I really enjoy coaching leadership teams. It has all the satisfaction of thinking about individuals and what can move their thinking forward, with the added challenge of team dynamics and complex challenges. I get to think on my feet and learn from each session.
Recently I was listening to a team facing a big, challenging re-organisation. Before getting into the proposed changes the team manager gave a pretty thorough background to why this was happening and how it would proceed. At the end she asked for comments and there were a few, but not much discussion.
Watching from the side lines I couldn’t tell how the presentation had landed with the group and I didn’t think the manager could either.
Since my job was to help the group learn from what they were doing I asked the manager to write down what her purpose had been, what did she want to achieve with her presentation?
Then I asked some of the group members (there was not enough time to ask everyone) to describe what they had taken away from the presentation.
Finally I asked the manager how what she had heard aligned with her purpose.
Several things became clear:
Much of what the manager had wanted to accomplish had also happened. (She is a good leader.)
The manager had put much more thought into what she wanted to say than into the effect she wanted. This is so common, we focus on input - what we want to say - rather than output - the result we want fromf saying something.
Some of the manager’s aims were not met and she needed to address those.
The group had important reactions that the manager had not anticipated and would not have know about if we hadn’t asked these questions.
The group did not have a culture of asking for feedback in order to secure their communication. ”What did you hear and was that what I intended?” I think of it as anchoring your rope when rock climbing. You check the anchor before you proceed. Most groups don’t do this and this particular team could see that it would be useful to do more often.
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