MF came to counselling and coaching having taken up a new senior HR [Human Resources] appointment as Head of Resourcing within a large NHS trust. Prior to this role MF had a wider more senior head of HR remit in the Utilities sector.
MF’s ex HR Director wanted to provide him with counselling and coaching support for him to move on positively from a challenging experience.
The call with the sponsor included a discussion with MF on the structure and process of counselling and coaching as well as my role as counsellor and coach - the purpose, approach including solutions focus, broad outcomes, timings, our boundaries including confidentiality and expectations. We agreed that MF would feed back to his sponsor at mid and end point, with me present if requested by MF for support. We would use the specific objectives set from session one to evaluate MF’s counselling and coaching. We agreed the scope of the coach-counselling as well as some mentoring work including fees, hours face to face or by telephone where MF requested, when it would end and how we would end it early at any point he wished. We covered cancellation and rescheduling policies. I referred both sponsor and MF to the written contract covering all these points as well as additional responsibilities, to be carefully read, agreed and signed prior to the commencement of session one. We agreed method and timing of fees payment.
We spent a few minutes on confidentiality - what would be shared with the person commissioning the counselling and coaching, the sponsor, as a key stakeholder, with only detailed reporting coming from the client. I covered what would be shared with others I might work with and what information I might share as part of the coach training that I am doing. I emphasised that all information used would be anonymised. The client was happy with all of that, supportive of my continuous professional development and my ongoing goal to be the best coaching counsellor that I can be for my clients.
In the first face to face one to one counselling and coaching session, we focused specifically on going through the written coaching contract to ensure that MF was happy with the format and outcomes he would like to focus on during the sessions. Having spent time on confidentiality previously MF said that he felt able to talk openly and honestly about what he would like to achieve underneath the broad goal set by his sponsor, ex line manager and HR Director, “to move on positively from a challenging experience at X organisation”. He wanted to “cathart, process and learn from my bad experience; notice the memories on occasion, acknowledge them neutrally and move on” and to develop his “resources kitbag” particularly in terms of his confidence. I encouraged him to be quite detailed about his outcomes and reinforced that he was in the right place to achieve what he wanted and needed at this time in his career. We planned the ninety-minute sessions bi-monthly. We agreed that I would be flexible should he need to change sessions with an agreed weeks’ notice.
During the final part of session one, I suggested that MF (now Head of Resourcing in a large NHS trust) use the Healthcare Leadership Model - covering their nine dimensions of leadership behaviour - that directly reflect the outcomes of NHS Leadership, so fit very well for him in his new role and his stakeholders. We agreed that he would use this as a diagnostic to identify his top three strengths and top three development areas, to be incorporated within his overall outcome. This was his agreed homework, to have a written set of say five objectives that would realise his best hopes of moving on from his challenging experience positively, resourceful and behaving as a confident NHS leader. He would write these into his counselling and coaching learning agreement (contract).
Where the organisation is financing the work, I place increasing emphasis on contracting through a three way call with the main sponsor and at session one with the sponsor, as my experience over the years as a coach-mentor and as a management consultant for PwC, shows that our success in achieving their outcomes within the budget and timeframe set, is partly determined by agreeing the precise foundations of coaching-counselling-mentoring and means of evaluation upfront, with a mid-point review with the sponsor to cover what is working well and what requires further work. I abide by the principle that what gets measured gets managed.
Relationship Building
Alongside contracting, another key factor contributing to my client achieving their outcomes is instilling positive expectations and so enthusiasm for the coaching and counselling and mentoring sessions with me. This also helps with relationship building. I spoke to MF in session one about how normal it is to experience peaks and troughs in our career and that smart leaders elicit support through coach-counsellor-mentor to reflect on their experiences, to learn by working through the full Kolb learning cycle. This would mean reviewing what had happened to him, why, including his beliefs and behaviours as well as through the lens of others such as his ex-line manager. We would move on to explore what he thinks and feels now, explore his options for moving forwards and he would decide his actions. We would discuss specific situations where similar triggers and scenarios arose. I explained that this would help him to make sense of his experience, understand his strengths and weaknesses more and agree how to build on his strengths and address weaker areas. MF said that this would be very helpful as he felt that reflecting with a coach and counsellor was a new and necessary development for him to change and grow as a leader in challenging times. He felt that our relationship was unique to him in providing him with bespoke individual support and professional guidance. For me, his comments made me think that this was a good start to our working relationship and a solid necessary foundation to build upon. I spent a lot of time in the first and second session eliciting his background, team structures, some of the issues from his past human resources role experiences in the Utilities sector and challenges that both he and his teams face now. I asked a few questions about his hobbies and interests that included running and cooking - all this was about getting to know him and him getting to know me; for instance, we share a passion for well-being, which is helpful for our rapport.
During the telephone call and from session one I listened to MF’s language, communication and thinking preferences and used similar words and meta-programmes. He used mainly visual language, very different from my kinaesthetic preference, which helped me to really focus and concentrate, so that I could assume a visual ‘mirror’. MF is a half glass full personality who moves towards goals and balances detailed thinking in the now and bigger picture future planning. He talked about making decisions with a bias towards using his feelings and values and being structured and methodical in his approach. We built rapport through my mirroring his preferences and noting down some potential areas to stretch and challenge him on later such as using a model for decision making that would broaden his perspective [Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats] and a psychometric [MBTI] to help him and his teams to develop their behavioural flexibility and enhance their effectiveness. I briefly referred to these and he said that he was excited to learn and grow through an approach completely tailored to him and his circumstances and that he would enjoy sharing tools and insights with his teams.
I was happy with how the first two outcome and establishing trust sessions went. MF was engaged, happy to have found “the right support”; he knew about my experience coaching counselling and mentoring NHS leaders at every level and was keen to focus on his development. I asked several questions about whether he could see the sessions working for him and he said that he felt in a privileged position to have one to one support from a business occupational psychologist. I felt that the relationship started with a solid committed foundation on both sides. A good test for his commitment was the five coaching objectives being clarified and recorded by him on his coaching counselling and mentoring and learning agreement contract prior to signing.
To optimise his development through our counselling coaching relationship, I asked him to become familiar with the nine dimensions of leadership behaviour in the NHS Healthcare Leadership Model and the levels, behavioural and results focused questions in the model. I explained that he could critique his own performance and come back being able to talk through each competency and the areas he particularly wanted to focus on as part of his objectives. The second session was largely based around MF’s specific objectives to let go of the past and optimise his confidence as an NHS leader.
During session two MF started to process what had happened to him during the previous two years that he wanted to start to think and feel differently about. I felt that these two initial sessions really laid the groundwork for the full counselling coaching programme, demonstrated good engagement with the process and rapport with me. I feel happy that we had created an effective working relationship for building on in the remaining sessions and hopefully a positive long-term professional relationship beyond this initial counselling coaching programme.
MF’s five objectives (needs and goals) to focus on in the counselling coaching programme are:
To let go of my bad experience at X. I will know that I have done this by the end of coaching session four as I will notice the previous bad experience on occasion, with neutral emotion acknowledge what I learnt from it and move on.
By the end of the coaching sessions, I am feeling confident and energised mentally and physically. Feedback is that I am confident in standing up for my logical and values-based proposals that are aligned with the trust’s values.
Engaging the team: supporting and challenging my teams to unite and deliver on our targets on time and within budget. Ongoing with quarterly reviews starting 31.5.20.
Connecting our service: I am building strategic relationships to make resourcing links across the other trusts within my region. This includes sharing and addressing resources as a wider network. Review this quarterly, starting 31.5.20.
Holding to account be confident and assertive in holding external providers to account including service level agreements and make proposals to the trust to change if these are not met. Review monthly starting 30.4.20.
I maintained our relationship by continuing to actively listen to and be supportive of MF. For example, by agreeing that something was challenging if he found it to be so. Also, by being flexible at the time when Coronavirus struck the country, and he needed to postpone his sessions for a few weeks whilst he concentrated on NHS resourcing work.
We agreed to meet face to face twice a month at my office. MF felt that being in my office would get him out of his! This would avoid him being interrupted. I told MF that if he would like to conduct sessions remotely on occasion, for whatever reason, that would be accommodated. We agreed that where possible we would meet as so much of communication - at least half according to some researchers - is conveyed through our body language.
The focus of the sessions as developed through the first two sessions was to focus on three main areas and the five objectives listed in the previous section:
Letting go of the past bad experience, some reframing of the past, some learning, and some way of experiencing it in a neutral, low emotion/emotionally neutral way.
Developing confidence and resilience skills, using actual work scenarios having been or about to be experienced such as an upcoming meeting, brought to the coaching meetings.
Developing leadership skills and behaviours around three competencies from the Healthcare Leadership Model – those being ‘Connecting our service’, ‘Engaging the team’ and ‘Holding to account’. These competencies have a list of examples of performance including levels from essential to exemplary and the plan was to work through those and help MF to improve his performance around those specific examples in relation to his role.
The main driver for MF’s counselling and coaching was to ‘let go of the past.’
Session 1
The session focused on contracting particulars as we went through the written learning agreement and to ensure that MF was ‘ready, willing and able’ to engage in the counselling and coaching programme, we went through that document as well. He began developing his specific objectives for the programme following my guidance using the SMART [specific, measurable, attractive, realistic and time-framed] framework that he agreed to complete for homework and e mail me the signed and objectives completed agreement prior to session two.
I used the learning agreement template that I use for leadership coaching and counselling along with a ‘are you ready, willing and able to be coached’ one-page document of questions.
I asked him if he were happy with each section before moving onto the next and if he would like anything clarified, for example, in the section on his responsibilities. He said that he thought that it was very clear. I said that he could always ask a question about it should he have a query moving forwards.
I was really focused on noticing his verbal and body language as well as meta-programme [from NLP: Neuro-Linguistic Programming] filter preferences and matching those often. For example, I noticed that he used a lot of visual language and had a towards meta-programme in spending more time talking about moving forwards in his new role than on away from the past bad experience.
I spent a lot of time listening to him to jot down thoughts and feelings in the moment that may help me to help him as we move forwards. For example, I noted that he came across as a pleasant, gentle, and warm character, through his quiet speech, attentiveness, and frequent smiling. When I asked him, what was good in his relationships he said that he has some very positive relationships in his professional and personal life. I noted to share moving forwards that a potential downside could be that any overemphasis of these traits could be that he is vulnerable to being bullied/controlled/taken advantage of by the tough and resolute individual. These observations linked with his own in that he felt ‘weak and anxious in my interactions with my strong, direct and challenging HR Director’.
We set the session one goal/outcome at the start (the ‘Goal’ part of the GROW model; Whitmore, 2002), which was to understand and agree the coaching and counselling relationship through the structured coaching counselling and learning agreement and to start developing his specific objectives that he would complete for homework. I learnt in this session MF’s Myers Briggs Personality Type [MBTI] that included ‘judger’ which helped me to tailor the session to being quite structured that is also my preference.
At the end of the session MF committed (the ‘Will’ part of the GROW model; Whitmore, 2002) to complete his homework that included understanding the organisation’s Healthcare leadership model and the examples of the competencies so that he could think of where there may be opportunities to focus on his development. The model is specific so he could ‘choose’ what he would like to learn to become good at based on what he felt was required. He was interested and engaged and wanted to use this as a framework for thinking about moving forwards at the same time as letting go of the past. As MF had only recently in the last two months moved from the Utilities sector into Health for the first time, using a sector wide leadership model really appealed to him especially to help him to better understand the sector and build his business knowledge.
In this session my feedback to MF was to praise him for engaging in coaching and counselling and ‘showing up on time and with enthusiasm’ as these were essential to our working together to help him to change and grow.
I praised MF for his attentiveness while we were going through the coaching and counselling documentation and for agreeing with its content whilst asking some good questions, such as ‘will you give me advice, if I ask for it, as a mentor would?’ Whilst I shared my indirect coach-counsellor-mentor approach, I agreed that once we had exhausted his own ideas that I would feed in my own experience and perspectives, if elicited by him.
I suggested that MF have a conversation with his current line manager about where she considered his focus on the leadership model would best be placed.
Finally, I shared with MF that I respected his courage in wanting to address something (his recent past experiences) that others may brush over and try to forget. A key part of giving good counsel is praising am individual to build their confidence and other resources.
MF said that he was really looking forwards to working one to one with me as his professional coach and counsellor, a new experience for him, having not experienced formal coaching or counselling before. He said that he felt confident from the session that the format and my style would be helpful. For example, that since he was setting specific objectives, he felt that he would be more likely to achieve what he really needed at this time.
He fed back that he felt that our connection was good and that because of this he was able to relax from early in the meeting. This would help him, he said, to be open about sharing some ‘painful experiences and wounds. I noted down this metaphor to return to. I was pleased with his feedback as I believe that change and growth can be accelerated through good rapport between client and coach.
Session 2
The session focused on some of the thinking that MF had done in the two weeks since our first meeting. We went through the five objectives that he had set for the coach counsel programme and completed as homework, and these served as a basis for getting to know each other better. This led onto exploring what had happened to him in his previous HR role that had led to him leaving and his previous line manager suggesting me as his coach counsellor. During this session I let MF cathart what he wanted to offload about what had happened to him, as I could tell that he wanted to and a lot came out, after which he looked relieved. This was the first of his five coaching and counselling objectives.
As well as thinking about how he wanted to feel about his previous experience moving forwards, he had done quite a lot of good thinking about his performance against examples of leadership behaviours and skills from the leadership model. I told him that I felt that he would benefit from thinking about positive development moving forwards as well as reflecting on learning from the past; and that whilst we cannot change the past, we can process it to reframe aspects and learn from it. He said that he really appreciated this as feeling it to be the best way forwards for him “being usually a carrot rather than stick person”.
We used the SMART (specific, measurable, attractive, realistic, time-framed) framework for developing his precise objectives. We both had a copy of the Healthcare leadership model, for reference, in relation to three of his five objectives. For helping MF to start to cathart and let go of some of the past I used a couple of clean language questions including ‘what do you want to think about in relation to your own role right now?’ and ‘whereabouts is that anxiety right now?’ I wanted to help him to shift his current ‘Reality’ (GROW MODEL, Whitmore, 2002) from feeling weak to learning from it, drawing strength from that as well as identifying resources to build his psychological strength.
We moved on to explore his Options (from GROW model, above) which he saw as “two roads, the road leading up and the road leading down”. I liked this metaphor and asked him where it came from. He said that his subconscious flashed back to a television programme featuring a life coach, Pete Cohen and he used the metaphor. I suggested that we use it as a tool to explore his options more. He told me that the road leading down had been his “walk to date” as he had been “swinging back and forth between complaining about my old boss’s lack of support and my own failings as a senior manager”, that this had left him feeling hopeless, resourceless, negative and anxious. We moved on to explore the road leading up which he described as “a journey and destination of calm, where I reflect on lessons learnt and what I will do in the future as well as building up my resources such as confidence along the way”.
We talked about baby steps that he might take to help him to take the high road. He said that he would take a step back when he found himself complaining and rather than focus on that, reframe the experience as learning and focus on what positive thing he would do now. He would also think about resources that he needed to work on to achieve this and which of these to elicit my support with.
MF’s chosen goal/outcome for the session was to ratify his objectives by talking them through with me. This served as a convincer strategy we agreed and helped him to make a few adjustments.
He also wanted to start to address the first of his objectives, to start to process what had happened to him in his previous role. I asked MF what his level of commitment 0-100% was at the start of the session and he said, without hesitation, that it was 100%. MF said that he would continue working on walking along the road leading up. He could see it is his mind’s eye. He would tell himself that the old way of thinking would gradually fade in time and that for now he would focus on what he had learnt and would do in a similar situation if it happened again, broadly that he would explain what he had done and was doing to address issues as well as to ask his boss if there was anything that they thought he could do differently to manage the situation better.
MF said that he was committed to thinking more about all his objectives in between meetings and what he could do. For example, he said that he would read through them daily to help him to come up with one small action that he could complete that day to move towards addressing at least one objective.
Most of the session involved MF giving himself feedback with me facilitating that. For example, he started with tears as it was painful to recount how he had felt his confidence plummet as his HR Director continued to question his confidence to act, the year before his exit. As the pain passed, he said ‘I chose to stop believing in myself…I could have chosen to be and practised being calmer…I could have gained perspective and asserted myself. I was doing my best and in hindsight, most of the right things… I didn’t stand up for myself, what I had inherited in the role and what I was doing to rectify it.’
I told MF that one of the benefits of counselling and coaching is airing one’s thinking to better understand what is going on, to think about learning from experiences and what he can and will do differently in the future. When we speak out our thoughts, we often move them from the emotional limbic system into the prefrontal cortex that is responsible for our higher thinking such as problem solving. This is particularly enhanced if we write it down. I said that we could focus on this entirely at session 3 at his request. MF smiled in acknowledgement that he was already starting to feel this and something that he so needed with a professional coach counsellor, as he did not want to burden his wife. I also fed back that it would be good to use some of this session to start to think about what had happened to him. I fed back that I admired his commitment level and that this would help to steer him towards success, an embedded command language pattern from Neuro-Linguistic- Programming.
MF said that he needed the discipline of setting precise objectives for his development with an experienced leadership coach and counsellor. He said that he recognised that these provided the necessary foundation for actions and achievements. He said that he was enjoying talking through his thinking and that this was helping him to start the painful process of ‘getting real’ about what had happened to him and his responsibility for that.
Session 3
We began by discussing MF’s achievements since session two. He had decided to share ‘warts and all’ with me about his previous role experiences so that he could let them go and move on. MF wanted to focus on objective one - Letting go of the past bad experience, some reframing of the past, some learning, and some way of experiencing it in a neutral, low emotion way. “To let go of my bad experience at X. I will know that I have done this by the end of coaching and counselling session four, as I will notice the previous bad experience on occasion, acknowledge what I learnt from it and move on with what I am doing right now.”
I was mainly asking clean questions such as “what do you want to say about this?” and “is there anything more that you want to think about this?” These questions helped MF to really open up. When there was the first silence, I said that silence is important thinking space and to take his time before speaking.
I shared a verbal summary with MF of the ‘warriors, settlers & nomads’ character components model from Terence Watt’s book of the same title. I gave MF a one-page written summary of this that I developed in 2005 and have been using with clients as appropriate and relevant since. We agreed that MF was settler dominant with the Achilles heel of needing to be liked. Strengths focused on getting the best from others, being adaptable and intuitive, likeable and relationship building. When under threat/in a negative place, weaknesses included a lack of confidence, taking things personally, giving up too easily, being passive and taking too much notice of other opinions.
I reminded MF of Kolb’s learning cycle. We used it to review what happened to him during his ‘bad experience’ (his words), why he thought this was, including his beliefs and assumptions. For example, he saw one of his beliefs as ‘I am not a confident person, so I often do not assert my view’. I then used the next stage of the meta perspectives model and asked him to sit in the perspective of his ex-HR Director, which he found more difficult but did to appraise the situation through a different lens. For example, he considered the pressure that she was under to meet certain key business performance metrics. Then to sit in the perspective of an objective observer. I broke his state between all three perspectives to help to open up his thinking for the next position. Finally, we discussed what MF thought and felt now, what he had learnt and some options and decisions he recorded for how he would handle similar situations in the future. He started to reframe and put perspective onto his experience. He also started to develop a coping, communication, and turnaround strategy if he was not meeting his targets in the future. He noted that this strategy was a step forwards in taking less notice of other’s opinions and being more independent as a leader.
We also used a version of the ‘critical incident’ technique. I suggested that MF think about critical incidents over the ‘bad experience’ to help him to home in on specific examples where his confidence fell, and his self-esteem was at its lowest. This would help up to address each in turn.
I really felt that by coming to the session willing to be totally open and transparent about his ‘warts and all’ along with walking the talk during the session, demonstrated his commitment to his first objective and outcome. As he talked, I noted that he was starting to grow and change, being willing to acknowledge and understand his strengths and weaknesses more and look at what had happened to him from a few perspectives rather than just his own, that had led to his ‘emotional breakdown’ (his words).
MF said that his focus when thinking about the bad experience between our meetings would be to think about what he had learnt from it and how he could use this learning in the future. He would document and file this as a written record and future reference.
I fed back that MF’s intuition in preparing himself to be totally honest at this session about what had happened from his viewpoint and how he felt, was key, to help to him to process this and not leave aspects unprocessed in a metaphorical black box within his subconscious mind that could rise up again in the future for him to deal with i.e. to put aside now would be putting them off to a future date when they would re-emerge.
I shared with MF that the downside of an overemphasis of his settler dominant traits, in particular, his need to be liked and approved of by people pleasing, and taking too much notice of others’ opinions, could be that he is vulnerable to being bullied/controlled/taken advantage of by the tough, resolute individual.
MF smiled as I praised him for his trust in the process and his honesty, openness, and courage for sharing what was clearly emotionally painful.
MF said that the critical incident technique really helped him to focus on the key conversations with his ex-line manager, some in public, and their impact on him, especially embarrassment and feeling belittled and intimidated and that summarising these as about twelve hours of his life helped him to gain some perspective. This also helped him to think about the other positive things he was doing and conversations he was having in tandem that significantly outweighed the former in number and time.
He said that meta perspectives helped massively to look at the situation through a few lenses rather than just his own, which in turn helped him to consider alternative somewhat less self-focused options for thinking and behaving in the future. Namely that he would 1. Empathise with his line manager in terms of their agenda and targets 2. Over-communicate what he was doing to move towards his deliverables 3. Elicit their ideas on 2. 4. If necessary, assert that he is doing the best he can with his resources, that if there is an intervention that he needs to and can take with their support, he will.
MF liked the ‘warriors, settlers & nomads’ model and took the one-page summary document away to understand more about himself. He said that he would be buying the book.
The focus of this session MF wanted to be objective two: Developing confidence and resilience skills, using actual work scenarios. He feels that this is at the centre of his work performance anxiety in that he has always felt that his confidence level has been low. He wants to “pull my warrior lever more” so that “my behaviour is strong and determined, to avoid a repeat of the bad experience”. He felt that more than anything this would help with stress management and his wellbeing.
MF came to the session looking particularly pleased with himself. He said that he now “notices the previous bad experience on a rare occasion, without analysis or judgement, just letting it be there whether a thought or feeling or both, acknowledge what I learnt from it and was able to quickly move on from it”. I felt a warm fuzzy sensation and shared this, telling him how thrilled I was that he had been able to achieve this for himself.
I used questions from the ‘Well-formed Outcome’ NLP model and clean language developing and intention questions such as “and what kind of confidence is that?” I also asked one of my favourite positive expectancy questions, “what will be ten times better when you have consistent confidence?” with emphasis on the number. His facial tonus changed to more colour as he said with enthusiasm “all of my relationships and my self-esteem”.
I used a few of Kline’s short clean questions such as “if you knew that I will not interrupt you…what would you say next?” He had told me that people often interrupt him. I wanted him to have his space uninterrupted before we went on to address his assertiveness skills.
I used an exercise from NLP asking him for specific examples of when he felt self-doubt. He experienced the unfamiliar with a tight chest. I asked him to think of a recent situation, sit with the feelings without analysing or judging them, just being curious which led him to sit heavy and tight chested. After a couple of minutes, he said that he felt them pass, as he shoulders opened and he sighed it out.
We moved on to discuss an upcoming challenge where he would need confidence and discussed what his audience would notice “when you are now being confident” [an NLP embedded command]. We used the warrior archetype that he set himself as stepping into the mind and body of Martin Johnson with MF having a strong physiology, an authoritative tone and articulate language.
I used the warriors, settlers, and nomads’ character components model as we agreed that MF was using too much of one part of his character, his settler part, and not enough of his warrior part. We wanted to improve the resources available to him when he needed strength and confidence.
We used NLP anchoring to anchor three situations where MF had felt confident in the past, so he could recall these at will. He chose to anchor these in a circle of excellence that he would mentally step into for a few minutes each day and directly before certain meetings and presentations.
Finally, we used Dilts’s Logical Levels to instil a new belief using a positive affirmation approach. MF decided that he would say in the car on the way into work “just for today I will remember that I am a confident assertive person”.
Towards the end of the session MF said that he would practice pulling his warrior leaver not just in the challenges that we discussed but whenever he felt the need to be strong. He said that he would balance this with his adaptable warmly communicative settler. He said that he would use his warrior part when people interrupted him when he was talking.
I noticed that MF was using engaged body language including eye contact, sitting back comfortably. His tone was warm, speech moderated without a hint of nervousness. So different from his head down and failing eye contact during our first meeting. I shared my observations with him.
I praised him sincerely on his progress saying that he had already started to develop his resilience from the way he had reframed his bad experience.
I told him that I thought Martin Johnson to be perfect for his warrior archetype, someone that he could relate to and respected as an inspiring, motivational role model.
I told MF that I thought he did well in entering the session’s exercises with openness and enthusiasm and that this would help him to continue to use the exercises as habits that would help him to keep achieving his objectives.
I also shared with him that we can expand the left prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for positive thinking, through positive thinking, feelings, and actions. MF nodded thoughtfully as I said this.
MF said that he was happy with his progress. He said that he would look back and see the last year as helpful learning for the future. He said that he particularly liked the “what will be ten times better when you have your outcome?” question, which helped him to focus on what was driving this objective, which was better, balanced relationships with others. He said that he would elicit feedback from his stakeholders including his wife! We both smiled at that.
MF said that "I enjoyed being strong...I will use my warrior lever whenever I face a challenge that requires strength and determination”.
When he walked out his presence was stronger; for example, he held himself in an upright posture with his head up. I remember thinking that he looks more well than I have seen him before.
Session 5
We spent a couple of minutes talking about the impact of COVID-19 and MF talked me through how he had organised his teams mindful of the current situation and government directive to self-isolate.
The first part of the session was him talking through what he and others had noticed in relation to his confidence and ‘standing up for my views and interpretations on issues’, what he felt that he had done well and where there were opportunities to build his skills and behaviours. For example, for achievements, he had secured a pay rise through a well-presented business case. He had also said to a colleague who interrupted him, “please let me finish”.
He felt that he wanted to learn more about confidence and had an action to read the relatively new psychologies book ‘Real Confidence’ that we had discussed last session. We agreed that this would be an ongoing focus and something that we would regularly revisit as he needed.
MF wanted to start thinking about objective three in this session - Engaging the team: supporting and challenging my three teams to unite and deliver on our targets on time and within budget. From the Healthcare Leadership Model, he identified examples from each of the performance levels of essential through to exemplary, to focus on; those he considered most relevant to his teams from his initial diagnostics, including observations and a ‘desk top review of performance against targets’. He felt that achieving in these areas would help him to “flatten the past and peak the future…a future where I am strong to my core because I am achieving in my work.”
He talked about and then set actions to:
Ask team members what they think is a) working well, b) could be improved. Each team leader would hold virtual team meetings [due to Coronavirus] to elicit this and feed into MF by 15.4.20.
Consult all team members through focus groups on what to ‘stop, start and continue’ doing, a simple exercise that he had used before when building a productive team. MF to e mail all team members to consider this when feeding into their team leader at 1.
Share ideas from one and two to develop cross team ‘best practices’ including how to co-operate and share resources. Launch initial ideas at a ‘state of the nation’ (physical or virtual) by 30.4.20, led by MF and then rolled out by team leaders.
Along with line managers and team leaders agree team and individual stretch targets to address the gaps between reality and targets. In place by 1.6.20.
To have a tri-team event to agree a common purpose and values. Date dependent on Coronavirus having abated. If not possible in person, share and align virtually.
I asked questions about his role and the teams he is leading, how their goals align and how roles are structured to minimise duplication of effort.
During our discussions, as his thinking went quiet, I regularly asked the question – “if you were to give yourself feedback on that what would it be and say scale where you are now 0-10 on that?” And, building on a solution focused approach, “what action could you take on that particular area between now and when we next meet, a step that you think would move you say a point or two up the scale?”
I used Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats during this session as MF thought that he had a difficult decision to make about two individuals who were significantly under-performing in a way that was obvious beyond his own teams and had been highlighted by his line manager and the HR Director. He wanted to work more on turning around their performance through clarifying his expectations of them with them individually one to one and providing support. He recognised that ultimately, he may need to have some tough conversations around helping them to look for other opportunities either within or outside of the trust. From his observations so far, he thought that they had been promoted beyond their capability level and there was no issue with motivation. We worked through the six thinking hats model to help him to decide how to proceed on this. For example, we started with the white hat – what are the facts? This helped MF to summarise the actual information that he had in front of him, rather than thinking about what the case might be based on some anecdotal hearsay.
As MF developed an action plan for his teams’ increased engagement and effectiveness, I felt that he really understood how he could lead on this to increase the likelihood of success for his wider team. The actions drew on the sector’s leadership model which meant that MF’s commitment and motivation was linked with NHS-wide and organisational imperatives. His action plan was so precise whilst adaptive to current conditions, namely the Coronavirus.
In terms of managing underperformance, MF was committed to thinking through Six Thinking Hats further to be as certain as possible in his own mind that he was being as objective as possible in his handling of his people.
I told MF that I was proud of his achievements since our last meeting and that for me this demonstrated his commitment to his continuous professional development. I gave the example, of his securing a well-deserved pay rise as an example of a result achievable when he asserted and expressed what he was feeling was the reasonable and fair way forwards.
I told MF that it takes guts even for a confident individual to say “please let me finish” if interrupted.
I said to MF that we would be making real progress when he selected the appropriate warrior, settler or nomad lever to lead a particular challenge, whatever the challenge; an embedded command, to which he responded with thoughtful ponderous facial expressions including focused eye connection and nodding for a few seconds.
MF said that looking at challenging decision making with six hats through six different lenses was a helpful tool at this time and would also be part of his toolkit moving forwards for challenges. He recognised that his thinking to date had been dominated by two of the hats namely blue, process, and black, risk, what could go wrong if I do x? In the case of the performance issue, he said that “thinking with a red hat on about the impact on the two individuals and the wider impact on the team, was useful to ensure ethical supportive actions for the good of all over the longer term”.
MF thought that the discipline of having a clear action plan with target dates would not have happened without coaching and counselling. He saw this as driving his achievement of his third objective.
Session 6
MF shared his achievements since we last met in relation to building his confidence and engaging his team. For example, he had consulted with his team on working arrangements due to coronavirus, confidently put these forwards to the HR Director and had them agreed. Some of his teams were working remotely for various reasons away from the trust. He had ensured that the team continued to work through and towards the actions that he had set at our last meeting, adapting by making use of appropriate technology, a communication platform and networks.
The remainder of the session focused on MF’s objective four and five: Connecting our service: I am building strategic relationships to make resourcing links across the other trusts within my region. This includes sharing and addressing resources as a wider network. Review this quarterly.
Objective five: Holding to account: be confident and assertive in holding external providers to account including service level agreements [SLAs] and make proposals to the trust to change if these are not met. Review this monthly.
I often ask, “what has been going well since I last saw you?” I did that this session as in particular I wanted to draw MF’s attention to good things amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic. We focused on what he had achieved, including things at work as well as personally such as keeping up his running and cooking hobbies whilst being socially isolated. My client’s psychological well-being is something that I pay attention to.
I asked MF to describe what his ‘future perfect’ from ‘The Solutions Focus’ [Jackson & McKergow] would look like taking each of the two objectives separately, drawing on the solutions focused coaching and counselling approach. I asked him to describe the future perfect precisely in terms of what he would see people doing and what stakeholders would be saying about ‘connecting our service’ and ‘holding to account’ in the resourcing context.
I also used exception finding questions [Jackson & McKergow] such as “what is already working?” in each area, to help MF to have grounds for optimism to build upon. He was able to share several positives including knowing the history of one of his key external providers, which meant that he had a better handle on what he might expect from the contract and how to handle any issues, including actual emerging ones.
We then discussed small steps forwards that he could take to move further towards his future perfect ten out of ten in each case, along with what would tell MF that he had reached ‘n plus one’. We also covered what others would notice he was doing well and his teams.
Drawing on the Healthcare Leadership Model he would be having conversations across the region with his head of resourcing peers and colleagues to connect on resourcing challenges and share best practices. He would also initiate the development of a taskforce to develop resourcing-system wide solutions to resource planning and management.
He would meet with the director leading the main resourcing SLA to go through the contract and his precise expectations, focusing on challenging him on delivering a better service in several areas identified in a recent audit and from stakeholder feedback. He would talk him through what he would need to see happening in each area and the key performance indicators to be met in each case, for their contract to continue.
I praised MF when he reported his achievements at the start of the session, to set up a positive start, knowing that recognition is a high value of his and at this time in the current COVID-19 climate more than ever to focus on the power of positive feedback.
MF demonstrated that he knew the Healthcare Leadership Model well, referring to it often and accurately. I told him that I thought that this was an encouraging sign that he was building his business knowledge of what was required of him as a leader in healthcare, at the same time as focusing on moving towards the achievement of his key work objectives.
MF said that he appreciated starting with the ‘end in mind’ in terms of his objectives because this helped him to think about what he really wanted to achieve. He said that by thinking of what was already working it gave him the feeling of already having started to achieve and that this made it easier to continue - “a bit like any project, it gets better once you have made a start”. This made it easier he said to identify some action points to progress from where he is now to his “future perfect”.
As had been the case in the previous couple of sessions, MF said that he had felt a calm and in control feeling that he had not experienced in the year before we met.
He also said that my positive feedback was motivating to him as he knew that I had been coaching in healthcare for many years and knew quite a lot about its structure and ways of working. This he said also gave him confidence that I would challenge him if he was not focusing on the right things.
Session 1 reflections
I really enjoyed meeting MF as I am accustomed to totally focusing on the client face to face, which clients have told me that they find particularly helpful to their development, change and growth. I also find it completely natural and have for some time which I am pleased about, as this relaxes us both, so that authenticity from a place of wellness can prevail. I did this largely through eye contact, matching and mirroring his facial expressions and nodding. This was also feedback that I received from the coach mentor master’s programme supervisor and facilitator, that I show my depth of listening on my face. The impact for her, as she experienced me, was feeling important.
MF was very receptive to coaching from the outset, showing his interest on his face (mirroring me, perhaps), and expressing what he wanted to get out of it with enthusiasm. I feel that we share the desire for him to learn and grow.
I noticed that I felt impatient when eliciting his first small action steps towards his outcome. I did not allow enough silent time before he said, “I am not sure”. I suggested that he think about his outcome as an affirmation that he could speak daily to attract ideas from his subconscious of how to get there. He liked the suggestion, but it came from me and was directive coaching. I wonder if he will do it as I believe that individuals tend to act on their own ideas. I also wonder why I am doing this as I ’trust that the client has all the resources they need’ (NLP presupposition) and believe in them; (O’Connor, 2001). I need to “tolerate unpleasant conditions” (Souchester, 2015). On the programme, the supervisor facilitator, fed back to allow more pauses for silent time, after I think that the client has finished, to allow them a few more moments of thinking time.
In coming up with an option action step for him I think that the ‘why’ is my control ‘Achilles heel’. I was brought up in a way that resulted in me being very independent of others. The result was a strong protector type personality, believing that the underdog needs me to stand up for them, as with my physically weaker somewhat fragile older brother who was born with epilepsy. I think that subconsciously I have believed MF to be someone who was bullied, as being like my weaker brother. This has caused me to make a link between protecting MF by giving him a suggestion as a gift that I think will help him. Of course, it may not. Again, at the workshop, the supervisor facilitator gave me feedback that I was giving too many gifts that may not be needed or wanted, to restrict gift giving to a maximum of one per coaching counselling session, where requested by the client, preferably having exhausted their own ideas on options for moving forwards. For me this represents coach and counsellor first then mentor.
As a reflection on this session I commit to avoiding protecting my client by helping them out too much with a ‘gift’ that may not really be wanted or needed. Avoid this by having them always come up with their own action steps. As Machon (2012) says “the more we take responsibility, the less impact we can potentially make”.
Session 2 reflections
This session was cathartic for MF with him mainly talking and me using minimal and clean questions as breaks occurred in his talking things out and once some silence for further thinking had been allowed. MF said that he felt in flow with the conversation, and I felt quite deeply connected to him, jotting down my observations such as a limiting belief and his values. I felt good about this, that I had learnt from session one and the workshop feedback.
MF’s reporting of his achievements so far triggered my results value and my identity as a coach and counsellor, something that I had not thought of in this way before. Growing up I was rewarded for results and ignored or reprimanded for failed efforts. This was reinforced in a well-rewarded result driven corporate career. This result focus helps my clients to achieve their objectives. A potential downside in my practice is that this could detract from other values that are more important to the client. Also, the people pleasers may neglect their other important needs.
To address my achievement driver and bias, replace opening progress check question of “what have you achieved since we last met?” with an incisive, non-leading question such as “what do you want to think about?” (Kline, 2013). This will help to draw out important material for discussion.
Session 3 reflections
I think that my purpose is positive quick progress with my goals/achievement. In my practice this translates into expecting results at pace. Other things will be important to my clients, such as not putting themselves under pressure and enjoying their journey! I sense that this is true for MF, and he affirms this when asked! I remind myself that my background working in fast moving blue chips as well as a driven upbringing has caused me to move at a fast pace. I made a note of this. Being achievement driven was picked up by and fed back to me by the course supervisor facilitator, who suggested that I pay attention to when I am doing it by observing in my head and letting it go before I speak it.
I remind myself when reflecting on this session that I am seen as and feel and think as a confident person. I think that this sometimes means that I underestimate the longer journey for my client to reach the confidence level that they want. I will pace MF and other clients more in this regard. I will also temper my belief that the client can do anything that they want with their existing resources. A potential downside is their vulnerability if problems are encountered. I will help them to address gaps and build resilience to endure tough times. I also remind myself of what the course supervisor said and to aim to think and filter to avoid pushing for achievement. I will ‘pull’ towards achievement through clean language questioning.
Session 4 reflections
I reflect on the lack of silence when eliciting what had stopped MF from achieving his outcome so far and asking for actions that he will take to move a step towards his outcome. I have clear memories of growing up with the belief that silences are uncomfortable and therefore to be filled (my mother talked about this). I have unconsciously assumed silence to be a time waster. My new belief is that silence is precious thinking time for my client and for me. I know that I need to practise this as not enough silence in my coaching sessions is a recurring theme!
Allow more silence and ‘hold the space’, especially to allow client thinking time having asked a question that they take time answering. Practice being comfortable in silence, knowing that this allows them time to think and get curious, a value, about what unfolds; “noticing the being in your doing” (Machon, 2010). Think of as value adding thinking time not a waste of the client’s time and money.
Session 5 reflections
I am getting better at not offering up ideas as options/giving advice/directive coaching. This is helped by my reminding myself that humans respond much better once they have come up with what feels right for them. Being told can create a threat response as we receive something different perhaps to that expected, encouraging resistance.
I felt that I was quite tough on MF in this session, highly disciplined and structured, based on my background working many years in a professional services firm as well as this being my own and my client’s preference. However, MF seemed to need a more ‘go with the flow’ approach this session. He looked quite tired, from his extra responsibilities during COVID-19. I made a note in my reflective journal as well as on this assignment.
Session 6 reflections
I noticed that I was somewhat impatient this session, a key development need.
I can and will learn to be deeply patient to counterbalance my efficiency drive. Slow down and allow more pauses for silent time. This will match with other slower practices that work in my life like meditation, yoga and walking rather than running.
I have been reflecting on how I want to develop based on COVID-19. My thoughts and feelings centre on over-communication with my clients as we are now working remotely as well as being super warm and caring. Following this session, during which MF expressed his guilt about being well when there are so many unwell people in his network, I placed warmth in my ‘Circle of Excellence’, an NLP technique that I use to prepare for clients (Knight, 2003).