When you have an issue or a challenge ask yourself: What am I paying attention to? What does the end user or client think is needed? What is driving this problem or issue? Like being in the sea, your challenges are changing all the time, sometimes easy to deal with – a calm sea, other times rough and unpredictable. Get help. 

Waking up to the need for change can be painful. You probably realise you are stuck; you need to change something to get moving. You might have a project problem, a problem with a staff member or any type of issue where you can’t seem to see a way out. This is where it can be great to get someone else to give you some coaching. In fact, several someones might even be better!

Here’s a technique that I recently came across that could provide some help.

Get two or three people together. People that are going to provide valuable feedback. You can even do this via an on-line meeting, it doesn’t need to be in person, but the meeting does need to include all the people at the same time.

Describe your issue or problem, or even an aspiration of something you want to achieve. 

The ‘coaches’ can ask you to clarify the issue by asking questions, but they should not attempt to offer solutions or their views or opinions at this stage.

Then you need to sit quietly for four to five minutes while the coaches follow their curiosity and ask questions they don’t know the answers to.   You can’t respond to the questions. Your role is to listen for insights, actions and any extra value that the coaches can provide.  An example might be: 

Coach 1: I think this is a big challenge, I wonder if X has tried to break it down into smaller chunks to deal with each piece separately?

Coach 2: I agree it is a big issue and there is risk too. I would like to check to see if the risks highlighted are able to be mitigated and if so at what cost?

Coach 3: I had a similar situation with my project last year. What I should have done was to raise the issue with the project sponsor. Do you think that X’s sponsor would be able to help with this issue?

There could be several rounds of questions asked by the coaches. While I have suggested a time frame it may be that there is a lot to be curious about, therefore lots of questions.

Once the questions have been asked (but not answered), then you can respond with your thoughts about what is actionable and what you may want to try out as a result of the session. Be careful not to be dismissive or negative towards the questions. These coaches have the intention of helping and trying to explore all avenues to address the challenge or issue.

Try out the technique, you never know what might happen!

Carol Speirs

January 2021