My favourite coaching tools: Csikszentmihalyi's Flow (psychology)

Caveats:
None for using, but please be sensible whenever thinking and applying a model of thought. It's all abstract and in that experiential space - nothing is perfect for everyone in every context.

Required:
This is a "chat through" session with a coachee or a group
30 minutes and more, dependent on the group's size and engagement
Read the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) and be sure to click on all the segments in the picture which are links to a bit more detail which you will need to know and understand.

Step 1: I either draw something similar or show the coachee or the group the following image (available in the public domain from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Challenge_vs_skill.svg)

Step 2: Most important - do not cast, nor allow any group member to cast, any verbal or non-verbal judgements! This is self-perception stuff, so with a group, as facilitator of constructive listening and volunteering of important "self" information, the session must be managed sensitively and sensibly.

Step 3: And as the picture is quite self-explanatory, especially having read the background reading available on wikipedia and other sources, the conversation is quite easy to have. I ask for examples of what tasks the coachee or the group members perform that are Low in Challenge Level, and Low in Skill Level.

I then ask for examples on each flanking side, 1 sector at a time (ie, Medium Challenge Level with Low Skill Level, Medium Skill Level with Low Challenge Level) until finally reaching Flow.

Typically the sectors before Flow are quite quick and easy to find good examples for, though it is always interesting for me to see how house/admin chores such as sweeping, filing, dusting move around between Apathy-Boredom-Relaxation. And the same for what kind of tasks such as public speaking, waiting for feedback from a client proposal, writing a proposal, move between Apathy, Worry and Anxiety.

Often teaching, managing and mentoring type activities appear in the Control sector.

And sporting, extreme sporting, and "breaking the ice" with someone that is liked appears in Arousal sector.

And then, the tough one is discovered, and the real soul and past experience searching begins: Flow.

Step 4: Helping identify tasks that represent true Flow state requires covering the information found on wikipedia, summarised here:

1.The person must be engaged with something that has clear goals in order to provide direction and structure (aka Vision)

2.The person must believe that they have a good balance between the perceived challenges of the task and their own perceived skills - they must be confident.
3.The clearer and more immediate feedback the person receives whilst engaged, helps the person get into this "super state" and then stay there for longer
 
Flow psychology provides a great tool for explaining the enjoyment people report when they embrace modern/agile software engineering practices like Test Driven Development, Pairing, Collaborative Design and more.

I have not read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience yet, but I find the graph he drew above incredibly useful when talking to people about their experiences of work - what they have really loved in the past, and helping them understand what they are experiencing currently. This tool helps provide some motivational energy to help people make a decision to try something new.

And for team building, this tool provides great insights into the kinds of work individuals really want to do, to feel alive, to contribute as much as possible whilst at work, to be themselves, and to be with others, contributing to team success based on capability and capacity rather than role.

I like bringing this tool into discussion with the results from Belbin (see Coaching with Belbin), the Free Strength Finder (see Coaching with Free Strengths Finder), the preferred learning styles VAK (see Coaching with Free VAK (Learning Styles Visual Auditory Kinaesthetic)), and the positivity ratio (see Coaching With Free Positivity Ratio Tool). Together they provide a couple of very useful views on people that allow for the creation of great coaching plans, team plans, and ultimately greatly enhanced self-awareness.

Thankyou for supporting! Let me know what you think!

My favourite coaching tools: Graphical Facilitation - Bikablo

Caveats:
None. Being capable of bringing life to notes by drawing, infographic creating or just simple graphically facilitation of ideas and information for self or groups is extremely valuable! Only, balance time drawing with time facilitating or engaging with the group members to ensure there is growth of the shared knowledge space. Some group members may find watching someone drawing for too long distracting. (this is feedback from a paired training session where my colleague was training whilst 1 was in the background capturing and marking up what he was saying)

I can't draw well. As someone said - with writing, or speaking, we're given a lot of feedback, and even though we may be poor writers or speakers we have to do it. Not so with drawing. We are born with the ability to make marks on things. Because of poor feedback at early age typically, those without strong urge or ability, usually make a conscious decision somewhere to not draw anymore.

But these days, where nearly everything is group/team work, the ability to draw "good enough" is becoming a really key and useful ability to have.

And then I found Bikablo - or rather a colleague of mine told me about it. And then suddenly I could (and still can) draw some the patterns I find most useful for the work that I do.

Required:

The Bikablo book: http://www.neuland.com/DE/facilitation-tools-jc4rdwszaiw/bikablo-6s5uy80465f.html (in German/English) which is also sometimes available from amazon here
A set of thin+thick coloured markers as per Bikablo recommendation - I prefer the Artline ones which are usable on whiteboards as well as being comfortable on flipchart paper!

Some/lots of time to practice beforehand!

Step 1: Practice, and then practice some more. Pick just a handful of useful basic shapes and 2-3 colour pair combinations that you like

Step 2: Slowly bring them into your sessions and grow confidence that you can draw, and you can draw well enough so that people actually praise your work/talent!

Step 3: Within a couple of sessions over the time of a few weeks or months, you'll be drawing extremely high quality session outputs that people will be asking to keep for themselves. Success!

Step 4: Always take photos of all your facilitated graphics and be sure to get them back to the group as soon as possible after the session! Done well, you will not need to type them up! Win!!

My favourite coaching tools: 2 Axes Visual Shift Chart

Caveats:
None. Usually used with groups, but can be used for individual as well.

Required:
Piece of paper - usually A3
A different colour marker for each measurement point (at least start and end will be required)

Optional:
The neater you set things up, the better the result will look.
Eg, use a ruler for drawing the axes, reserve the black marker for the axes, draw a neat legend, etc

Step 1: Place the sheet in landscape

Step 2: Draw straight vertical and horizontal axes along the left and bottom sides.

I place the "feeling" axis as the vertical as it is useful to visualise whether a vertical shift up or down was happier/sadder, more enthusiastic/less enthusiastic.

I place the "knowledge" axis along the horizontal as there is less emotional expression required for knowledge.

In the example, which I used for Agile Awareness training purposes, the axis on the left is "Agile Enthusiasm" and on the bottom is "Agile Knowledge"

Step 3: Pick 4-5 indicators for each axis. It is sometimes very useful, depending on what you are measuring, to ensure there is no obvious "average"/"middle of the road" indicator in order to subtly influence people to make a decision on where they are, which helps for self-enforced consistency during training and afterwards also (see Robert Cialdini's Influence).

In the example I've used:
- Agile Enthusiasm: Terrorist, Unsure, Apprentice, Master, Apostle
- Agile Knowledge: None, Some, Lots, Expert


Before beginning the session, select 1 colour marker, and ask the group members to indicate where they are on axes. Sometimes initials are useful to help them remember where they placed their "X".

Sometimes, for some issues where I use the "2 Axes Visual Shift Chart" an anonymous "X" is better - eg helping a team go through Tuckman's Mourning / Adjourning Phase when someone has abruptly left the team.

Step 5: Conduct the training, facilitatory event or retrospective. If it is a multi-day event, decide if you want/need to reflect on shifts that have occurred each day by asking for updates at the end of every day.

Two Axes Multiple Quadrants Making Meaning Visually Of Deep Information

This example is for a 1 day training course, with measurement taken in the morning, and again at the end of the afternoon. The visual changes above indicate an increase in knowledge (horizontal shift) and/or improvement in enthusiasm (vertical shift) - overall a very positive result for the training I provided that day!

Thankyou for supporting! Let me know how it goes!

My favourite coaching tools: The Invisible Gorilla

Caveats:
None.

Required:
The internet
Environment or headphones in order to listen to the video
2 minutes to watch the video
A lifetime to think about the video after watching it

Step 1: Prepare your coachee's browser by going to http://www.dansimons.com/videos.html

Step 2: Click on the first video in the box and let your coachee watch

This video, and others that Professor Dan Simons provides on the above link, as well as a few more at http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/videos.html, highlight some very interesting things about how very real and/or very imaginary our world is to ourselves. And hence how complicated things get when interacting with others who are experiencing the same brain processes. This is a problem more of encoding than memory apparently as humans are much better at encoding "things" occurring near the core of our current focus than those on the periphery.

I first found references to this video in Karl Sabbagh's book The Hair of the Dog: And Other Scientific Surprises which contains a number of other really useful scientific surprises some of which I have incorporated into my toolkit.

Another phrase I remember from Will Greenwood's motivational talk

Another motivational/team building phrase I learned from Will Greenwood's motivational talk in 2010: "The strength of the wolf is the pack, and the strength of the pack is the wolf"

See 100 things, 1% better for the other!

1 phrase I remember from Will Greenwood's motivational talk

In 2010 I was fortunate to attend a motivational talk by English rugby hero Will Greenwood. Apparently his coach at time playing for the successful World Cup Rugby English team, Clive Woodward, pulled a lot of key motivational and team transformational statements/visions together.

1 of the phrases I still remember clearly from the talk is: "100 things, 1% better"

Wellbeck's just scored in the England-Sweden game and 1 of the commentators has just said "the only way he could have possibly scored!"

Which reminded me of Gary Player's famous quip / response to a spectator's "That was luck!!" after sinking an incredibly long and complicated putt. Gary replied "You're right! The more I practice, the luckier I get!"

Back to "100 things, 1% better" - it really is easier to improve lots of things a little, than 1 "bad" thing a lot. And the results...Will certainly made it clear (and is apparently earning a good income as a motivational speaker these days!): SUCCESS! (aka VICTORY!)

See The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack, the Strength of the Pack is the Wolf for the other!

My favourite coaching tools: Belbin's Team Roles

Caveats:

Before I get into the details of the free Belbin Test: all my favourite coaching tools - free, online, or other - need to be applied with sensible and cautionary advice from statistician George EP Box: "all models are wrong, some are useful". I discuss this principle with individual coachees, teams and team leaders this before giving them homework or some brief presentation on Belbin's Team Role theory.

I also explain about the problems of labels, and how labels applied to people become truthes that get played out. (see Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (UK) (or US) for further information)

There are a number of ways to apply the Belbin Team Roles theory, which all provide shades of correctness. All applications provide valuable team member role insights and can be quite usefully combined with team building activities or coachee plan assignments.

The easiest, and only sanctioned way to apply the Belbin Team Roles Test, is to go online to http://www.belbin.com and purchase the required number of tests for you and your team. The online Belbin test reports are generated and emailed to you. The assessments are fantastically detailed and provide plenty of material to help a team improve and to give team members insights into themselves as people and members of "this" team they are currently members of. I recommend this approach for excellent results!

There is an alternative free Belbin Test that also works albeit unsupported and to a lesser scientific and correct level:

Step 1: Read everything you can on Meredith Belbin, the history of the team role theory, the opposition, and the advocates.

Step 2: Especially make sure to read and understand the Belbin Team Roles
- http://www.belbin.com/content/page/49/BELBIN(uk)-2011-TeamRoleSummaryDescriptions.pdf
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Role_Inventories
- http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_83.htm

Step 3: Have your coachee read the above links as well. Or in a team context, I discuss the roles (Plant, Resource Investigator, Monitor Evaluator, Co-ordinator, Shaper, Teamworker, Implementer, Completer Finisher, Specialist) and many of the points from the 3 above links with the team.

Step 4: Now have the coachee or the team members self-select the order of the 9 Belbin roles as they see themselves. Not really surprisingly, people know from previous feedback over the years of their lives if they are extroverted or introverted; if they prefer analysing new problems or finishing off final details of things; if they like to delegate or prefer to receive direction; etc, etc)

Belbin Team Roles Are Preferences Dependent On Dynamics And Context

Step 5 (for teams): Have the team members then rate each of the other members' top 3 Belbin roles as they see them. Again, not really surprising, team members also know how their colleagues are and usually can educated-guess-place them in appropriate Belbin Team Roles - once they know what those roles are!

Each team member can now combine and collate the results for themselves.

Step 6: Evaluate with the coachee/every team member how much resonance they feel with the top 3 roles others have placed them into. Is there a match between self perception and team member perception? If not, how much difference on a scale of 1-10? In what ways can the coachee think to close the gap or to make their own self perception the reality? Perhaps more feedback should be collected and then a re-evaluation. Every situation is different and it is helpful to have loads more coaching and coaching tools available if and when required!

Step 7 (optional): If at this stage the coachee or team really wants to evaluate still further, an online free Belbin test is at: http://www.123test.com/team-roles-test/. It has fewer and less detailed questions than the actual Belbin test and I can't attest to the correctness of its results at the time of writing this.

Jo Keeler, from the Belbin Institute as posted in the comments below, clearly indicates this "free Belbin test" is an unsanctioned Belbin test (and therefore probably should be called something else!).

The Belbin Team Role is a very useful and powerful self-perception/awareness tool that is easy to grasp by those with less time or psychology foundation. In some respects it is not important that it is 100% accurate at this stage as it could be an illumination and/or reflection of how/who the person actually wants to be. Other feedback from the workplace, or from experiential team building, or training events will make the picture clearer for each individual and the team as a whole - leading towards a high performance team.

With more self-awareness of natural team role(s) placement, and the ability to sensibly apply the Belbin model to self and colleagues, opens up possibilities to understand more about the workplace and give insights into what possible steps to take to change it/oneself as required.

For the coachee, this view can be used as input to their coaching plan, to set some goals to acquire new skills and behaviours (eg a natural Plant who's ambition is to become a Co-ordinator) or wishes to improve their team's effectiveness (eg evaluating for a missing or under-represented role).

For the team or the team leader, balancing of Belbin team roles is key. Too many of 1 role or a total lack of a  role, causes the team to behave/perform in sub-optimal ways. Awareness of the team roles and the Belbin theory is useful to encourage people to acquire new behaviours if they're interested, to set SMART Goals to encourage different outcomes, and even to help influence the next recruitment opportunity.

Thank you!