Relational training and how to get to 'flow'

Waterfall near Sapa, Vietnam

Does it matter what trainers teach?

Over the years I have run training programmes for a wide range of organisations and institutions. Based on my experiences, I’m not sure if it matters what trainers teach as long as the learners can see the relevance of the content, and the style of the training is ‘relational’. I am borrowing the term ‘relational’ from coaching authority Erik de Haan, who says that the quality of the relationship between the coach and the coachee is key to the success of the coaching relationship. For me, the success of a training programme depends of the level of trust I am able to build within the group of learners, and between the group and myself.

Does it matter which methodology trainers follow?

De Haan believes that lessons from psychotherapy can be applied to coaching. When I was trying to decide which coaching methodology to practice, I was immensely reassured to read in de Haan’s book Relational Coaching that “according to the vast mount of experimental data now at our disposal” there is no difference between one psychotherapeutic approach and another. To be effective, de Haan says, coaches need to commit to one coaching approach, and focus on building a working alliance with the person they are coaching.

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it

The same principles apply when I am co-training. I believe the relationship between the trainers and the learners is key to the success of a programme or workshop. ‘Relational’ training helps learners to travel further towards their learning goals, and makes the learning stick. Years ago I went on a course about how to design and deliver participative training for adults. I still have a handout called ‘How to build a co-training relationship’. It contains a list of key questions that co-trainers need to ask each other before they step out in front of a group of adults. Using these questions has helped me to build a number of open, trusting and creative co-training relationships that are at the very heart of what I do.

Relational training and ‘flow’

Co-training, and being relational, is how I think trainers can help learning groups get into a state of ‘flow’. The main characteristics of ‘flow’ as defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi are:

•                Intense and focused concentration on the present moment

•                Merging of action and awareness

•                A loss of reflective self-consciousness

•                A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity

•                A distortion of temporal experience, one’s subjective experience of time is altered

•                Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding.[1]

These are the key elements of all my most memorable co-training experiences. There comes a moment in a training programme where the group is totally engaged and involved in what is happening in the present time. At this moment I instinctively know what to say, or whether to stay silent. I feel I have the ‘agency’ to help participants to make sense of what they are experiencing, and to translate what they are seeing, hearing, thinking and feeling into something that has meaning and relevance for them.

For me, this is the most powerful and beneficial learning experience one can have because it is long lasting and transformational. People who have experienced ‘flow’ tend stay connected, and continue to learn and grow together long after the programme is over.

Getting to ‘flow’

How can you help a group to reach a state of ‘flow’? I believe you have to be totally committed to co-training and to working collaboratively. You have to do everything you can to build a working alliance with the participants. I also think you get to flow by demonstrating a combination of opposite behaviours:

•                Good planning and being able to depart from the agreed schedule

•                Starting where the group are at and encouraging them to push open some mental doors and windows

•                Sharing your own experience of the training content and holding your knowledge lightly

•                Demonstrating respect for the group, and for your co-trainer, and being able to laugh at yourselves and with the group.

Is relational training a kind of placebo?

Not at all. The point about relational training is that adults will always choose what they want to learn. When you build a working alliance with learners, you encourage and support learners to make meaning for themselves. And for me, this is the most effective way to learn.

[1] From the Handbook of Positive Psychology, C R Snyder, Erik Wright, Oxford University Press, 2001

For more about how I work with groups, please see my main website KellowLearning.com

Developing Leaders: What can you teach in one session?

Some people start with theory. I start with the participants

As a trainer or teacher, how do you engage learners in a conversation about leadership? Leadership is complex and context dependent. Some people begin with leadership theory. I start with the participants, and draw out the experience of leadership they bring. This blog is about the best participative leadership exercise I ever invented, and you can download the complete exercise with instructions by going to my new website, kellowlearning.com

‘To see ourselves as others see us’ Robert Burns

Leaders need self-awareness. If you don’t know who you are, why would anyone follow you? Self-awareness helps to build trust and confidence. Self-awareness can’t be taught. We have to learn it as we go through life. It can be an awful pain, learning who we are, and how we impact on other people. But knowing who are, and how other people see us, we can choose to do more of the things that help us to win friends and influence, and less of the things that confuse or irritate people.

Can we teach self-awareness?

Or can we teach self-awareness? Some years ago I developed a set of leadership competencies based on what I have learned from working with leaders in the context of sustainability. Using the competencies as framework for self-assessment, I created a participative group leadership exercise that I have run with all kinds of people in all kinds of places. The whole thing takes just over an hour.

The Leadership Odyssey

I call the exercise ‘The Leadership Odyssey’, because participants go on a short learning journey, with other people, and together they explore their leadership skills and attitudes. 'The Odyssey' is a good example of how I like to work. It's fun going virtual island hopping, and people learn things while they are having fun. In a short space of time people can begin to discover what they do well as leaders, and what they want to develop. 'The Odyssey’ works well at the beginning of a leadership programme as an ice-breaker, and a thought-starter. It can be run as a stand-alone exercise. 'The Odyssey' can also help people to generate ideas for creating their personal development plan. 'The Odyssey' is probably the best participative exercise I ever invented.

Download ‘The Odyssey’

You can download ‘The Odyssey’ complete with instructions by going to my new website, kellowlearning.com I hope you enjoy using 'The Odyssey', and please let me know you get on. 

For more information about leadership and learning, please take a look at my new website

Making a website: The 'Deep Dive'

This is the second of two blogs about making a website to celebrate the launch of KellowLearning.com. The first blog is called ‘I made a website www.kellowlearning.com'

It took me more than six months to write the copy for my website KellowLearning.com. I don’t regret the time I spent because the act of writing about leadership and learning helped me to find out what I think. I also found out what I remember from the past two decades of working as a trainer, what I have learned, what I have achieved, what I care about most deeply, and what gives me joy. Writing about what I do, day after day, was a ‘deep dive’ into who I am, and what I do. And the benefit of the ‘deep dive’ is that I was able to make a far better website than I could ever have imagined. And, what’s more, I now know what to say when people ask me ‘what do you do?’.

Here is what I discovered, and how it has helped me to communicate what I do.

I wrote to find out what I think. How do I define leadership? What are the game-defining factors affecting sustainability leaders today?

The Benefit: Clients need to know that I know what I am talking about.

I wrote to find out what I do. What is my approach to learning and change, and what is special about what I do?

The Benefit: Clients need to know what I do, and why I am the right person to work with them / their organisation.

I wrote to find out what I remember. What do I still remember from two decades of delivering programme and projects? Why have some people and events stuck in my memory, and not others?

The Benefit: Identifying my most powerful learning experiences has helped me to connect with what I do well as a trainer, and to remind myself how I can re-create transformational learning experiences for others.

I wrote to find out what I have learned. What are my key learnings from designing and delivering training for different groups of people living and working in different contexts?

The Benefit: I can clearly describe my approach to training, facilitation and coaching, the principles I follow, and what informs the choices I make in the interest of helping people to have the best possible learning experience.

I wrote to find out what I have achieved. Recalling the people and the projects that I have worked on since the early 1990s, I became aware that the whole looks greater than the sum of the parts.

The Benefit: I am quietly proud of my achievements, and this gives me the confidence to be comfortable with risk and uncertainty. 

I wrote to find out what I care about most deeply. What are the most precious moments and experiences that I have shared with the people I have met, and why?

The Benefit: Telling stories about what I do, and why I do it, helps me to communicate what it is like to work with me.

I wrote to find out what makes me joyful How do I focus on what makes me healthy, happy, creative, and inspired? How can anyone working in a helping or enabling role if they do not look after themselves?

The Benefit: Paying attention to my physical and mental health helps me to be at my best when working with others.

Let's all do popup training

People's Summit, Rio+20

I want to run pop-up training. Here today, gone tomorrow. You’ve heard of popup shops, popup galleries, and popup restaurants. Why can’t we do popup training?

Caravans and Castles

I want to run popup training in surprising locations. In a caravan or a castle. Imagine hosting a workshop in one of London’s hidden underground stations. Or one of the nicer airport lounges to help high-flyers combat the feelings of hopelessness in transit? Or on the platform of a new Boris bus. “Hop on, what’s your name? Hop off, nice to meet you”.

Environmentally Friendly and Unsustainable

The glorious thing about popup training is that it is totally unsustainable in an environmentally friendly way. Practically any space will do. No expensive technology or structural alterations required. No discernable impact on the environment, and nothing left behind.

Open Space Rules

I wouldn’t feel guilty about doing training with no lasting impact. Popup training is not meant to last. In fact, the rules are very similar to Open Space:

1. Whoever come are the right people.
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.
3. Whenever it starts is the right time.
4. When it’s over, it’s over.

Popup Training at the People’s Summit, Rio+20

This is just silly, you say. Well, I can tell you, I’ve done popup training, very successfully, at the People’s Summit in Rio, with a little help from my friends. The training space was a popup tent with a roof and no walls, like those flimsy efforts that make gardens look summery. We had some tables, and chairs, and we staked out our territory with a circle of chairs. We made friends with the local radio station who were doing live broadcasting in a bigger tent. They even lent us a microphone and loudspeaker, so people could hear what I was saying. People came: some students, a lady with a pink bag, and a very young boy. We played a game of catch with juggling balls. More people came to watch, and then joined in. We started a bit late. Three people in curiously anatomical tiger costumes did an exotic dance in front of our tent. Somehow I held people’s attention with the game, until it felt that we were done. Some people stayed to talk. Others melted away. When it was over, I felt good.

Popup Training Satisfaction Ratio

What does this say about popup training? The feeling of satisfaction after, was greater than the size of the event. And I have run large-scale, resource intensive training events, where the feeling of satisfaction was considerably less than size of the event. That's why I want to run popup training in surprising places. The people who come will be the right people. Whatever we do will be the only thing we could have done. Whenever it starts will be the right time, and when it’s over, it will definitely be over.

Pathways to a sustainability career

Young people doing it for themselves

I’m collaborating on a leadership development workshop for recent graduates who are looking for their first job in sustainability. It took me twenty years to realise I wanted to work sustainability. Now, twenty years later, I’m piloting a workshop to help recent graduates find a quicker route into a sustainability career.

How a little philosophy can help you work in sustainability

I have a hunch that there are a lot of graduates like me, who took degrees in subjects like Fine Art, Philosophy, and French, and want to work in sustainability. And like me, when I was their age, they don’t know what kind of green jobs there are, where to look for them, or how to get through the recruitment process.

Mid-career, multi-lingual and multi-talented: the new global leaders

What if young people on Facebook knew how to create their own professional networks? What would happen if they used their power to help each other to grow and develop, the same way folks who are on Linkedin do? I was having a coffee with one of my students recently. Julia is mid-career, multi-lingual, and multi-talented. She is part of the Linkedin generation: people who can do business in at least three languages, and are accustomed to changing the company they work for, and the country where they live, about every three years. She met a bunch of guys on a sustainability leadership programme, and they stayed in touch. Why? Well, first of all, they like each other. They have become close friends, and they have fun together. The glue that keeps them together is one part shared values, and two parts a common desire to make a difference to world. They understand the need to live and work more sustainably, and they are excited about the opportunities, locally and globally, to change the way we do things.

Networks are good for individuals and organisations

They also help each other with their careers. The Linkedin generation do business together. The fact that they know each, and trust each other, is making it easier for corporations to talk to corporations. Nadia and her network are working together to measure and reduce corporate carbon footprints, locally and globally. None of this would be happening to the same degree, if Nadia and her friends had not met on a leadership programme, and formed a network that works for them at both a personal and professional level. If all networks worked like this, might we all become better connected, more creative, happy and contented?

Can’t young people get jobs through Facebook?

Why can't the pre-Linkedin generation have the same opportunities to motivate and support each other?  That’s what Facebook is for, I hear you say. Yes, and no. Facebook works very well as a means to share photos and stay connected with friends and family all over the world. It’s good for launching projects, promoting causes. I still think there is a need for something that allows you to do more than ‘Like’ what your friend had for breakfast. And I detect a kind of snobbery about Facebook, which means it may not be the best place to look for a job. Quite the opposite in fact. Employers use Facebook to eliminate job applicants.

The power of collaboration

This is why I am collaborating with friends on a leadership workshop for recent graduates. It’s a collaborative event because I believe it is important to walk the talk. I want to show the participants how a highly motivated team working together can create a transformational learning experience.

We want to share what we have learned from working in different areas of sustainability. We want to showcase different pathways to a sustainability career, and demonstrate how to build a self-sustaining network that will benefit participants, personally and professionally. Above all, we want the participants to leave ‘Pathways to a Sustainability Career’ feeling confident about their choice of career, and with an increased awareness of how to network and support each other in the future.

Becoming a coach: me and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme

I’ve got a permanent sugar rush of thoughts and feelings about coaching and training. I’m like Monsieur Jourdain in Moliere’s ‘Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme’, who discovered that, all his life, he had been speaking prose without knowing it.

Fifteen months ago, I started a serious executive coaching programme. Two days ago, I attended a final assessment day. Soon I will find out whether or not I have met the standard.

To get to the assessment day, I had to notch up one induction day, four residential training modules, four tutorials, dozens of practice coaching sessions, much reading of coaching texts and articles, four required learning logs, two unplanned blogs, and one theoretical essay. Having gone through all of that, it’s no wonder I am having a rush of thoughts and feelings about learning and coaching. 

What lies beneath my training approach

I’ve made a connection between Gestalt based coaching and my approach to delivering leadership training. Like Monsieur Jourdain, I have discovered that, all my life, I have been using Gestalt methodology to underpin my training courses, without knowing it. 

Instinctively, I design training programmes as participative learning journeys. I encourage learners to:

• listen and observe
• notice what they are thinking and feeling
• gather and make sense of data
• keep an open mind, and
• work together to make sense of challenges and dilemmas.

From a Gestalt coaching perspective, this is about being and learning in the moment, and noticing patterns and connections. It’s about raising awareness of real needs, and mobilising energy towards appropriate action. 

I’m still processing what I have learned. I can’t wait to review my training practice through a Gestalt lens. Meanwhile, here is the 'before' and 'after' of my approach to coaching.

How I coached before the course	How I coach now
Took responsibility for solving the client’s dilemmas and problems	I work in partnership with the client
Analysed what the client was telling me	Observe, reflect, summarise
Tried very hard to be nice	Not afraid to challenge appropriately
Asked lots of unhelpful (dissonant) questions	Comfortable with silence
Talked about my experiences	Appropriately disclose if the client is interested in hearing about my experience
Believed I must have the answers	Not afraid to say ‘I don’t know what to do with this’
Pushed the client into action	Create space for the client to discover what they want to do
Made assumptions about what the client was telling me	Form working hypotheses AND keep an open mind
Thought ahead constantly which affected my ability to be present	Stay fully present with the client
Relied on listening and questioning	Invite the client to experiment Gestalt and Cognitive Behavioural methodologies
Felt awkward contracting and closing	Am more confident when contracting and helping client to identify what they have learned

It’s been quite a journey. I really must apologise to all my friends who volunteered to be coached by me, when I didn’t know what I know now.

16 March 2013

Thanks for reading my blog. If you liked this page, you might like to check out my business website which has more content on leadership and learning.

www.kellowlearning.com

A time and a place for learning

Time

My Dad used to say “There’s a time and a place for everything”. Usually, this meant that I was doing something that annoyed him. Time and place are critical factors in the kind of learning programmes that I design. I’ve always been interested in time and the impact that it has on people. When I was a student I was hooked on Anthony Powell’s ‘Dance to the Music of Time’, which follows the lives of a group of people who are changed by time. I also read Proust’s ‘A la Recherche du Temps Perdu’ in its entirety. I’m still not sure what ‘A la Recherche’ is about. But it seems to me that Proust is trying to make sense of what he has learned about himself, and the people he has known. He takes his time to explore the meaning of the loving, the dreaming and the cheating that preoccupy him. And learning, to me, is making sense of everything around us.

Place

I’ve always been sensitive to my surroundings, though you might not think so if you could see the state of my room. I work best if I feel comfortable, and I feel comfortable if I have natural light, order, and quiet. Noel Coward’s ‘Room with a view' will do me nicely. Mallarmé’s vision of ‘Luxe, calme et beauté’ would be an upgrade too far. If I had all that, I would do no work at all, because I would be too comfortable. As a trainer, I know that the look and feel of the working space can make the difference between memorable and forgettable learning experiences. This is true whether the learning takes place face-to-face or virtually. As Steve Jobs said, people do judge books by the cover.

Learning and performing

For me, experiential learning is a lot like performance art. Any learning experience requires the trainer to be set designer, choreographer and conductor. Natural light, space to move and a constant temperature of about 20 degrees create the optimum conditions for learning, creativity and strong growth. Dark, cold and cramped spaces do not work. And timing, as the best comedians know, is everything. Too much time, and people get bored. Too little time, and people get frustrated. The timing of the day matters, too. Too early, and people are not ready to learn. Too late, and people are too tired to engage. I think people learn best when they feel comfortable and challenged. And there is a tension between feeling comfortable, and feeling challenged, which a trainer can regulate by managing the time.

Five Days Learning in Bulgaria

Last week in Sofia, I worked with a team of LEAD Associates on a leadership challenge to do with energy in Bulgaria. In addition to all the people we met, time and place were key players. We apportioned time to different activities: five minutes for each person to talk without interruption in the learning trios, six minutes 40 seconds for a Pecha Kucha, 30 minutes for each conversation at the World Café, one hour for meals.  Longer for drinking coffee, tea and wine, and less time for sleep. The compact nature of the city centre meant that we could walk almost everywhere. From the cosy Hotel Diter, we moved effortlessly from one space to another. Our base in the hotel garden was airy, and the sounds of the city were energising. We used the streets for intimate conversations in pairs. We performed in semi-public spaces like the British Council, The Ideas Factory and the Tea House, meeting local people and sharing what we had learned. During the short intervals between these performances, we used the outdoor cafes in the squares to download information, and plan for the next meeting. We continuously formed, performed, and then moved on. What I learned is that good timing, and imaginative use of space were key to helping our learners make sense of the complex energy challenges and opportunities in Bulgaria. And what I will try to remember is that groups that take responsibility for managing their time, and can adapt to different environments, are more resilient, and have better learning experiences.

As my Dad used to say, ‘There is a time and a place for everything’.

i-Facilitation or Open Source? Why facilitators should give learning away

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At a recent gathering of facilitators organized by AMED and the IAF I found myself thinking comparatively deeply. The cause of this creative thinking was a question:

“What are the challenges of building learning capacity in our clients teams and organizations for our profession (facilitators)?”

It took me a little while to understand the question. The challenge seemed to be whether or not facilitators should make themselves redundant by helping their clients to become more effective.

Facilitation to what end?

Idealist that I am, my immediate reaction was to blurt out that people who facilitate learning teams have a duty to develop people, teams and organisations. This line of thinking led me to more questions. What are my principles and values as a facilitator? Why do I facilitate? To what end?

Sustainability or dependency

My work as a facilitator is mainly about building leadership capacity in the context of sustainable development and climate change. If I believe that people are the key to creating a more equitable and sustainable world, then I must be happy when people learn how to do things without me. My approach to learning and leadership is best summed up by a quote from Lao Tse.

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

When I am working with groups I want them to take stuff away and to feel confident enough to use whatever they have found useful. When someone tells me they have used a tool that I taught them and it worked I am delighted. My aim is to get myself out of the way so that people can get on and change the world. Do I want to encourage dependency? Certainly not.

i-Facilitation or open source?

I remember years ago when I worked as a trainer for a charity, quite often our participants would ask for copies of training exercises. This caused a certain amount of angst in the office where I worked. Should we be giving away materials that had been developed for the charity? Were we doing ourselves out of a job?

The discussion at the AMED / IAF workshop made me think about different business models. Something I had read in a biography of Steve Jobs seemed relevant. Steve Jobs had vision of a walled garden where people bought products curated by Apple. Eventually this became i-tunes. What kind of garden do we want to have as facilitators? Closed or open source? Is it realistic to think that we can stop people from using our tools and models unless they pay a subscription to access to our (metaphorical) platform?

 What goes around comes around

I strongly believe that the more you give away, the more you will get back. If someone asks me for a concept or a training tool I am happy to share it. First of all I am pleased to be asked. Probably this means that they found it useful. Secondly, they most likely see an opportunity to use my materials to help their work with another group.  

The fact is most trainers and facilitators use concepts and models that have been developed by someone else. Few of us are so creative that we ‘own’ all our materials. If we want to build a more equitable society, the answer to the question posed at the workshop is a no-brainer. Give it away!