Mindful Dialogue for Facilitators and Coaches

(ICF 24 CCE units)

 And here is the rest of it.

Dialogue is an in-depth conversation into the assumptions that structure and interpret our everyday experiences.  Dialogue practice involves suspending judgment, listening deeply, and balancing advocacy and inquiry. These are skills we teach as authentic communication. These can be practiced in 1:1 coaching, mentoring and team conversations.  

Dialogue creates a group field in which members explore potentially un-discussable issues and are able to express their thoughts and feelings without fear.  Dialogue moves a group beyond polarized “right/wrong”, “us/them”, “win/lose” thinking that leads to misunderstanding and communication breakdown. Dialogue produces a deep shared understanding that ultimately helps a group make faster decisions that are better informed, with a stronger commitment to follow through than usual team learning approaches which focus primarily on problem solving and decision making.  Perceiving the Dialogue present within an individual and with their coach opens art of coaching to a deeper level of exploration

For individuals

Dialogue helps create rich work-life relationships and strong personal-life relationships.

Dialogue increases access to innovation inside your organization.

Dialogue skills help you to advocate ideas in ways that generate understanding and commitment.

Dialogue helps develop buy-in instead of defensiveness and resistance.

Introduction to Dialogue offers the skills and motivation to work through tough issues in ways that bring shared understanding and commitment. It builds trust, strengthens relationships, and secures the best thinking as well as new cooperation of all parties.

During the six sections we review the theories about why dialogue is such a powerful personal and team-learning tool.  We use ourselves as a learning team to develop practical dialogue skills for use in your own organizations and communities.

Skills in Listening + Awareness:  As we build a sense of community, concepts of dialogue and organizational learning are experienced and understood.

Practicing Inquiry and Advocacy:  We introduce a practice "clearness committee” in small groups with actual individual issues as a focus.

Fishbowl and Operational Skills:  We introduce practical examples of dialogue in the workplace, demonstrating as individuals and teams how to utilize dialogue in everyday situations.

Practical Result:

Practice dynamics of dialogical process

Understand the flow of ladder of inference

Connect deeper dialogue levels of conversation with coaching role

Experiential intent

Experience I YOU and WE dynamics of dialogical process

Experience distinction of in the flow of dialogue with a client

Time: 05/ 19-21/2017 ( Beijing)

          06/ 16-18/2017 ( Shanghai)

          

Feedback from learners of Dialogue:

From Jun Xue: This three-days program for me was a wonderful journey, not only did I learn about dialogue, but also harvested so many unexpected results! From the beginning, via two activities of "Childhood Memories" and "My Life” with my partner, I opened the innermost memory of mine. Besides, I, experiencing dialogue practice with partners time and time again and then coaching conversation, made myself go deeper to see and learn from the past. It enables me to choose courageously facing everything I had encountered; the most important part was learning how to let them go... Everything was well arranged! Thanks to facilitators leading and setting up a free and open field with love, It helped me to witness how fascinating   dialogue can achieve. The integration of mindfulness, U theory and coaching technologies help us a lot to enhance my sensing, listening and questioning ability. Appreciate again for sharing all knowledge, skills with no reservation!

From Fang Jun: Till now I still can feel the ripples out of the course like “bomb in deep water”. I profoundly experienced how I perceived facts, feeling and values from activities of “Compassionate Listening”. Another practice - “Fishbowl game”, it helped me to face the problem. In inner circle of fishbowl, I felt very safe to speak out what I was thinking on my problem. I noticed everyone was able to express freely, to explore assumptions behind, and to validate others. I truly believe this process is helpful to our future daily conversation and personal coaching.

From Frank: Along with Paulina’s facilitating ‘History of My Life’, I had an opportunity to explore what I had lived from the past to now. I was very much impressed by experiencing ‘be present’. I sensed the benefit of being mindful in meditation exercises. It helped me to feel calmer, freer, and refresher. The course lasted for three whole days, but I felt time flied. I decided to implement more to fortify my learning results.

From Sally: In my work, I understand facilitation as a method, and a skill too. It is quite important and useful when dealing with team problems or building team consensus at work ; however, it also takes lots of effort to facilitate group of people enjoying the process. Whenever I did it, it likes I have to consume all my energy that day to put it into reality. In the course, I observed Larry and Paulina demonstrating a field with free and relax during their facilitation; it just like listening to a country music, I felt very relax, comfortable and being touched by our dialogue too. I am so glad I leant how to enter into a facilitation field without keeping myself in tense. Also, I sensed my self-awareness getting higher than before. 

My Inner Game of Action Learning

A corporation recently hired me. They needed a single topic AL series, so I went through the standard preparations, including my constant ritual reminders that not only do I not know how this will play out, it is my job not to know. Only then am I prepared to be surprised as the group navigates their own breakthroughs.
   And here is the rest of it.

In this case, our group work began in an ordinary way. Then, in the first intervention, I asked: “What is the quality of our questions?" Their response was anything but standard. Together, they quickly formulated and articulated their new awareness that it was necessary for the good of the entire organization for them to now begin to think differently. They called on themselves to prepare to think and act “out of the box.” There’s no way I, or anyone else, could have imposed such a move on them with such powerful effect. From that point on, an observer might have thought I was doing nothing in particular. My only job was to lightly hold the space for them – to be witness to their new way – while the group went through the entire WIAL single set process. I was also prepared to intervene if other intervention was necessary. The truth is that it took me a very long time to learn to do nothing. I’ve found that to do this takes everything I’ve got.

At the end of the final session in the group's reflection, they talked about their learning. They each reported they felt a sense of pride and had grown. The PP said "This solution is far better than the solution I had just 2 weeks ago. It's more thorough and comprehensive." The whole group radiated confidence.

My initial experience as a professional coach and a coach trainer in a large organization led me to wonder, how is it that some of my most impactful coaching sessions unfolded in very non-intuitive ways. That’s when I started to consider what I’d call the spirit of coaching: When I have a group with disparate needs, how can I be of the greatest support to all? I began to realize that I was not personally the driving force behind these sessions. Something else was at play. What was it? Mostly I saw that the less I did – the less attached I was – the lighter my presence was – the more impactful the session was for participants. I heard that people call this “holding the space.” For me, it also points to the spirit of coaching.

This spirit, this holding the space matches a concept from Lao Zi, the ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher. In the words of Chris Corregan (in “The Tao of Holding Space”) “The best leaders are those people we hardly know exist. The next best is a leader who is loved and praised. Next comes the one who is feared. The worst one is the leader that is despised. If you don't trust the people, they will become untrustworthy. The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly. When she has accomplished her task, the people say, "Amazing: we did it all by ourselves!"

Paulina Chu, PCC, MALC