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January 18, 2007
Mistsakes I've Made
Julian Lippi's PhD thesis has been a rich source of reflection for me over the last few days.
Today, I was caused to think about mistakes I've made both in my professional career and in my personal relationships.
I was reading Jenny's story where she said:
... every professional mistake I've ever made in my life ... has been a failure to listen. I cannot think of any time ... I've got myself into hot water that couldn't be traced to a failure to engage with the other person's data for long enough, or at a deep enough level. Can't think of a time where it wasn't about listening. (p161)
This would be quite true for me as well, although I would add an important factor that comes into play for me. It might be the same as what Jenny is speeking about or it might be something different.
For me, I always relate my mistakes to my failure to engage with myselft. When I think about it afterwards, I realise that at some level I always knew what was going on. I knew what was going on, or at least I knew that something was wrong, but I suppressed that knowledge. More important than supressing the knowledge, I supressed what my feelings about or sense of what was happening. When I became uneasy, I would allow my natural optimism to overide the unease and used it as an excuse to not even allow my conscious mind to be aware of my unease.
In this way, my optimism is a defence against the conflict I fear would, and often would have, arisen if I had acted.
I regard myself, and most people who know me well regard me, as an insightful person. One colleague (who I would regard as a person with great insight herself) I worked with on a year long project remarked to me "You see things that others don't." In my heart of hearts, I fully believe this to be true. I don't like claiming it for myself because it sounds like I am boasting.
However, because of my fear of conflict, I have sometimes been stingy or mean with my with my insight. I have kept it to myself. In this way, I lose out on being acknowledged for what I bring to the situation and the other (or others) miss out on insight about themselves and how they might do things differently.
It has taken me a lot of personal work to know this about myself and to know when it is happening. It is still my greatest challenge. Each day and before each interaction, I need to prepare myself to be aware not only of what is going on around me but, more importantly, to be aware of what I am observing.
Posted by chriscurnow at 1:33 PM | Comments (0)
Structure and Methodology
I've just been reading about structure in coaching/mentoring relationships.
The comment that jumped out at me was:
You know, I think [structure]'s a bit of a security blanket for me because I am a person who likes a bit of structure. And for those people who do like a bit of structure it means that we start with something.
The quote is from Julian Lippi's PhD thesis (p149 if you want to look it up).
It made me think about my own attitude to structure. I always feel a bit tentative about admitting this publicly, but I have never liked structure very much.
My absolute best work has always been done when there was no structure. When I ad lib. To put this into context, it (good work) doesn't happen without preparation. In fact it requires intense preparation. Two kinds of preparation. The first kind of preparation is around content. What do I know that might be useful in the situation I am going into - whether that be a coaching/mentoring role, a consulting role or any other activity that anticipates some sort of an outcome.
This type of preparation is absolutely necessary for good work to occur but it isn't sufficient. The second type of preparation is of myself. I have to know how I am feeling. I have to know that I am fully available for my client. I have to be present for my client.
This preparation is awful. During this phase, I go through all sorts of self doubt. I ask myself why I do this. I feel a fraud. I feel I have nothing to offer. My mind goes blank. I consider calling in sick – or making some excuse that I have been unavoidably delayed and can't make the meeting. If I am already there, I think about fainting or suddenly developing appendicitis.
When all this happens and I feel absolutely awful when I start, my client almost invariably tells me that my work was brilliant (or at least very good.)
This has been a consistent problem throughout my professional career. I look at other people and see their fantastic methodologies and wish I had a methodology as good as theirs. I wish I had great diagrams and a process. I look at other methodologies and try to adapt them to be my own. This is always a mistake. When I offer to work with my clients, I offer me — not a poor imitation of someone else.
But I have developed a methodology — or rather I have developed a description of what I do. Finally, I have something that fits me. It looks like there are distinct stages of the coaching/mentoring process/session which in one way there is. In overall my clients start by Perceiving (their current situation), Connecting (with themselves and their enduring purpose) and then Acting (or planning action, or preparing for action). While this is the theoretical form of the process they can, like in a Beethoven sonata, happen in any order.
Unlike Zoe, in Julian's story, I don't limit myself to particular interventions in particular phases of the session. Anything can happen at any time. However, like a Beethoven sonata, you can recognise a recurring theme, you can also recognise a beginning, a middle and an end — although sometimes the end is to a movement rather than the sonata itself.
Like the process itself though, I come in and out of my comfort with it. I have doubts. I have a moment's yearning for something more defined.
For better or worse though, I am who I am and bring who I am to my work.
Posted by chriscurnow at 1:30 PM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2007
Routine and Tradition
What happens when our routine changes? How much are you a creature of routine? Personally, I love tradition. When our children were young, one of the books we read about parenting suggested that one of the main jobs of parenting was to "make memories" for your children. For almost the whole time our children have been with us, Friday night has been "Pizza Night" at the Curnow house. We make our own pizzas and usually watch a video afterwards. The whole process starts about 4pm when I make the dough and finishes when we crawl into bed between 11pm and midnight.
Summer holidays are the same for us. Over the last few years, we have got into the habit of going away to Anglesea on Boxing Day for about two weeks. We have grown to look forward to that absolutle break that comes with the hectic lead up to Christmas and then nothing - relax.
This year our usual house wasn't available and by the time we found this out, a lot of the places we would like had already been booked for the two weeks after Christmas. We were left to book another house later in January. We don't really go for up market all mod-con houses that have been all the rage in Anglesea over the last 10 years. But there wasn't much left, so we ended up taking exactlly that type of house. Oh well, why not enjoy ourselves once in a while.
Mainly though we just weren't sure how it was going to go being out of our routine. Staying home straight after Christmas. At least we didn't have to combine Christmas shopping with packing to go away. It was nice but strange to wake up on Boxing Day realising we didn't have to rush around getting ready to leave.
We're down here now and settled in to the house - for all the mod cons, not really any better than the 30 year old house we had for the last few years.
I feel strange. I've had nearly two weeks holiday before I got here. I should be back at work by now. I feel like I should be working. It's hard to now whether I should just be relaxing or I should be doing some work. I wanted to spend this two weeks doing some writing while I was away and certainly wanted to write more than I have since Christmas.
I wonder how much of that is related to the change in routine and how much is that I was just very tiered at the end of last year and needed a good break. The proof will be in the pudding.
Posted by chriscurnow at 6:40 PM | Comments (0)