By Dr. L. Michael Hall (Co-founder of Neuro Semantics)
As you know, the first question in Coaching and especially in Meta-Coaching, is “What do you want?” And that’s because the client sets the agenda.
So we ask—
∙ What do you really, really want from this session?
∙ What can we explore and create that will have the most
transformative difference for you?
∙ What do you want from this session that will improve the
quality of your life?
Recently, however, in various Coaching Mastery programs (Meta Coaching Module 3), I have heard some coaches mis-use these questions. Now if you had asked me prior to the benchmarking sessions that I did if a person could misuse such questions, I would have probably said, “No, probably not; at least I can’t even imagine that.” But now having seen them misused, here is another distinction to add to your repertoire of how to conduct a coaching session.
The Misuse of the “What do you want?” question
What I observed from several coaches in several coaching sessions was the following. The coach would ask this question, “What do you want?” The client would offer either a statement or a story indicating that they wanted something. Sometimes it was clear, but more often than not, vague and convoluted. After that the client would then described more about his or her life situation, and then the coach would ask the What do you want? question again. This led the client to identify another outcome. The client would explain some more, the coach would then again ask, What do you want?, the client would offer another outcome. And so it would go. For the whole session!
By the end, the client had specified numerous things (5 to 8 things) that he or she wanted and the session ended without actually coaching to any of those outcomes or even getting clear about what the client really wanted.
What is the misuse here? It could be several things: The lack of inferential listening, the lack of testing questions, the lack of an acknowledgment with a focused inquiry about the outcome, and/or the lack of grounding the outcome.
What to do?
Testing Questions enable you, as a Coach, to ground the outcome into a commitment. These yes–no questions test the decision and commitment of the client:
“So you want to work on dealing with your anger? That’s what you want most?”
“So the best use of our time today is to focus on answering the why question, ‘Why do you always end up spending your money and saving nothing?"
Grounding Questions then enable you to follow-up and get sensory-based information from that commitment and then you can follow-up with another testing question:
“So what will you see or hear or feel when you have ‘dealt with your anger?’ What will that look like or sound like? If I saw you in a situation that triggers your anger and you have dealt with it, what would I see in you? How would you be responding? .... [answer] and that’s what you want from this session?”
“So when you get the answer to the why question, you will have explanations about the context, the situation, the beliefs, the drives, the frames within you that stimulate and trigger you to spend and not save? And that’s worth your time and effort? ; [response] ... and after you get the why you will be able to change things? ... [“No.”] Oh, so is that what you want, to be able to change your spending habits and start a saving habit?”
The last example also includes inferential listening. Implied in the statement about wanting to know why, is wanting to know why so that I can change things. Why else would the client bring it up? The client has not said it explicitly, but it is there implicitly. It is implied. So you can infer it from the statement. The client may not even know that he or she has implied it. So when you present it and ask about it, you are using your inferential listening to offer feedback and test how it sets with a client.
[Infer: to derive as a conclusion from facts or premises, guess, surmise, hint, suggest. Infer implies arriving at a conclusion by reasoning from evidence. Imply, implication: to involve or indicate by inference, association, or necessary consequence rather than by direct statement, to contain potentially.]
Inferential listening is deep listening to what is implied within the client’s statements. It is more than just listening to the surface words of a client. To do it requires that you put that as a question in the back of your mind:
What is my client suggesting, hinting at, implying, etc.? What is implied but not said overtly by this statement?
Finally, make an acknowledgment of what the client says, then offer a focused description of the outcome and inquire if this is what the person wants. This is a pace, pace, pace, lead pattern.
“So I hear that your quickness to anger in some situations at work has not served you well and you want to deal with the speed of going into an anger state so that you can slow it down and shift to a state in which you can be less reactive and more able to listen and carry on a conversation, is that what you want?”
“So you want to create a way to shift from your pattern of spending and develop a new habit of saving, you’d like to understand some of the old frames and motivations that have kept the old pattern intact, and you’d like to shift them to create new frames and motivations that will support a new habit, is that right?”
Anticipate that you might not have it just right, and ask the client to explicitly correct any part of it that is not right. Once you hear something that the client wants, do this repeatedly. Iterate this process over and over helping the client to formulate what they want. The misuse of the What do you want? question arises from assuming that the client already has a well-formed description of the problem to solve or the challenge to take up. The client probably does not! And that’s good —after all, that’s why the client needs you as a Meta-Coach to help formulate that.
So when a client answers the What do you want? question, acknowledge it, test it, and ground it. Then hold it as the client’s outcome frame until or when the client changes it.
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Thursday, April 25, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Leading The Inner Game of Coaching - Meta Stating & Emotions
META-STATING AND EMOTIONS
By Dr L.Michael Hall
If the Meta-States Model offers anything, it offers some very powerful processes for detecting your emotions and managing those emotions from a higher level. When most people first experience Meta-States as a Model, the process seems counter-intuitive, it seems paradoxical, and the last thing they would have thought of or utilize for emotional mastery— yet it is the most effective method.
So what does the Meta-States Model say about “emotions?” First that there are levels of emotions; that is, emotions do not occur just at one level, but multiple levels. First there are primary emotions —direct and emotions that are in direct response to a stimulus in the world. Theorists tend to posit that there are anywhere from 7 to perhaps 20 primary emotions. I follow Robert Plutchik (The Emotions) who posited the following primary emotions: joy / sorrow; anger / fear; anticipation / surprise; acceptance / disgust; tension / relaxation; love / apathy. Then, when you begin mixing these primary emotions, you get secondary emotions — similar to how mixing primary colors gives secondary colors.
Then above and beyond primary emotions and various mixtures of those emotions, there are the meta-emotions of your meta-states. These arise due to your self-reflexive consciousness as you associate emotions to emotional states. To detect these and to flush them out, just inquire, “What do you think and feel about X state?”
What do you think and feel about anger? What emotions do you experience when you experience anger? Or fear, sadness, anxiety, guilt, tenderness, love, joy, etc.?
Now generally speaking, when you bring a negative emotion against a previous emotion, you set the second negative emotion as a frame about and over the first emotion. Now you have fear of anger; anger at your fear; shame about your guilt; fear of relaxation; anxiety about anger, and so on. Do this and you construct a “dragon state” within your mind-body system so that you are essentially in self-attack. And the energy of the meta-emotional state has no where to go except against your mind-body system. Then you will pay for this construct by experiencing mental and emotional suffering.
Yet here also begins the processes that seem paradoxical and counter-intuitive. If you bring emotional states as acceptance, observation, interest, curiosity, appreciation, learning, etc. to your negative emotions, your “negative” emotion will change. Typically the intensity level of the energy of the emotion will be reduced so that you’ll be able to handle it much better. Calm anger, acceptance of fear, curiosity about sadness, appreciation of anger, etc. transforms the primary emotional state so that it can be much more useful and resourceful.
When you meta-state your primary emotional state with resourceful emotional states, you are in a position to qualify your emotional states in ways that will transform them into allies that will support you rather than diminish you. So in Neuro-Semantics, we don’t repress emotions, nor do we suppress them as much as we meta-state them and transform them into resources. This creates a new level of emotional intelligence and effectiveness.
So when you next experience a negative state, the first thing to do is to bring a state of calmness to the experience. Step back in your mind for just a moment and appreciate that you just received a signal— a communication signal. And just observe it. What is the signal about? Something “out there” in the world? Something within your mental mapping about something? What?
Next bring states of curiosity, interest, and exploration to your primary state. Curiously explore how you just created that negative emotion. Accepting that the emotion is yours, and that you created it within your mind-body system, you now have an unprecedented opportunity for deepening your self-knowledge and self-control. Wow! And, once you discover the process, then you can meta-state yourself with a strong sense of commitment to yourself and others as you choose the best way to respond to the situation that has triggered the emotion.
This means that you are creating new adjustments to your life-coping maps, making yourself more effective, enriching your relationships, and properly using your emotions, especially your negative ones. And while doing this, meta-state yourself that it is just an emotion (not “you,” don’t identify with the emotion and personalize it). It is just an emotion— a somatic energy response giving you a signal. Now you can choose:
What would be the best response I can now make?
Act on it; explore it some more; notice and ignore it; act against it; etc.?
Is the emotion appropriate, accurate, useful?
What resource would texture and qualify it making it more ecological for me?
Emotions — we all have them, they are a vital and important part of our mind-body system, and like the rest of the system, they are fallible and can easily be mis-used, abused, and become problematic for us. Emotional mastery and intelligence requires awareness, monitoring, managing, meta-stating, and then using them effectively.
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Tuesday, January 15, 2013
NLP, Coaching and Leadership
How to become a collaborative Leader as Coach - NLP & Leadership Coaching
If you are a “lone wolf” or “lone ranger,” are you a real leader? What leader is a leader if he or she doesn’t gather people around him or herself and empower them to feel that they are a part of something bigger and better than all of them? This highlights a fundamental fact: You can’t be a true leader unless you are collaborative in your style. Anyone who thinks and calls him or herself a leader but does not share, coordinate, cooperate, and create a sense of a team is self-deceived. They are only a leader in their mind, not in reality.
But how? How do you develop into a collaborative leader? What’s involved in developing the skills of collaboration?
1) Set the vision of collaborating and being a collaborative leader. Since vision is what drives big outcomes, start with a vision. What is yours? How robust is your vision? How exciting? If you are more excited about doing things to gain the glory, the recognition, the praise, etc., then it will be very hard to create a compelling vision of collaboration.
This goes right to the heart of leadership. John Maxwell puts it best when he said that “He who thinks he’s a leader and looks around and sees no one following is out for a walk.” To be a leader you have to win the minds and hearts of people, you have to attract them to a vision that captures their heart and imagine. Are you doing that? Are you willing to learn how to do that?
2) Commit yourself to adding value to those who share your vision. People follow a vision and the leader who sets out the vision that enable them to recognize that there’s something in it for them. What they see is that the vision and all of the effort that goes into actualizing it will make their life better and improve the quality of life for others. Leaders who think that people want to stand in adoration of their intelligence, good looks, charm, rhetorical skills, etc. want to be a cult-leader, a guru, or a dictator, not a true leader.
This is the paradox, leadership is not about the leader. It is through the person of the leader, but it is not about the leader. Anyone who believes that doesn’t understand the dynamic processes of leading. The person who is a true leader leads by going first. He or she invests as much value as possible into the vision and into those who are part of the team to make it happen. How does this settle with you? Are you adding massive value to those who raise their hands and say that they want to be a part of where you’re going and what you’re doing? What value are you investing in them? How could you add more value?
3) Communicate constantly to keep the vision and the mission alive. The work of leadership is not over with the creation of the vision. The work only then begins, next comes the effort of keeping the vision before people and letting them help to co-create the ongoing evolution of the vision as things change and develop. This work also includes gathering people together to create solutions to the obstacles that stand before the vision.
The vision you create as a leader will not endure in the minds and hearts of people unless you are constantly refreshing it, providing new and different ways of expressing it, and getting people involved in moving toward it. It is never enough to state the vision and leave it at that. As a leader your task is to make the vision come alive— to sing and dance in the minds of people so that it stays meaningful and significant. Are you doing that? Do you know how to do that? Are you willing to learn how to do that?
4) Keep involving people to be collaborative partners of the vision. From the activity of constantly communicating comes the leadership skill of involving people in practical ways that turns them into collaborative partners. This means sharing the vision-making process with them. This means bringing people into the inner circle and empowering them with decision making powers. This means transfer responsibilities to them and trusting them to come through.
People want to have a say and to be consulted if they are to become co-leaders of the vision. This is another secret of true leaders. Leaders do not create followers, they create more leaders. They groom people to become the next generation of leaders. How are you doing at that? Who are you grooming to be part of your leadership team? Who are you preparing to assume leadership powers and responsibilities?
5) Make yourself open and vulnerable to people. Leaders are not invincible statues made of stone, they are made of flesh-and-blood and suffer all of the fallibilities of mind, emotion, speech, and behavior that the rest of us do. A true leader leads out in this— being authentic, real, and down-to-earth. True leaders do not hide behind personas or masks, they come out from behind their personas and show their humanity. They are open and even vulnerable to people. They let people see their heart.
If this seems scary and frightening, it is. Embrace it. That’s why it is “leadership.” That’s because when people know your heart and sense your spirit of passion for the vision, they know they can trust you. There’s no hidden agenda and no secrets. As a leader you are upfront, straight-forward, candid, a truth-speaker, and transparent. How are you doing with this? This may indeed be the very heart of how to be a collaborative leader— to lesad from your authenticity.
Dr L. Michael Hall Co Founder of Neuro Semantics (NLP and Meta Coaching)
NLP Courses
NLP Practitioner Courses
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NLP
Executive Coaching
If you are a “lone wolf” or “lone ranger,” are you a real leader? What leader is a leader if he or she doesn’t gather people around him or herself and empower them to feel that they are a part of something bigger and better than all of them? This highlights a fundamental fact: You can’t be a true leader unless you are collaborative in your style. Anyone who thinks and calls him or herself a leader but does not share, coordinate, cooperate, and create a sense of a team is self-deceived. They are only a leader in their mind, not in reality.
But how? How do you develop into a collaborative leader? What’s involved in developing the skills of collaboration?
1) Set the vision of collaborating and being a collaborative leader. Since vision is what drives big outcomes, start with a vision. What is yours? How robust is your vision? How exciting? If you are more excited about doing things to gain the glory, the recognition, the praise, etc., then it will be very hard to create a compelling vision of collaboration.
This goes right to the heart of leadership. John Maxwell puts it best when he said that “He who thinks he’s a leader and looks around and sees no one following is out for a walk.” To be a leader you have to win the minds and hearts of people, you have to attract them to a vision that captures their heart and imagine. Are you doing that? Are you willing to learn how to do that?
2) Commit yourself to adding value to those who share your vision. People follow a vision and the leader who sets out the vision that enable them to recognize that there’s something in it for them. What they see is that the vision and all of the effort that goes into actualizing it will make their life better and improve the quality of life for others. Leaders who think that people want to stand in adoration of their intelligence, good looks, charm, rhetorical skills, etc. want to be a cult-leader, a guru, or a dictator, not a true leader.
This is the paradox, leadership is not about the leader. It is through the person of the leader, but it is not about the leader. Anyone who believes that doesn’t understand the dynamic processes of leading. The person who is a true leader leads by going first. He or she invests as much value as possible into the vision and into those who are part of the team to make it happen. How does this settle with you? Are you adding massive value to those who raise their hands and say that they want to be a part of where you’re going and what you’re doing? What value are you investing in them? How could you add more value?
3) Communicate constantly to keep the vision and the mission alive. The work of leadership is not over with the creation of the vision. The work only then begins, next comes the effort of keeping the vision before people and letting them help to co-create the ongoing evolution of the vision as things change and develop. This work also includes gathering people together to create solutions to the obstacles that stand before the vision.
The vision you create as a leader will not endure in the minds and hearts of people unless you are constantly refreshing it, providing new and different ways of expressing it, and getting people involved in moving toward it. It is never enough to state the vision and leave it at that. As a leader your task is to make the vision come alive— to sing and dance in the minds of people so that it stays meaningful and significant. Are you doing that? Do you know how to do that? Are you willing to learn how to do that?
4) Keep involving people to be collaborative partners of the vision. From the activity of constantly communicating comes the leadership skill of involving people in practical ways that turns them into collaborative partners. This means sharing the vision-making process with them. This means bringing people into the inner circle and empowering them with decision making powers. This means transfer responsibilities to them and trusting them to come through.
People want to have a say and to be consulted if they are to become co-leaders of the vision. This is another secret of true leaders. Leaders do not create followers, they create more leaders. They groom people to become the next generation of leaders. How are you doing at that? Who are you grooming to be part of your leadership team? Who are you preparing to assume leadership powers and responsibilities?
5) Make yourself open and vulnerable to people. Leaders are not invincible statues made of stone, they are made of flesh-and-blood and suffer all of the fallibilities of mind, emotion, speech, and behavior that the rest of us do. A true leader leads out in this— being authentic, real, and down-to-earth. True leaders do not hide behind personas or masks, they come out from behind their personas and show their humanity. They are open and even vulnerable to people. They let people see their heart.
If this seems scary and frightening, it is. Embrace it. That’s why it is “leadership.” That’s because when people know your heart and sense your spirit of passion for the vision, they know they can trust you. There’s no hidden agenda and no secrets. As a leader you are upfront, straight-forward, candid, a truth-speaker, and transparent. How are you doing with this? This may indeed be the very heart of how to be a collaborative leader— to lesad from your authenticity.
Dr L. Michael Hall Co Founder of Neuro Semantics (NLP and Meta Coaching)
NLP Courses
NLP Practitioner Courses
NLP Training
NLP
Executive Coaching
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