 'We don't get to choose how we come into this world - but God gives the freedom to choose how we live in it.' (Frances Cabrini) The end of a year and start of a new one marks a transition point in the calendar and, at times, in our own lives too. It’s an opportunity to look back, re-evaluate, learn and make choices before casting our eyes forward to take next steps in a future direction. I find the best way I can do this is by taking time away from day-to-day distractions in silence, to sit before God and before myself, as if looking into a mirror long and hard to face whatever may surface into awareness. This kind of reflective examination sometimes helps me to avoid falling into repeating patterns of thought and action, often based more on habitual routines than on conscious decisions. Part of the challenge we may encounter is self-deception; made more difficult by subconscious projection (that is, framing others in ways that distort reality) and introjection (that is, framing ourselves in ways that distort reality). The subconscious part means we do it without being aware that we’re doing it. It’s a kind of fooling ourselves about fooling ourselves – a double bind, if you like. There’s a risk, on the one hand, that we believe what we want to believe – which is a way of defending ourselves from anxiety, confusion or stress – or, on the other, we believe what we fear most – which is a sign, driver and consequence of anxiety. And both without knowing it. So how can we get past this? I try a number of strategies. On the foundational hope, purpose and ethics front, I reflect prayerfully on the Bible and on other spiritual resources. On the professional development front, including to address my own hidden assumptions and risks of avoidance, I employ a talented coach who’s high in stimulus and in challenge. On the fresh thinking front, I network, read articles and write blogs to share and invite insights and ideas with and from others. On the international front, I work cross-culturally and, on occasion, visit other places and cultures. Taken as a whole, these approaches help me to stay, as well as I can, at the edge of my calling.
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 ‘To learn through listening, practice it naively and actively. Naively means that you listen openly, ready to learn something, as opposed to listening defensively, ready to rebut. Listening actively means you acknowledge what you heard and act accordingly.’ (Betsy Sanders) I ran a Leading and Influencing Change workshop today for health and social care professionals, focused on introducing and embedding trauma-informed practice in the mental health arena. Ironically, the event took place in an old, abandoned fortress, with the training room in which we met surrounded by symbols of attack and defence: tanks, artillery, torpedoes, tunnels and protective walls. There was also a disused military hut with 007 on the door, a symbol of secretive actors and actions behind the scenes made famous by fictitious spy James Bond. Serving as metaphors, we considered how to shift team and organisational culture away from, at times, a default and subconscious fight-flight, attack-and-defence response in incredibly busy, pressured and complex work environments. We did this by thinking through approaches and behaviours that may look and feel counter-cultural – in practice, if not in principle – in those contexts. It entails role-modelling five key qualities in attitude and action in communications, conversations and relationships: i.e. safety, trust, choice, collaboration and empowerment. What could this look like practice? One participant illustrated it beautifully. When I asked for volunteers, she commented that she felt nervous to take part in an activity in front of the group. Two simple questions can make all the difference here: ‘If you were to do X, what would that mean for you?’ (e.g. ‘I would feel anxious and exposed in front of my peers’) and, ‘Given that, what would you need?’ (e.g. ‘If I could have more information about what the activity will entail, I could make a considered decision’; or ‘If I could sit behind a table, I would feel less exposed.’) This is, at heart, about adopting and modelling a human, invitational and coactive leadership style and approach that takes the voices, hopes and concerns of others seriously. I don’t believe the oft-quoted maxim that people are necessarily and fundamentally resistant to change. In my experience, people may resist a change, even if they agree with it, if they don’t feel heard and understood. Conversely, people may support a change, even if they don’t agree with it, if they do feel heard and understood. Attack-and-defence is a sign that something has gone awry. [See also: Trauma-informed coaching; A safe-enough space]  ‘Votes are cast based on rational decisions, right?’ (Zaria Gorvett) As I watched the former leader of a very influential nation speak on TV last night with what came across (to me, at least) as a mishmash of delusions and mistruths, I felt, to put it mildly, both bemused and dismayed. This felt even more so because current polls in that country point to a distinct possibility, if not yet a probability, that that person could actually be re-elected to that position of power. I found myself asking myself, ‘What kind of craziness would compel people to vote for this person? How can’t they see through the nonsensical and narcissistic rhetoric?’ Shaking my head with a deep sigh, I got up to make a cup of tea. Suddenly (I don’t know if it was the caffeine), a revelation hit me. I flashed back to some years ago in Germany, watching a 1-hour interview with Angela Merkel on TV. She was at the height of her leadership that year and, to be honest, I could hardly understand a word she said. My German language skills simply weren't up to it. Yet, somehow…I found her absolutely mesmerising. Something about her style, presence and tone subtly seduced me. I would have voted for her. I would have married her! Maybe. This took me back, next, to the Brexit-EU psychodrama in the UK. At that time, arguments flew back and forth vociferously in favour of Leave or Remain. Little I heard on either side bore much resemblance to evidential reality. Noticeably, most people I spoke with voted on instinct, on gut-feel intuition, and were swayed little by spurious claims or counterclaims. Boris Johnson, who won that game (by a narrow margin), played subconsciously on cultural memories of Winston Churchill, the lone hero who stood alone against overwhelming internal and external odds. So, an ex-President, an ex-Bundeskanzlerin and an ex-Prime Minister. It's far more than the words they say. It’s what they symbolise and represent. It’s how they make people feel.  ‘The arrival of Jesus in our lives is not just something that happened 2000 years ago. It still happens now.’ (Steve Sutton) 20,000+ people gathered in London to demonstrate against horrific human rights abuses in El Salvador. A friend, Paul, and I travelled down by coach from the North East of England wearing our protest-style combat jackets and keen to add our own voices to the crowd. A large number of people were assembling in Hyde Park, the starting place, with various organisers moving among us to arrange the procession. Suddenly, Paul and I were approached by the leaders to carry a large banner at the very front of the march. We were astonished that, out of so many thousands of protestors, they chose us. God chose us. We were and are nobodies, yet as a new follower of Jesus at age 21, it felt like Jesus was walking with us, among us. Spotters on embassy rooftops monitored and took photos through long camera lenses. Our image appeared on the front cover of a well-known human rights magazine. On arriving at Trafalgar Square, the police mysteriously allowed only Paul and me through the cordon to sit at the foot of the speakers’ platform. 2 years later, I was chosen to meet the main speaker at a secret rendezvous in a basement flat in Islington, but I could never have imagined that at the time. On moving to London a few months later, I attended a vigil at St James’ Church, known for its firm stance on behalf of the poor and oppressed in the world. We were there to mark the inspiring life yet brutal assassination of radical follower of Jesus, Archbishop Oscar Romero. By God’s mysterious design, I discovered that I was sitting beside the Nicaraguan ambassador. At the end of the service, a Spanish nun, passionate follower of Jesus and human rights activist chose me to come forward, a lone stranger, to have my photo taken with Salvadorean refugees. She and I became life-long friends. Some 40 years later now, I’ve had the humbling privilege of witnessing and experiencing so many more such miracles than I could ever count or recount. I don’t know or understand why God chooses us but I’m glad and grateful that he does. When he does, it feels to me like a Divine voice that calls out from within and beyond, that we hear and experience as a realisation. Hitherto 'coincidence' takes on a deeper significance. As we approach this Christmas with all that it holds for us and the world, the arrival of Jesus in our lives is not just something that happened 2000 years ago. It still happens now.  ‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less travelled by.’ (Robert Frost) It was in a dark, cigarette smoke-filled pub one night. The trade union reps sat behind a long wooden table, cluttered with half-full beer glasses. We about-to-graduate apprentices sat opposite, waiting to be called forward. (It was in the days of closed shop when qualified trades people could only be employed if they held union membership). At the time, I supported the value of trade unions in principle, yet felt dismayed and disillusioned by the corruption that this source of power had created. I noticed my colleagues often lived in fear of the union rather than represented by it. If you said or did something that challenged or upset union leaders, you risked losing your union card and therefore your job. One by one, my fellow apprentices stepped up to the table. ‘Raise your right hand. Do you swear to abide by the rules of the trade union?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘OK, go and sit down.' My turn came. ‘Do you swear…?’ ‘No’, I replied. ‘I have no idea what the rules of the trade union are.’ The panel looked bemused. ‘You really want to read the whole rule book before you agree?’ ‘Yes’, I replied. The shop steward thrust a copy into my hands then ejected me forcefully from the meeting. ‘Wait outside until we call you back in.’ I skimmed through the book then, on return, insisted I was exempted from default political party contributions, as was my right according to the rules. They looked intensely frustrated but had to consent. I don’t think such encounters changed the trade union, but they did change me. Some months later, I was sent on a 2-week residential apprentices' programme that aimed to stimulate personal leadership qualities. I challenged the senior managers there with whom, providentially, I had opportunity to speak. ‘Why invest in this programme when the prevailing management behaviour in the workplace is so autocratic? We need to change culture, not just individuals’. They looked deeply uncomfortable yet I held my ground. (They had, after all, encouraged personal leadership). At the formal dinner of the final evening, they invited me to sit at the top table alongside the most senior leader for that region. I was learning to navigate my way through power structures and systems and to exercise personal and political agency. [See also: Pivotal points]  ‘No matter what happens, we always have a choice.’ (Napz Cherub Pellazo) ‘What are your options?’ is a good question in coaching, except when it isn’t. Many people come for coaching in the first place because they face an issue or a dilemma, and they can’t see a way forward. Sabine Dembkowski and Fiona Eldridge observed this phenomenon in their article, ‘Beyond GROW’ (2023): ‘Clients often experience a stuck state…where they feel trapped as if there are no alternatives or keep circling around the same issue without being able to generate new options.’ Against this backdrop, ‘What are your options?’ can be met with a bemused, ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.’ An inexperienced coach may feel stuck too at this point and perhaps, hoping to find a way through, ask something along the lines of ‘What have you already tried?’ Again, this may elicit little more than feedback on what the client has already done and found to be ineffective (which the client knows already anyway), and bring both parties back to square one. An alternative, and potentially more useful, framing could be something like, ‘Given what you have tried already, what is the crux of the issue for you now?’ This may stimulate fresh insight and, in turn, raise new possibilities into awareness. A different approach can be to pose questions that aim to stretch the boundaries of the client’s current constructs and imagination, for example: ‘What would you do if you had a blank cheque?’ ‘What would you do if you felt no fear?’ ‘What could you do if you were not answerable to anyone?’ Claire Pedrick might invite a stuck client to generate a spectrum of options, from ‘Do nothing’ to whatever they would regard as a ‘Nuclear option’. Ian Gray deploys a fun and radical brainstorming technique, where every third option or idea must be ‘illegal, immoral or absolutely unworkable’. If a client still feels completely stuck, I may invite them to take a large, blank sheet of paper, draw themselves at the centre, then co-create radical options in the form of a mind map. In order to help minimise the risks of instinctive psychological and emotional resistance or push back from the client, I emphasise that the options simply represent possibilities, not what the client may want or consider right to do. Against each option, I then invite the client to respond to two questions: ‘If you were to do this, what would it make possible (or right)?’ and, ‘If you were to be do this, what would you need?' [See also: Out of the building; Worst possible idea]  ‘If you can walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing. If you can use the plane the next day, that’s an outstanding landing.’ (Chuck Yeager) ‘I think I just crashed the plane!’ That made me laugh. We had been toying with the metaphor of flying an aircraft to think about different stages of a coaching or action learning process. My nephew, a trainee pilot, had explained to me previously how landing a plane after a flight can be the tricky part. There’s a risk that, having touched down, the plane bounces off the runway and takes off again, resulting in something like a kangaroo-effect along the runway until it finally comes to a halt. During an action learning facilitation training workshop this week, a participant guided the group successfully ‘down’ into the action stage, only inadvertently to have it take off again as she opened up to further questions for exploration. In the learning review afterwards, one of her fellow participants commented with a smile that it felt, perhaps, more like a turbulent landing than a crash into the runway. That was a relief. Yet, how to land a plane without the bumpy-bounce effect? Tony Stoltzfus in Coaching Questions (2008) offers a useful guide that focuses on three successive stages to help create a shift, from possibilities to decisions to committed actions: Could do; Want to; Will do. Could-do raises possibilities and options into the frame. Want-to touches on energy and motivation. Will-do moves towards determination and traction. We could picture this sequence as something like: What could you do? Is that a step you want to take? What will you do, by when? Stoltzfus goes on to highlight potential issues to look out for and to attend to, including ‘insurance’ and ‘equivocation’. The former involves helping a person to identify and address critical factors that could either ensure or undermine their success. The latter can be useful if a person appears to be feeling ambivalent or only superficially committed to a course of action. It’s the person’s own choice as to whether they follow-through. This is, however, about helping them to land themselves well. Examples of insurance-type questions are: ‘Are there any obstacles to getting this done?’ ‘Who else do you need to check with?’ ‘On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that you’ll complete this step by the deadline?’ ‘What would it take to raise that to a 7, 8 or 9?’ ‘How could you change the step or the deadline to make this more realistic?’ ‘What could you do to increase your chances of getting this done successfully?’ ‘Do you need an accountability person or mechanism to help you do this?’ Examples of equivocation-type questions are: ‘Are you ready to commit to that next step?’ ‘You said you might take that next step. Is there anything holding you back?’ You said you ought to do this. What would make it something you’ll do because you really want to do it?’ ‘You sound like you're procrastinating. You can choose to do this or not to do it. What will you do?’ ‘Is there anything we need to discuss or change about the step you’re considering that would help you to make a more decisive choice?’ Stoltzfus ends by offering some tips on tentative language to listen out for at the action phase that could indicate a person is equivocating, or hasn’t yet reached a decision point: ‘I could…’ ‘I might…’ ‘I’m thinking of…’ ‘One possibility…’ ‘Maybe I should…’ ‘I ought to…’ ‘I’d like to…’ ‘Someday…’ It’s analogous to hovering above the runway without yet having achieved touch-down. Try: ‘How do you feel, here and now, as you consider each option?’ ‘If you were to land this, what would you need?’ [See also: A good ending; Get a grip; Grit]  ‘If you want to know what your true values are, have a look at your diary and your bank statement.’ (Selwyn Hughes) Take any example of an important-to-you decision that you have taken during this past week. Consciously or subconsciously, directly or indirectly, it will have reflected something of your underlying beliefs and values. At one level, every decision we take with awareness represents the outcome of a choice point, analogous to a choice of a direction at an intersection in a road. Guiding principles are a way of choosing to align our decisions and behaviour with our beliefs, ethics and values. I worked with a group recently where, during feedback, participants commented on how they felt impacted by what they saw and experienced as my ‘distinctive’ style and approach and, in particular, the power of my 'presence'. They were curious and asked me what, if anything, lay behind this – that which they had experienced – for me. What is it that makes the difference? I held up a small, yellow, post-it note to the screen. On it are written 3 words in my own scrawled handwriting: Prayer, Presence, Participation. These are, if you like, the guiding principles that underpin me personally and all of my work professionally. I carry them with me and have them stuck on my desk, beside the monitor. I pause and focus on them consciously and deliberately before, say, writing a message, joining a conversation or running a workshop. They really do matter to me. Prayer is inviting and opening myself to God’s insight, wisdom and power. He is able to reveal, do and achieve things that are truly impossible for me alone. Presence is ensuring quality of attention and contact with each person or group that I will meet. It’s viewing and approaching each person, each moment, as a sacred encounter. Participation is an invitational spirit that calls for humility and courage. It means engaging with people, not simply technology or any materials that we may use. At the end of the conversation, I invited each person in the group to reflect for a moment – for as long as they needed – and to write down 3 words that, perhaps, they would choose to underpin their own practice. They did this thoughtfully, alone, then each shared with others in the group what they had written. This felt so much deeper and more meaningful than simple words on paper could capture or convey. It was about integrity, authenticity and congruence: choosing to take a stance. What core principles guide the focus and parameters of your decisions and behaviour? What stance are you willing to take?  This is Andi. She's a woman in her own right. She's also my daughter. I'm immensely proud of her. As a child, her favourite colour was blue. People would often say things like, 'Blue's a boy's colour. Shouldn't you like pink?' She would reply calmly yet assertively, 'My favourite colour is blue.' Andi's 21 now and she also likes pink. She wears it because she chooses it, because she likes it, and not to conform to some arbitrary cultural stereotype. What's your favourite colour? Shouldn't you like a different one? ‘I like to deal with things in the order in which they are going to kill me.' (Rita Cooper) In response to Rita’s satirical note (above), we could imagine prioritising in simple form by posing a question such as: ‘Is it going to kill me? a. Yes. b. No. c. Maybe.’ Sorted. :) A different question, orientated around vision and values, could be, ‘In 5 years' time, what will make me feel proud of the decision I take now?’ It brings existential-spiritual ethics and wisdom sharply into view. A recurring theme in leadership, coaching and organisation development (OD) is how to prioritise, especially when faced with an array of options and each with its own implications. The challenge is compounded if a context keeps shifting, or if different stakeholders value and demand different things. It can feel like being caught in a bewildering, exhausting, push-pull, tug of war. Common prioritisation tools include a map of urgency against importance; or value against cost (or risk); or probability (or difficulty, or effort) against impact. The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of the most significant outcomes arise from 20% of actions or resource investments. A critical path analysis can help to determine what should take precedence at different phases of a timeline. Useful as they are, a limitation of these methods is that they are, essentially, tactical management techniques that aim to enable us to navigate from point A to point B. A transformational approach calls us to reflect broadly and deeply. A question of what B may represent and how I may choose to get there from point A draws vision, values, identity, meaning and purpose into the frame. What criteria do you use when choosing priorities? How do you decide who or what takes first place? |
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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