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Manager as Coach E-Zine - Issue No. 14/ September 2006

Dear Reader,

I’ve recently been studying about how advances in brain science can be applied to our work in developing people. This month and next I’ll be sharing some of the findings and looking at how you can use this information as a manager.

Hope you find it useful.

Cheers,

Angela Spaxman

Alliance Partner of Progress-U Limited

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How to Generate 'Ah Ha!' Insights

By Angela Spaxman, Business and Career Coach, Director of Spaxman Limited,
Coach Training Expert for Progress-U Ltd.

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"A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience."

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, poet & author

An “ah ha” moment is one of the most interesting and exciting events in learning. When you have such a sudden realization, you experience a small rush of energy and it feels as if a whole new world of meaning clicks into place. You may suddenly realize the answer to the question that has been puzzling you. Or, in the blink of an eye, you see clearly what you could not see before.

I remember a particular coaching session when I helped to generate an “ah ha” moment in a very simple way. My coachee, let’s call her Paula, was describing a long-term difficulty with a close associate. As she came to the end of her long explanation, I said, “I just have one word in my mind: trust.” I saw the change on her face as the word sank in. A new way of thinking had opened up for her as she followed the pointer of that one word and came to a new place of understanding.

This is the kind of easy and powerful coaching session that I would like to produce with every interaction! “Ah ha” moments are sure signs that coaching is effective. Those powerful insights are valuable, memorable and prove that a Coachee has learned something significant. In brain science terms, Paula had taken a new path with her thinking, following different neural pathways from usual to arrive at a new and satisfying thought.

If we could generate these insights on a regular basis, our coaching would create significant learning very quickly.

How can we help someone have insights?

Step 1

The first step to help someone produce insights is to listen.

With Paula, I first let her lay out her own thinking pattern completely. This way she could clarify the framework of her current thoughts, while I mapped over my own way of thinking about it. I simultaneously heard her thoughts while relating them to my own.

This step is the most time-consuming part of the process and yet it is critical. Once Paula’s current thinking was clear in her mind, she was primed to form a new connection between this thinking and something new.

Step 2

The next step is to add something new to the conversation that will stimulate new thinking. If you’ve been listening well, you will have some thoughts that connect well with the Coachee’s thinking and that may shine a light on something he has not yet considered.

It’s useful to remember that your thinking is not necessarily better than your Coachee’s thinking. It is just different. The uniqueness of your thoughts provides the raw material for stimulating new pathways of thinking in your Coachee.

One very effective way to stimulate thinking is to ask open questions. Good questions prompt thinking in different directions. The best questions do not have set answers; they are only signposts to new possibilities that the thinker can use to explore as yet unused pathways.

Another way, as I used with Paula, is to add a small bit of information that acts like a pointer. When I mentioned the word “trust” to Paula, I had many thoughts in my mind about possible solutions to her problem. But I shared only one small bit as an indicator so that she could complete the thinking for herself in her own way. A long speech by me would not have had the same impact. The Coachee must do the thinking to create the insight.

The most important aspect of the delivery of this bit of information is the timing. As always, be careful not to interrupt the coachee’s thinking as you give your input. Those pointers will create insights only at moments of receptivity.

Step 3

If your question or comment has stimulated new thinking, you will know from the body language of your coachee. Notice the fact that they do not reply immediately. Watch for eye movements as they work through different parts of their brain.

When someone is thinking, allow for silence. When people are making new connections in their brains, they need silence and space in order to think. They cannot multi-task in their minds at this crucial point and if you interrupt, the new connection may be lost. Don’t waste the opportunity for an insight with your impatience.

As rule of thumb, following a question or comment assume your coachee will speak when ready. Meanwhile, wait.

This whole process of insight-creation works the same way as a joke with a punch line. As we are listening to a joke, we are expecting a certain outcome. When the punch line arrives it sheds new light on all the pieces of the story that came before. And the punch line produces a shock, a flush, just like a new insight.

Both the Coach and Coachee have a role to play in insight-creation. The Coachee does the thinking and the Coach acts as a catalyst, an extra energy, a stimulation, or even an irritant, to cause the thinker to use different neural pathways. You may have noticed yourself that when you have a problem, your thinking can be repetitive and circular. Some help from outside is needed to help you shift into a different way of thinking.

In our example, Paula could not generate her own insight with her usual way of thinking. Before she came to me she had reviewed the situation many times herself and not found that answer she needed. But just one word from me was enough to start her thinking on an entirely new and productive track.

How to nurture your ability to evoke insights

The ability to evoke insights can be developed through practice. Here are four disciplines to enhance your effectiveness at generating insights in others.

1) Practice non-judgmental listening. Allow yourself to enter someone else’s world.

2) Broaden your thinking about the way the world works. The more frameworks or realities you have access to, the more thinking choices you can offer your coachees and the more likely you are to have new, fresh viewpoints that will provoke new thinking pathways.

3) Exercise your intuition. Our feelings, senses and inklings hold pointers to new thoughts that are hiding in our bodies waiting to be used.

4) Warm-up your sense of humour. Silly, light-hearted and nonsensical thinking frees us from the constraints of our normal reasoning and allows us to enter new territories.

Each “ah ha” moment is a miraculous demonstration of the power of the human brain and a reward to the manager-coach provocateur who chooses to invest in people development. May you experience many!

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