Relational training and how to get to 'flow'

Waterfall near Sapa, Vietnam

Does it matter what trainers teach?

Over the years I have run training programmes for a wide range of organisations and institutions. Based on my experiences, I’m not sure if it matters what trainers teach as long as the learners can see the relevance of the content, and the style of the training is ‘relational’. I am borrowing the term ‘relational’ from coaching authority Erik de Haan, who says that the quality of the relationship between the coach and the coachee is key to the success of the coaching relationship. For me, the success of a training programme depends of the level of trust I am able to build within the group of learners, and between the group and myself.

Does it matter which methodology trainers follow?

De Haan believes that lessons from psychotherapy can be applied to coaching. When I was trying to decide which coaching methodology to practice, I was immensely reassured to read in de Haan’s book Relational Coaching that “according to the vast mount of experimental data now at our disposal” there is no difference between one psychotherapeutic approach and another. To be effective, de Haan says, coaches need to commit to one coaching approach, and focus on building a working alliance with the person they are coaching.

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it

The same principles apply when I am co-training. I believe the relationship between the trainers and the learners is key to the success of a programme or workshop. ‘Relational’ training helps learners to travel further towards their learning goals, and makes the learning stick. Years ago I went on a course about how to design and deliver participative training for adults. I still have a handout called ‘How to build a co-training relationship’. It contains a list of key questions that co-trainers need to ask each other before they step out in front of a group of adults. Using these questions has helped me to build a number of open, trusting and creative co-training relationships that are at the very heart of what I do.

Relational training and ‘flow’

Co-training, and being relational, is how I think trainers can help learning groups get into a state of ‘flow’. The main characteristics of ‘flow’ as defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi are:

•                Intense and focused concentration on the present moment

•                Merging of action and awareness

•                A loss of reflective self-consciousness

•                A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity

•                A distortion of temporal experience, one’s subjective experience of time is altered

•                Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding.[1]

These are the key elements of all my most memorable co-training experiences. There comes a moment in a training programme where the group is totally engaged and involved in what is happening in the present time. At this moment I instinctively know what to say, or whether to stay silent. I feel I have the ‘agency’ to help participants to make sense of what they are experiencing, and to translate what they are seeing, hearing, thinking and feeling into something that has meaning and relevance for them.

For me, this is the most powerful and beneficial learning experience one can have because it is long lasting and transformational. People who have experienced ‘flow’ tend stay connected, and continue to learn and grow together long after the programme is over.

Getting to ‘flow’

How can you help a group to reach a state of ‘flow’? I believe you have to be totally committed to co-training and to working collaboratively. You have to do everything you can to build a working alliance with the participants. I also think you get to flow by demonstrating a combination of opposite behaviours:

•                Good planning and being able to depart from the agreed schedule

•                Starting where the group are at and encouraging them to push open some mental doors and windows

•                Sharing your own experience of the training content and holding your knowledge lightly

•                Demonstrating respect for the group, and for your co-trainer, and being able to laugh at yourselves and with the group.

Is relational training a kind of placebo?

Not at all. The point about relational training is that adults will always choose what they want to learn. When you build a working alliance with learners, you encourage and support learners to make meaning for themselves. And for me, this is the most effective way to learn.

[1] From the Handbook of Positive Psychology, C R Snyder, Erik Wright, Oxford University Press, 2001

For more about how I work with groups, please see my main website KellowLearning.com

Life imitates art: reflections on a night at the ballet

Prologue
It began when I met Joyce in Tescos. Joyce reminds me of my mother. White hair, fragile, quietly game. She would not let me carry her shopping. “This street is not as friendly as it was”, Joyce told me. I was glad I had a six pound ticket for the ballet to look forward to.

There is something democratic about a six pound standing ticket. You queue up on the day of the performance, and hope for a miracle. The miracle is that however many people queue, there are nearly always enough tickets. Six pounds do not buy you a clear view of the stage, but at least you get a view.

That night, the show consisted of three one act ballets: something classical with fairies, a premiere based on neuroscience, and something American and droll.

Act One

Just as the lights were going down, an elderly lady accompanied by a young man arrived in a wheelchair. White hair, fragile, quietly game. The curtain went up almost immediately. There was no time for removing outer layers, settling, and so on. So they sat as they were, in rainproof clothing.

The elderly lady leant forward at a slightly disturbing angle. The young man sat bolt upright against a pillar. Something was missing. I wondered if the lady could see the stage? And why was the young man so detached?

Act Two

After the fairies, came the premiere of a ballet to do with mapping connections in the brain. As the dancers interacted on the stage, the lady in the wheelchair started to take off her outer jacket. The young man took no notice. The lady leaned forward in her wheelchair so that her head seemed almost to touch her knees. Slowly, with repeated arm thrusts, she succeeded in pushing her jacket back off her shoulders. It took her a while. As the dancers twisted and turned, my eyes were on the old lady trying to take off her jacket.

Act Three

In the interval, the man standing next to me complained to the house manager that he could not see properly. Why could he not stand where he could see the whole stage? “I came to see the ballet,” he said. As it happens, the space he wanted to occupy was next to my line of vision. The house manager said he would make an exception. The man moved into the space on my left. I shuffled to the right. It was a kind of dance.

The comic ballet then began on the stage. The scene was a piano recital. The dancers played members of an audience hell bent on grabbing the seats with the best view. They sat in front of each other on purpose. Some were asked to move by the front of house staff when they were discovered sitting in the wrong seats. One woman, who had wrapped herself around the grand piano, had her seat pulled literally from beneath her.

It was funny, sad, and so true to life.


The End

Orphaned adverts and disconnects

The No 57 tram stopped here in Frederick Street, Edinburgh.

A friend once told me that one of my biggest strengths as a facilitator is my ability to make connections. I also have a tendency to notice disconnects.

Orphaned Adverts

I can’t help noticing out-of-date adverts on the underground. There are places on the London network where posters for shows that have closed linger on. At the foot of an escalator at Oxford Circus, a touring version of the “The Nutcracker” from a former republic of the Soviet Union, plays on. Did anyone go? Are some adverts doomed never to find an audience?

The British Linen Bank, 141 Princes Street, Edinburgh, 1920s

Banks that were cashed in

Also the crests and names above the doors of former banks, now amalgamated, and - final insult - turned into a Wetherspoons pub, or worse. The National Provincial Bank carved in stone in Piccadilly, London. The British Linen Bank in George Street, Edinburgh. Cheques are no longer accepted here.

Severed from the network

And railway stations severed from the network. The Caledonian Railway terminus on Princes Street Edinburgh, where Queen Elizabeth II and the King of Norway arrived in a train from Leith Central Station in 1962. Aged 9, I watched the royals go by from a window at the West End Branch of the British Linen Bank, now – wait for this – selling tartan souvenirs.

Leith Central Station in 1962

Left by the roadside

And tram stops. In Frederick Street, Edinburgh, a damaged but decorative tram stop from the original network survives at the edge of the kerb. People park their cars beside it. The No 57 tram stopped here. And, by the way, trams are back on Princes Street after 57 years. Why did I notice the tiles, and why does this one stop survive? It’s like the adverts in the underground. The meaning has gone out of its message.

Loss Aversion

Behavioural theorists say that we have a tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. I get a lot of messages from the past. 'See this show!' 'Bank with us!' 'Catch a train!' 'Get on a tram!' It’s not exactly nostalgia. It’s more about noticing connections, and making meaning. My mum always said I was good at noticing things.


Thanks for reading my blog. If you liked this page, you might like to check out my business website which has more content on leadership and learning.

www.kellowlearning.com

Unscrewed and Unhinged: How I came to develop Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

The Door in happier times

Smartphones are said to be the cause of growing numbers of people with Obsessive Compulsive disorder (OCD). The cause of my OCD is more sinister.

Feverish Fingers

If you have been to the theatre recently, you will know what I am talking about. The lights in the auditorium go dim, the music begins, and smartphone users rush to update their Facebook status. As the curtain rises, you are surrounded by feverish fingers stabbing at small screens, somehow oblivious to the scene in front of them.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

I am a smartphone user, but my true obsession is the entrance door to the block of flats where I live. I need to keep checking whether or not the door is secure. I have all the characteristics of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I live in constant fear that a flash mob is about to flood into the stairwell, and keep me awake. I suffer from anxiety in the place I call home. Checking to see whether the door is secure brings temporary relief, but each time I hear the door open, the anxiety returns.

How did this happen?

About a year ago I noticed that the upper bolt on the main door had been removed completely. I was a bit flummoxed. Why would anyone do that? Could someone have lost their key, and decided that between having a new key cut, and attacking the door, the latter option was the most convenient? I reported the damage to the landlord, several times. Eventually, a new but less effective bolt was fitted. The original bolt one was made of solid brass. It looked as if it had been there for decades.

A pattern emerges

In no time at all, the Yale lock was unscrewed. I reported this new attack to the landlord. By now I realised that I was up against a persistent saboteur. Each time the door was made secure, someone found another way to stop it closing. I began to think that lack of a key was not the issue. More likely, it had something to do with the stream of late night visitors in the stairwell. That, and the unmistakable smell of cannabis were the signs I had missed, or rather failed to connect. 

Changing the narrative

A different story was emerging and it wasn't a fairy tale. Based on what was happening to the door, I created a new narrative that wasn’t a million miles from ‘Breaking Bad’. Finally, my OCD really kicked in when I woke at 2.00 am to the noise of men shouting, and the sound of something, or someone, being thrown at a wall.

Missing a few screws

I need a cure for my OCD. I want to stop feeling this compulsion to check the door. As doors go, it is a handsome piece of wood that has give good service. It has guarded our little block of flats for a very long time. Possibly it survived the war. Now the door is under attack from an enemy within. Bit by bit its functionality is being destroyed. The bolts are removed, the lock unscrewed, the paint chipped and scratched. Is it the door, or is it me, that is becoming unhinged?

Some people are addicted to checking their Facebook. Me, I just need to go and see if the door is still attached to its frame.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you liked this page, you might like to check out my business website which has more content on leadership and learning.

www.kellowlearning.com