[Neurons] 2015 "Neurons" Meta Reflections #33

Mon Aug 3 07:00:54 EDT 2015

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections #33

August 3, 2015

Learning #9

FEEDBACK FOR

ACCELERATING LEARNING

"Are you clear about what your client wants?" I asked this of one of our new
participants learning Meta-Coaching not too long ago.  She did not hesitate,
not for a second, "Yes!"  "You are?!" I responded trying my best to sound
incredulous as I could.  I then commented, "I'm really confused, I don't
know anything about what your client is speaking about, I t's all very vague
to me."  I said this hoping to get a question from the coach-in-training.
But no.  Nothing.  I looked at the benchmarker, but he did not have anything
else to say.  No.  So she started up again and as predicted, for the next
four or five minutes the session didn't go anywhere.

At that point I asked the benchmarker if he wanted to interrupt.  After all,
that was my job. I was supervising the benchmarkers and sitting in with each
of them to see how they were doing and to give them feedback about their
supervising of the coaching sessions.  "Yes?  No?"  He said "yes" and then
said a few words to the coach, but he didn't address the ongoing lack of
clarity.  So I interrupted again.  We do this in Meta-Coaching because of
our basic principle, we do not want people to coach wrong.  They can do that
anywhere so we don't want them to do that here.

This time when I interrupted I said, "What's preventing this from
progressing?  I think it is the lack of clarity, the theme of the session
has not be grounded.  Here are ten things about what your client wants which
I would need to know if I were to coach the client..."  And then I mentioned
at least 10 items that were not clear to me about what the client was
saying.  Then to drive home the point of getting these details, I asked the
client, "Do you know the answer to these things?"  "No," she did not.  "Do
you think you need to?"  "Yes."

At the end of the session we spent most of the 15 minutes for the
benchmarker to provide feedback to the coach on his or her skills and to
then debrief the structure of the session.  Once that was complete, I asked
the benchmarker what he had learned.  He thought and thought and finally
said something about the value of grounding the session.  I commented that
his answer was just about as vague as the coach had been.  "So what will you
do differently next time?"  Again he was nearly speechless.  Then he was
saved by the bell so we had to quit.

Later the other Meta-Coach trainer and myself chose nine benchmarkers of the
18 to be those officially qualified to "sign off" Meta-Coaches when they sit
for assessment.  We thought those nine had sufficient skills to give
feedback and benchmark the skills.  But the previous benchmarker was one of
the nine not chosen.  He and another one didn't like the fact that they were
not chosen.  But they didn't say that to me directly.  I heard about it from
someone else who heard it.  In fact, I later found out that they were pretty
upset about it.

Among the other seven who were also not chosen, they asked learning-based
questions, "Why do you think I'm not ready to sign people off?"  "What do I
need to do so that I can be ready?"  The other two could have asked those
kinds of questions.  They could have said, "I want to be officially
recognized as someone with the skill to give feedback and benchmark and sign
someone off as having reached the competency level.  What skill should I
work on?"  If they had, I would have given them specific details about their
skills, examples, and what to do to reach that level.  After all, the
purpose of supervising them is to enable them to develop the required
skills.

Now on the skill of Receiving Feedback we have at the 3.0 level the behavior
of asking questions, exploring what to do, and then getting excited about
knowing what to do that will make a difference.  Yet these two actually
demonstrated the opposite of that skill.  Instead of treating the feedback
as important information for their learning and development, they got upset.
They talked about it, or rather complained, to others.  And in doing this,
they showed that they actually had not developed the skill of receiving
feedback and using it for learning.   They showed that they didn't have the
right attitude and that would have made them a very poor example of
receiving of feedback effectively.  For me that was further evidence that
they were not ready to sign others off.  If they can't receive feedback,
they are not ready to give it.

They probably need to repeat what we do on Day 2 of the ACMC training-
create a personalized Matrix for receiving feedback effectively.  In that
way they could reframe the feedback as valuable information, as data for
learning, as a way to sharpen their skills, as a tool for accelerating their
learning, etc.  For the majority of people who attend the training, this is
essential.  That's because most people get "feedback" in school and early
job experiences which is not "feedback" at all but judgment, criticism,
rejection, and insult.  No wonder the word "feedback" is so loaded
semantically that it puts people off and even induces a state of fear and
dread!

Yet ultimately real feedback (what people say and do) is just information.
At best it is the persons experience of you through that person's filters
and background.  Hopefully the person has learned how to present it in a
clean and objective way.  If so, then it comes as an excellent opportunity
for accelerating your learning.  If so, ask more about it.  Explore it with
the person.  If not, then realizing that most people don't know how to give
it in a clean and clear way so that it is high quality feedback, you may
have to work to get it formulated in that way.  Do that, and you will really
have the ability to accelerate your learning.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

               Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

               Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

                    Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net

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