3 T E C H N I Q U E S F O R H I G H - Q U A L I T Y C O M M U N I C AT I O N O N Y O U R A G I L E T E A M S

Andrea ChiouOctober 21, 2014

A G I L E D C 2 0 1 4 W O R K S H O P

Andrea Chiou, agile coach@andreachiou

Blog: www.adaptivecollaboration.com

Virginia Satir

Gerald Weinberg

David Grove

Walker

Influencers

Caitlin

andrea.chiou@santeon.com

Marshall Rosenberg

Book: www.leanpub.com/whoisusingclean

P R O J E C T S U C C E S S

!

is a function of listening, feedback, intentionality, practice(s)

P R O J E C T S U C C E S S

!

Teaming agreements and processes alone do not tap the rich diversity of experience and knowledge that is inherent in each person.

A culture where it is safe to explore is needed. Clean Language and Systemic Modeling techniques foster better collaboration

W H AT W O U L D Y O U L I K E K N O W B E F O R E W E G E T S TA RT E D ?

W H AT I W O U L D L I K E T O H AV E H A P P E N

• I’d like for this to be a flexible session, not rushed. • I’d like to be able to answer questions along the

way • I’d like for their to be enough time to debrief • I’d like folks to leave with a few ‘aha’s • I would like to have some clean feedback on the

session (drop the paper back at the Santeon booth or email me at andrea.chiou@santeon.com)

W E ’ L L U S E S Y S T E M I C M O D E L L I N G A N D C L E A N L A N G U A G E T O D AY

T R A I N I N G AT T E N T I O N

WHERE H A S I T B E E N U S E D ?

interviewshiring

coachingresearch

ITschools

doctorsgeriatric care

large organizations

therapy and social work

police investigations

ISO 9000 audits

T H E E S S E N C E O F C L E A N Q U E S T I O N S

Images taken from Contempt to Curiosity with permission

F I V E S E N S E S WA R M U P

Hear music

Feel hot sand

Smell perfume

See an elephant

Taste a lemonWhat do you think of or visualize when

you hear one of these phrases?

Tell your partnerThe partner pays attention to their own thinking as they hear the other’s answer.

Partner asks one or two of the clean

questions: !

What kind of…? Anything else about…?

Whereabouts (or where) is …. ? !

Partner pays attention to how their ‘model’ (what they imagine the other

person saw) - needs to be updated after each answer.

M E TA P H O R WA R M U P

We'll warm up using a metaphor exercise called: ! Life is like X, because Y !This exercise lets us have fun with meanings and associations, without being too serious. It gets us comfortable with describing one thing in terms of another. We can substitute ‘life’ with words like ‘project’, ‘team’, etc.!One person in pair says ‘Life is like X’, filling in X.The partner in the pair, fills in, because Y.

!

E X E R C I S E 1 A - L I S T E N I N G

We'll practice listening by suppressing our quite natural urge to respond. !We'll do this by listening to a partner talk about an event. !The ‘X’ (event) could be: a meeting, event, an interview, training, demo, retrospective, or something else !Start by asking ‘What the (some event) was like? ‘ and listen for one minute, without responding at all. !

E X E R C I S E 1 B - L I S T E N I N G

!We'll do this again, allowing ourselves to ask any of the two basic clean questions as many times as we want, at natural breaks in the flow. !We use the two core clean questions:

! ‘And is there anything else about X?,

!‘And what kind of X is that?

!X represents a word or phrase used by the person you are listening to. !

C L E A N S E T U P - T H E T H E O RY

One of the core premises in Clean is that there is a desired outcome. Many clean conversations get started with the question: ‘What would you like to have happen?’

E X E R C I S E 2 A - C L E A N S E T U P

!We'll learn to become more intentional when we interact with people with the purpose of discovering what we want. !We'll do this by practicing listening to a partner talk about something they intend to do differently or improve on in the near future and asking systemic modeling questions. !Planning for a future event !

For ‘X' to go as you would like, it would be like what? or

What would you like to have happen? !The ‘X’ (event) could be: a project, meeting, event, an interview, training, demo, retrospective. !You can augment the answer with the two core clean questions.

E X E R C I S E 2 B - C L E A N S E T U P

You can augment this with: !

What will you or others notice (see/hear) that will be evidence that you achieved that? !

What would that mean to you (inference)? !

And what would the impact be on you/others? !

**** !

And for ‘X’ to go like that, you'll need to be like what? !

And what support do you need from me (or the group)? !!

!In a group, or where several people are organizing the event, you would go around and ask everyone. Group awareness comes from understanding each person with their unique perceptions and needs. !

E X E R C I S E 3 - C L E A N F E E D B A C K

We'll learn to use a three step process to give congruent feedback. !We'll do this by simulating a scenario from work or home life. We can address either what went well, or what didn’t go so well. !Tell your partner who they are ‘role playing’ - and a bit about the scenario. The person role playing will listen to you give the feedback, but doesn’t have to respond. However, the role player may prompt you as needed to ensure the feedback giver follows the format. The prompts would be: ! • EVIDENCE: What did you hear or see? • INFERENCE: What did that mean to you? • IMPACT: What was the impact from your perspective? !The role player may also use the two clean questions to ask more about the feedback.

C L E A N F E E D B A C K

What worked well What did you observe?

!

What did that mean to you? !

!

What was the impact for you?

What did not work so well What did you observe?

!

What did that mean to you? !

!

What was the impact was for you?

E X E R C I S E 4 - M O D E L I N G

We'll learn to find out how we do things now through modeling via metaphor and augmenting with other clean questions. Modeling here refers to eliciting understanding of the way you do something so that you and others can understand how you do it. And, so that you can more easily re-create that state. !

When you are ‘___X__ing at your best, you are like what? !

This ‘X’ (verb) could be pair-coding, practicing, studying, learning, facilitating, coaching, working. !We can use the core 2 clean questions to find out more. !

MODELING IDEAS

Learning at your best

Parenting at your best

Coding at your best

Coaching at your best

Studying at your best

Designing at your best

Q & A

Here are the results of this workshop since there was no Q&A .

At the end of the day, for a 4-5 p.m. session, about 45 folks showed up.

Everyone remained energetic throughout, but apparently needed to get home, so there were no questions asked at the end. I was glad to get Clean Feedback forms from over 30 people, and I have incorporated a few of those suggestions into this version of the deck. !

I want to express my appreciation to all who came and those who stayed after to talk to me. If you are in the DC area and want more practice with this, I’ll be running this same workshop on January 30th in a 3 hour Friday morning session.

The details of that and registration are available here: http://mafn.org/event-1724379