Crafty Listening     

If you are a manager, coach, parent, teacher, mentor, supervisor, counsellor or mediator,

the following three headline questions are useful prompts for exploration and learning!

I refer to them as headline questions and prompts because they will need to be followed

up by questions that expand and build on the initial answers.

Clean and metamodel questions can help the questioner and the questionee to 'chunk up'

in order to determine underlying or limiting beliefs or over-riding values and over-powering paradigms

that could be triggering or perpetuating whatever led up to or maintains any pattern of thinking and acting.

This can be a useful and validating approach when something has gone awry or someone has made a significant mistake.

It can also be just as useful to affirm and consolidate desirable and effective behaviour.

This process encourages people to think for themselves and to take responsibility for their attitudes and actions.

This does not preclude the need for feedback, of course but, as the facilitator, if you are more concerned with

motivating and inspiring people rather than infantilising (or bullying) them, delay your feedback until you have explored

their thoughts and feelings, their insights and interpretations.

Questions, of course, will need to be paraphrased to suit people's individual learning styles,

It is possible to give these questions in writing and have people send their answers in advance for exploration face to face.
Most people, after a few sessions based on this model, will learn how to apply this framework and their learning proactively.

Some people - questioner and questionee - might find it uncomfortable at first, but that is likely to be the frustration felt by manywhen they experience the frustration that tends to go with conscious incompetence.  Persevere and it will pass and people will increase confidence and competence - and self-esteem

What do you like or appreciate about what you did?

This presupposes that there is something positive about what the person did, or at least intended. If s/he cannot think of anything, you can help to clarify the intent; almost certainly, it will have had a positive element. If they – or you – focus only on the results or outcomes of their efforts, you – or they – may feel ever more inadequate and incompetent. People learn and function better when they feel valued and validated.

What might you do differently in a future, similar situation?

Give more emphasis to the possible future rather than the immutable past. Rather than an archaeological dig,

searching for a bludgeon with which to beat people up, use the past – what actually happened -

as source of ‘high value information’.

This question supposes the person can and will have learnt something from what has gone wrong.

The mistake offers some clues to the person’s level of competence, which then suggests an

appropriate response for that particular level:

Depending on the severity and aftermath of the issue being addressed, and whether it is a one-off or something of a pattern,

you might have to tell them that they cannot, at this stage, depending partly on their levels of competence and confidence,

and partly on your willingness to take a risk.