Contribution

8/3/2016

What am I evoking? What’s my contribution to what I’m experiencing? These can be great questions for coaches, facilitators and leaders. How often have you sat in a meeting, for instance, and thought, ‘I am so bored.’ It’s one of those moments where you can feel so much energy being drained out of you, so much oxygen being sucked out of your lungs, that it almost hurts physically. You’re desperate to get out but can’t think of a polite and convincing enough excuse to exit the room.

Or maybe you’re in conversation with a colleague, with a coach or in a training workshop and thinking, ‘This is such a waste of time. I’m not getting what I need from this.’ Such experiences can create a sense of life, of work, of relationships, of outcomes happening to us. It’s as if we are passive recipients at the mercy of others’ actions and behaviour. It can leave us feeling helpless, powerless and hopeless. And I’m wondering…is there another way of framing and stance-taking in this?

So here goes: ‘What’s your contribution to what you’re experiencing?’ ‘What do you need to receive and give your best?’ I often pose these questions when working with leadership teams. At first, I see puzzled faces but, when the penny drops, the difference can be transformational. It’s about disrupting normal personal and cultural patterns of belief and behaviour. It’s about challenging and supporting proactivity, ownership and influence. It’s about choosing. It’s about waking up.

There’s a skill in learning to engage, negotiate, contract and lean into the experience like this - and it takes practice: ‘I would find this more purposeful and worthwhile if….’ ‘I would like to focus our attention on X…’ ‘How about we do it this way instead…then I could bring something useful to it?’ ‘If we could break for 10 minutes, I could come at this with so much more energy.’ Take the initiative: Seize it. Shape it. Make it happen. What’s your contribution to what you’re experiencing?

39 Comments

Tad Mayer

9/3/2016 08:59:59 am

Thank you, Nick. Good challenges for all of us.

Nick Wright

9/3/2016 09:01:30 am

Thanks Tad. It's a good challenge for me too. If I ever find myself feeling disengaged, I try to think of at least 1 thing I could do proactively to change that experience. All the best. Nick

Jackie LeFevre

9/3/2016 09:53:39 am

And of course if you are consciously connected with your personal priority values you will notice in an instant why 'this' is not resonating for a person like you and where to send your attention and intention to turn it into 'that' which makes the most of your skills and talents.....but then I would say that wouldn't I!

9/3/2016 09:57:37 am

Thanks Jackie - yes, you would! ;) I agree that our response is likely to arise from our values (e.g. what we consider worthwhile). I think the personal leadership challenge is to act on that response and to do it skilfully - bearing in mind role, relationship, culture, context etc - to influence change. All the best. Nick

Vikas Chhibber

10/3/2016 09:06:57 am

Thanks a great read...

10/3/2016 09:07:36 am

Thanks Vikas. All the best. Nick

E.G.Sebastian (CPC, CSL)

10/3/2016 09:14:19 am

Nick, you... you super-high-IQ dude...! You sweet talker :) - what does your question mean in plain English? I feel there's a deep meaning behind the question and that I should get it, so I'm asking this clarifying question :)

10/3/2016 09:26:22 am

Hi E.G. and thanks for the note. Your comments made me smile! :)

I work with a lot of leadership teams and often notice how team members feel stuck, as if what they experience in their team (e.g. team meetings, team dynamics) is something that happens to them rather than something they are influencing and have influence over.

So I think there's something about what we model, e.g. when coaching teams, that can raise awareness of the value of paying attention to what we experience, what impact we are having, what we can do to influence change in team behaviour, dynamics etc.

This raises interesting challenges for team coaches, e.g. whether we are aware of our influence; whether we believe influence is a valid part of a coach's role' how far we believe our role is to model awareness, initiative and skilful interventions in a team etc.

Hope that makes sense? All the best. Nick

12/3/2016 11:07:30 am

I must have posted my question in the middle of the night, or at the end of a looong day... as I did not see the narrative after your question. I'm sure if I read that, I would have understood your question. Thanks for your answer, though :) -- and, yes, really great stuff! My fave: ‘What’s your contribution to what you’re experiencing?’ ‘ - I use a similar question in my coaching, and clients sometimes get offended, then I rephrase it to something like "If you had even an intsy wintsy role in creating this situation, what would it be...?" or something similar, all depending on the topic, the client, and on my momentary "inspiration."

12/3/2016 11:16:10 am

Hi E.G. You made me laugh again! :) Actually, you inadvertently modelled the very principle I was advocating - that is, you didn't understand the question so you were proactive in querying it. You engaged with curiosity rather than disengaged.

I love your 'intsy wintsy' comment. :) One of my colleagues, Claire Pedrick (3D Coaching) has a great way of posing this type of question indirectly if the client appears defensive: 'If I were to ask you a really challenging question, I might ask you...X'

An alternative approach would be simply to respond to the client with an observation: 'I'm sensing that we are touching a boundary for you here...' and, if the client agrees, '...and so what will we do next that will be most useful for you?'

I enjoy your moments of momentary inspiration. :) All the best. Nick

John b. May

10/3/2016 09:14:52 am

The discussion seems to be about meetings,"The potentially biggest waste of time of all time". Clarify,challenge and negotiate your presence before going.No agenda,no objective ?then no meeting!Establish timelines per agenda item.Insist on asking the question"How can we improve the next meeting?"All of us have a right and duty to make our meetings more effective!

10/3/2016 09:45:29 am

Hi John and thanks for the note. I used a team meeting as an illustration because that's often where people experience e.g. encouragement, inspiration, synergy, conflict, boredom or frustration. People can experience similar things in other contexts too, e.g. relationships with colleagues at work.

One of the striking features of such experiences is how often leaders, coaching clients etc. describe these experiences as if it is something happening to them, as if it's entirely a product of others' behaviour etc. It's as if their own influence lies out of awareness and, in teams, as if responsibility is somehow diffused in the group.

In my experience, it can be useful and empowering to raise clients' awareness of the impact of their own behaviour on how others are behaving and to experiment with taking steps to influence change. It taps into questions such as: 'What is the quality of contact between us?' and 'What am I willing to take responsibility for?'

I think the coach can play a role in raising awareness of here-and-now experience and impacts of the client's own e.g. mindset, stance and behaviour on what they experience with others. The coach can also model personal initiative (proactivity) in raising issues and experimenting with felt impacts and influence. What do you think?

All the best. Nick

Cath Norris, MA, BA, Dip Couns

10/3/2016 07:07:51 pm

Absolutely Nick. Probably my steepest learning curve on this has been around noticing the edges that I stand back from with my clients. There's so much that we're taught not to name culturally and as such it can be a piece of work to stay congruent and choose to say what's really needed. I think we can model compassionate bravery!

10/3/2016 07:17:11 pm

Thanks Cath for such an insightful response. I agree with you absolutely that there are many things we are taught not to name culturally. It creates a filter for our conversations which sometimes prevents us facing and addressing important issues. I think it's also true that we can be so steeped in our own culture that it acts as a subconscious filter for what we notice or not.

I really like your imagery of standing back from edges and your solution that calls for compassion and courage. I believe this is something we can model as coaches by raising awareness, e.g. 'Something I'm aware of is...', 'Something I notice we're not talking about is...' etc. and being courageous in owning and acknowledging our own contribution/influence, thereby modelling transparent behaviour and inviting others to too.

All the best. Nick

10/3/2016 10:56:12 pm

Lovely Nick, I like your seeing. Yes we almost definitely filter as a result of personal culture and I really like your emphasis on naming our own difficulties in approaching and broaching certain things that are present and how that models transparency. Great. It reminds me of your last post about being open to what we aren't seeing, holding a space to invite in what we don't know. That feels very relevant in relation to personal culture where we are potentially so blocked that we might be unaware of the elephant in the room.

10/3/2016 11:03:31 pm

Thanks Cath. Yes, those are good links. I think it's true that culture can not only prevent us speaking about proverbial elephants in the room but also prevent us even being aware of them.

I believe these filtering mechanisms, sometimes defensive mechanisms, can be so deeply embedded personally and culturally that we're not even aware of them, or they somehow deflect us away from them if something starts to raise them into awareness.

This is where we can sometimes feel an intuitive sense of dissonance or unease...as if something is being evoked or provoked - and we feel it - and yet our psyche is conditioned to suppress or block it out. Our defences can be well-defended!

All the best and thanks again. Nick

Cindy Lynn Roche, CHRP - CTDP - MA

11/3/2016 08:57:01 am

So so so true! Very much enjoyed reading it, and thinking about my practice.

11/3/2016 08:57:46 am

Hi Cindy and thanks for such affirming feedback! All the best. Nick

Corina Lungu

12/3/2016 11:17:42 am

Great insights!

And yes, It takes Courage, Integrity, Courage again, Compassion, Courage again, Faith and Tenacity to support a client see how (through their own actions, thoughts etc) they impact different situations, people, or themselves, from all (or many) perspectives. And in my opinion, THIS is true coaching, the only way to make changes, and see results. It is definitely challenging (or I would even say exciting!) and rewarding for both coach and client.

So, as a Coach, you model Personal Initiative to influence change, by taking this challenge with Courage, Integrity, Compassion, Faith and Tenacity.
Hopefully you put time and effort to create a good rapport with the client in the very beginning, though :)

Thank you for eliciting this.

12/3/2016 11:23:53 am

Hi Corina and thank you. I love the way you expressed that. Insofar as the coach models and demonstrates courage, integrity, compassion, faith and tenacity, it can serve as an invitation for the client to do the same and to see and experience what happens. In this sense, the coaching encounter can be a supportive, challenging and exciting experiment (which is where I find Gestalt approaches particularly stimulating) in the context of a safe yet edgy relationship. It can enable the client to conduct similar experiments in how they engage with others too in order to develop their awareness, insights, behaviour and practice. All the best. Nick

Heather Anderson

12/3/2016 11:25:45 am

Fantastic perspective!

12/3/2016 11:26:22 am

Thanks for your encouraging feedback, Heather! All the best. Nick

Sarah Moussa

12/3/2016 11:27:11 am

Refreshing to read about proactive approaches that demonstrate assertive behaviours.... Managing self versus managing time?

12/3/2016 11:35:48 am

Thanks Sarah. Yes, my sense is that it can touch on some fairly existential questions, e.g. 'Who am I, now, in this situation?', 'What is most important to me?', 'What am I here to do?', 'What stance am I willing to take in the world, this organisation, this team, this relationship?', 'What can I contribute in this situation?'.

It also touches on psychological questions, e.g. 'What do I need to perform at my best?', 'How can I approach this skilfully in order to exert appropriate influence?', 'What is holding me back from taking the initiative?', 'What is my experience here saying about wider cultural or systemic influences in this relationship, this team, this organisation, this community? etc.

Our responses to all of those questions can feed into our choices to manage ourselves and to behave assertively. Does that make sense? All the best. Nick

Vivek K

12/3/2016 11:36:32 am

Great words straight from the bottom of heart.

12/3/2016 11:48:26 am

Hi Vivek and thank you. I like your use of the word, 'heart' because, for me, so much of this stems from a spiritual sense of who I am, who God has created me to be, what God has called me to do etc. There's something about what beliefs and values we are grounded in that fundamentally influences what stance we are willing to take, what risks we are willing to take, what deeply motivates and influences our behaviour etc. and how we make sense of and act in the world - whether that be in a coaching conversation, training group or other environment. Lots to reflect ont! All the best. Nick

Bill Gaffney

13/3/2016 05:04:33 pm

If I am not the problem there is no solution.

Good piece Nick.

13/3/2016 05:05:18 pm

Thanks Bill. Can you say a bit more about what you mean? All the best. Nick

Andra Raicu

15/3/2016 09:25:06 am

Very true. I believe it all starts with ourselves. If I enjoy what I do I can constantly motivate myself to do more, to come up with ideas to influence teams and what is even better is that you can't get bored if you always find a way to do things better. When various blocking points tend to stop your initiative, re-think, re-organise until your contribution matters.

15/3/2016 09:28:57 am

Hi Andra and thanks for your comments. I love that: "re-think, re-organise until your contribution matters." What a great example of personal ownership and initiative. All the best. Nick

Michael McHugh

15/3/2016 09:29:38 am

Great ways to wake up and lean into the experience. However - I do sometimes find that I lean out of some similar experiences in order to conserve my energy, and come in at a different angle or at a different time. I usually have these experiences on badly run training courses where the context is not clarified or where boundaries are not clear. I suppose it's a self-protective mechanism. I'm quite assertive, and I think I step back in such groups so as not to feel I'm taking over - as that's not always universally welcomed by some. Would love to know Nick if you have experienced any training in psychosynthesis - your language around values, beliefs and the spiritual questions made me wonder...

15/3/2016 09:38:55 am

Hi Michael and thanks for sharing such honest reflections. I believe that paying attention to and acting on what you need in order to be and bring your best (e.g. at times, to lean out in order to conserve energy) is itself a good example of personal ownership and initiative. It's very different to passively allowing yourself to become dulled and disengaged.

Interesting question on psychosynthesis. I haven't trained in it but I did once have an excellent coach (John Crossan) who specialises in that field. My thinking about values, beliefs and spirituality arise largely out of my Christian faith, along with a lifelong interest in existential questions, psychology, philosophy and social constructionism.

If you have any insights from psychosynthesis, it would be great to hear more about it! All the best. Nick

Deborah Eisloeffel

18/3/2016 09:34:54 am

Thanks for this reminder, Nick. I was in a meeting with my team two days ago, and they were feeling stuck, frustrated and a little put-upon. If I had asked the first two questions, it probably would have changed the course of the meeting, making it so much more productive!

18/3/2016 09:40:02 am

Many thanks, Deborah. Yes, this is something I continually need to remind myself and a stance I need to continue to take. If the meeting gets stuck, I sometimes take us back to first principles, e.g. 'What are we here to do?', 'How shall we do this?', 'What do we want to be different 1 hour from now?', 'What would make this time together worthwhile?' etc. It can break the stuckness and release relief as well as a new and more energised way forward. All the best. Nick

Kaur Lass

20/3/2016 10:14:36 am

I see it as a lack of intra-personal skills that leads anyone ‘feeling helpless, powerless and hopeless.’ On thing is the situation where you are. The other is how you handle the situation within yourself! Are you able to let go your emotions at will? Are you mastering your thoughts? ... or do your emotions and thoughts lead you? It is mostly the last option! People are lead by how they feel and distracted by their own thoughts - they often do not even notice the actual real life situation. If you are not fully present and engaged, you can not take initiative!

Yes, you should ask: ‘Why am I here? What’s my personal contribution to the solution? What can I give to from myself that the meeting would end as purposeful?’ Also the question ‘What can I contribute to solution if team and our common cause comes first?’ If you see answers to those questions you see how you can take initiative.

To help people to take initiative we started a new company: www.consciousinitiative.com

20/3/2016 10:19:32 am

Hi Karl and thanks for the useful comments. I like the solutions-focused approach in your questions. I'm struck by your statement: '(people) often do not even notice the actual real life situation. If you are not fully present and engaged, you can not take initiative'. I find insights and ideas in Gestalt useful here, e.g. 'What is the quality of contact, here-and-now, between us?' or '...between me/us and the topic we are working on?' It speaks to that idea of engagement vs disengagement and calls us back into awareness. All the best. Nick

21/3/2016 08:42:18 pm

Nick if you observe people at long meetings, then they often think something else (mostly not related to topic, they have that distant look and do not notice you), look at something else (phone, tablet, papers or computer) or are lost in their feelings (are stuck with some feelings that are related to previous similar experiences or something private). Their physical body is there, but their mind is pre-occupied with something else. It's useful to break that pattern. For example - questions always bring insight? It is very useful to ask questions in meetings! ... and ask everyone to propose solution during 1 minute!

It's also useful to define meeting time (the shorter the better) and reduce the amount of people invited. Also every decision and agenda what needs some action should end with three things agreed: "Who?", "When?" and "What?". And the best solution there is that who is based on free will, when based on actual needs and what on skills. ... and allow initiative! Praise it!

Debby Enoe

24/3/2016 08:38:41 pm

Too often we feel that someone is doing something to us and we fail to reflect on how we are contributing to the experiencing that we are receiving.

24/3/2016 08:40:23 pm

Hi Debby. I agree. It's something about exercising personal leadership in the here-and-now: ownership, initiative, influence. All the best. Nick

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