Margitta, and I shared experiences of giving well-meaning advice to others when it hasn’t landed well with those we’d hoped to help. The push-back has sometimes taken us by surprise, leaving the relationship bruised by what happened and what lay behind it. Margitta went on to explain that a German word for advice, Ratschlag, means quite literally to ‘hit with counsel’. Being ‘struck’ unexpectedly could understandably provoke a defensive response. Sometimes it’s about giving advice that someone didn’t invite; or at the wrong time when, say, empathy would have been more appropriate; or that it simply didn’t fit with them or the complex and felt realities of a situation they were dealing with. On occasion, it could have been a result of mansplaining – a man telling a woman something she already knows – which can be and feel patronising. (I may have just done that inadvertently by explaining what mansplaining means). Remember: ‘I’m not in X’s situation’ and, even more importantly, ‘I’m not X in X’s situation’. This is a useful word of caution to speak to ourselves. It’s also a main reason why developmental practices such as coaching and action learning focus on offering open questions rather than posing suggestions or solutions. Advice has its place, but: Is a person asking for it? Is this the best time for it? Is it appropriate? Am I the right person to give it? Can the relationship bear it?  ‘Hope reflects a psychological state in which we perceive the way-power and the willpower to get to our destination.’ (Charles Snyder) I’ve spent much of the past 18 years working with leaders in beyond-profit organisations, enabling them to lead and influence transitions in the midst of dynamically-complex change. This often involves helping them to develop the qualities and relationships they need to support themselves and others to survive, thrive and perform well in the face of an uncertain and, at times, anxiety-provoking future. A recurring challenge that such leaders encounter is how to instil and sustain hope within themselves as well as within and between others. Putting on a brave face my inspire confidence in the short-term but can feel inauthentic if their foundations are wobbling – and authenticity is a critical condition for building and sustaining trust. New leadership calls for resilience, resourcefulness and faith. Hope Theory offers some useful insights and ideas here. If we (a) have a desired future in mind (vision), (b) can see a way by which it can be achieved (way-power) and (c) are motivated to take action to do it (willpower), we are more likely to experience genuine hope. It’s very different to abstract idealism or naïve optimism, which may engender a good feeling but lack any grounding in reality. Yet what to do if someone is stuck: devoid of vision, unable to see a way forward or lacking in any sense of agency to do anything about it? This is where co-active leadership, coaching and action learning can really help; offering practical means by which people and groups can discover or create fresh goals, find or devise innovative solutions, and gain the traction they need to move things forward. Do you need help with hope? 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)  ‘Trust that what needs to be said will come up naturally, either from you or the other person.’ (Liz Dunphy) A commonly-held belief is that the power and potential of coaching resides in asking great questions. It is after all true that a well-worded, placed and timed question can shift our entire perspective, open up fresh possibilities and create a seismic shift in our sense of agency. I’ve experienced that personally and have seen and felt its impact. What else makes the difference? ‘We learn from an early age what the ‘correct’ answers are – those that will win us approval.’ (Rudi Weinzierl) For coaching questions to land well and to do their work without being deflected by defences, there’s something about being in a receptive state of curiosity, of invitation, of a desire and willingness to learn. Yet, deeper still, I notice the mysterious power of presence. Here I am grappling with a complex issue and struggling to find or create a way forward. Somebody I trust comes alongside me, is really present to me, listens actively and intently without even saying a word…and something shifts inside me. It’s like the presence of God – transformational. A new insight surfaces into awareness as if it were released, catalysed by the quality of contact between us. It was already there, perhaps, but hidden from sight or out of reach. In the moment, it can feel like a realisation, a revelation. Questions stimulate and crystallise our thoughts and galvanise our responses. Emergence arises through presence. (See also: Emergence in action learning; Test and learn; Plan vs prepare)  'There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of adults.' (John Locke) My 5 year-old daughter asked me, ‘Dad, why is it cold downstairs but hot upstairs?’ ‘Because warm air rises’ I replied, gesturing a floating-upwards movement with my hands. ‘But why does it rise?’ That’s a great example of a 2nd question. A 2nd question takes us closer to critical reflection. It’s useful in disciplines like coaching and action learning because it challenges a person to think more deeply, pushing beyond surface-level responses to what lays behind, beneath or beyond. Here’s why it matters, with some examples: 1. Uncovering underlying motives Q1: ‘What are your goals for this project?’ Q2: ‘Why are these goals important to you?’ The 1st question may reveal what someone wants, but the 2nd question uncovers why they want it. It reveals a person’s values and motivations, helping to align efforts and understand the true significance of success. 2. Moving beyond assumptions Q1: ‘Why do you believe this solution will work?’ Q2: ‘What evidence have you found that supports this belief?’ The 1st question asks for an opinion, but the 2nd question invites critical examination of that opinion. It challenges the person to consider facts, research or data to foster a more informed and reflective response. 3. Challenging initial reactions Q1: ‘Do you think the new policy is fair?’ Q2: ‘Who benefits the most from this policy, and who might be disadvantaged?’ The 1st question elicits a gut reaction, often based on personal experience or bias. The 2nd question invites a deeper analysis by examining the broader implications, encouraging critical thinking about fairness for all parties involved. 4. Exploring various alternatives Q1: ‘Why did you choose this option?’ Q2: ‘What other options did you consider, and why did you reject them?’ While the 1st question focuses on decision-making, the 2nd question helps a person consider whether alternative solutions were fully explored and whether biases or incomplete information influenced their choice. Would you like support with developing your second question skills? Get in touch! |
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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