Peter Hawkins’ Five Cs Model for High Performing Teams

 Peter Hawkins’ Five Cs Model for High Performing Teams:


1. Commission
Are we clear about what our stakeholders are requiring from us? That may be the board, the investors, the customers, communities in which we operate – so the commission comes from a number of sources and so you have to be very careful about the stakeholder/s that you are not noticing. For example, BP didn’t realise that the fisherman of the East Coast of America were an important stakeholder before it was too late. Commission is all about understanding WHY we are here, and this is determined by the stakeholders that we work with.
 
 2. Clarifying
Receiving a clear commission from your stakeholder/s is not enough. A great team creates its own sense of collective endeavour- what are we here to achieve that we can’t achieve by working in parallel? What are the KPI’s of the leadership team? Not just our individual KPI’s, but our collective goals and roles? How do we not only run our functions, but contribute to the whole? Clarifying is all about WHAT are we going to do.
 
 3. Co-creating
HOW do we work together in a way that is generative? How do we have meetings where we are not just exchanging pre-cooked thoughts, but we’re generating new thinking that none of us had before we came into the room?

4. Connecting
Great teams aren’t just ones that have great meetings; great teams are as much about what we do when we’re not together as when we are together. How do I, as part of a team, carry the sense of the whole team with me and not just my function?
 
 5. Core learning
How does the whole team develop and learn, not just the individuals within it? How does a team take time out to reflect on its development? To ask how does it grow its collective capacity? And how does it become a source of individual stretch and development for its members?

To find out more about our coaching and consulting services or just share a coffee and conversation please contact us. We love what we do and we would enjoy sharing ideas which may be useful to you.

TimHJRogers
Consultant Mentor Coach
Helping people and organisations get things done
Tim@AdaptConsultingCompany.com

Some references

https://www.teamcoachingzone.com/dr-peterhawkins
https://www.koganpage.com/article/the-5-disciplines-of-high-performing-teams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a81GDxAMnp8

Where will you find the best motivation?

 This is an interesting model for a coach. Clients will often come for support in achieving goals which are externally motivated: What by boss wants; What my friends think; What  [...] thinks I should do; What media says is success. This is simply (and somewhat superficially) addressed using the GROW model and some SMART goals. However what is more important is the internal dialogue, the personal thoughts and feelings (possibly inner turmoil or conflict). This requires more patience and deeper listening but the results will exist within the client and have more efficacy, conviction and commitment than a 3 step plan (to loose weight, win big, find your true self, nail that project etc.) 

THE PROBLEM WITH PATHOS AND THE NEED TO FOCUS ON PEOPLE

CONSULTING & COACHING TO ENABLE PROGRESS AND PERFORMANCE

Although I have been a consultant, coach, mentor, trainer for some time I have decided to become ICF Accredited.

As part of the the course I have had the opportunity to meet new coaches and experienced (15-20 years) coaches and it is really interesting to see where they draw the line (or vague boundary) between everyday conversation, coaching, counselling and therapy.

The ICF provide clear guidance (LINK 1) but it is nonetheless intersting where both novice and experienced coaches draw distinctions. Some indicated a feeling of empathy or even sympathy for their client seemed to be going too far into the emotions, with an apparent preference for goal setting without tears. Others recoiled at a question aimed to understand how current feelings of anxiety might be linked to past experiences of grief or loss.

A lot of the focus is problem reframing, process, action and goals. Which is good stuff. But there is perhaps more to life than weight-loss goals, presentation skills and project delivery. There are challenging existential, values, beliefs, relationships etc., which can be the cause of modern stress, crisis and self-exportation, discovery and purpose (including life, career, family reappraisal). I think and feel emotion or stress are a part of life and within scope of Coaching, rather than a mental health problem that needs therapy or pharmacy.

Since Covid we talk of a mental health crisis, but I believe in most cases people are not fundamentally broken. What is needed is compassion and conversation, enabling people to exercise their thinking and remedies and only in some cases (see ICF Guidance) referral to a specialist.  

I say compassion rather than empathy or sympathy, because the former remains agnostic, independant and resourceful whereas the ..pathy comes from the greek pathos which can be unhelpful if it simply adds fuel to the fire or water to the well.

For me the e in emotion is the energy that drives us or holds us. To avoid engaging with emotion and instead pursue SMART objectives and next steps is to miss a key essense of coaching which is to support the client through their experience, their mental maps, and their desired outcomes.

We live in a world of 5 step plans, top 10 tips, life hacks and easy remedies. We need to perhaps focus less on the recipe and more on the chef and their choice of ingredients (assumptions, values, believes, patterns) which are guided by emotions (pride, fear, sorrow, joy, grief, anxiety) into behaviours.

This is what so often is lacking when we create project plans and personal appraisals: we omit to focus on the person and their resources in preference for results which are transitory and temporary.

Coaching is a conversational journey to enable people to unlock their potential by understanding their resources, motivation, barriers and goals. Coaching is about asking the right questions.

To see case studies or find out more, or just share a coffee and conversation contact us. We love what we do and we would enjoy sharing ideas which may be useful to your organisation.


TimHJRogers
Consultant Mentor Coach
Helping people and organisations get things done:
http://www.adaptconsultingcompany.com/coaching/

Adapt Consulting Company
Consult CoCreate Deliver
@AdaptCCompany +447797762051

ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential, which is particularly important in today's uncertain and complex environment.

LINK 1
New ICF Resource Helps Coaches Understand When and How to Refer Clients to Therapy
https://coachfederation.org/blog/new-icf-resource-helps-coaches-understand-when-and-how-to-refer-clients-to-therapy
https://coachfederation.org/app/uploads/2018/05/Whitepaper-Client-Referral.pdf

WHAT CAN COACHES AND CONSULTANTS LEARN FROM SPEACH AND LANGUAGE THERAPISTS

WHAT CAN COACHES AND CONSULTANTS LEARN FROM SPEACH AND LANGUAGE THERAPISTS
Improved communication when not talking.

We all know how important communication is. For a human infant it is a life and death situation. Without the ability to communicate with sounds and behaviours they are unable to communicate need, hunger, fear, discomfort. Communication is our key to connection with colleagues, communities, cultures even countries.

So what if you cannot talk?

As a consultant and coach I am always aware of the opportunity to learn from different fields and am really interested in Speech and Language Therapy (for example helping stroke patients to communicate) and what it might teach us about every-day communication.

I am indebted to a number of people for the notes below and have included links and references in an efforts to ensure appropriate acknowledgements and references for my observations and speculations. I am not a clinician or a neuroscientist so I apologise if I have misinterpreted the journals and would invite more informed readers to make corrections or clarifications in the comments.  

CONTEXT

“All rehabilitation at its heart, concerns changing behaviour.” For some stroke victims the rehabilitation is a collaboration between them and their partner with both having to make adjustments. Interestingly not everyone understands this at first.

1. There are some cases in a partnership where they work brilliantly as a team to use signs, signals, sounds, gestures, writing, pointing etc., to make-up the short-fall in speech and as a result communicate very well.

2. There are some cases in a partnership where one partner is trying to help correct, improve, guide, challenge the other into getting it right; much as you would do with teaching a child. The problem is that although well intended this may be future because of the damage caused by the stroke and may just create frustration and confusion and actually undermine communication. For example if you know B.. B.. B.. means ball, you've got the meaning why challenge them further my making them say the whole word perfectly?

3. There are some people who fail to appreciate their role, importance and partnership thinking that they do not have to make big changes because it is not them with the stroke. They do not immediately realise that the rehabilitation is for them too, because they have been affected.

A STUDY

I have read of studies (links below) that describe how speech and language therapists use a structured approach based around Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) and Behaviour Change Wheel to guide both participants (the stroke victim and their partners) through the challenges, problems, barriers, opportunities and possibilities for better communication.

This is interesting for anyone interested in communication and change. Remember the most significant model in Business Change today is the Kublar Ross Change Curve which came from a Health context. Maybe the next breakthrough in Communication and Motivation exists in neuroscience and Speech and Language Therapy.

SUMMARY OF APPROACH TAKEN

Coaches, consultants and project managers all love  structure, tools, templates and lists to guide process. So these models were really interesting even if the reality is that they are simply a model to provoke thinking rather than a strict prescription of what works in exact doses.

See Table 2. Structure, aims, and activities within better conversations with aphasia.
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/09638288.2019.1703147

The above table/link is the "recipe" that the speech and language therapists followed with the stroke victim and their partners. I am interested as a consultant and coach whether a similar approach is useful in other circumstances.

CONUNDRUM

Some things appear to work better than others

See Table 3. Reliably agreed BCTs identified in Better Conversations with Aphasia.
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/09638288.2019.1703147

The above table/link shows which Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) worked

It seems that sometimes the "recipe" works, sometimes it doesn't and it not always obvious why. A possible reason is that it is not the "recipe" but maybe the ingredients (participants) or the chef (therapist/coach) that makes the difference.

Everyone's stroke is different, just as every person and personality is different. So perhaps some 'tools' suit different situations better than others. After all a hammer and a drill are both DIY tools useful to shelves but they are not interchangeable!

See pages 47 to 68 of this PDF for The taxonomy of behaviour change techniques
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1400691/1/Michie_et%20al.%20(in%20press)%20-%20BCT%20Taxonomy%20v1%20development%20paper.pdf

 

As a consultant and coach I was interested, but do not know from the information available.

1. Was the personality (assumptions, beliefs, values) of either the stroke victim or their partners a factor?
2. Was the education, age, social background a factor?
3. Is being intrinsically (from within) motivated versus extrinsically motivated (to appear to others) a factor?
4. Is an internal locus of control (I manage my life) versus external locus of control (Life happens to me) a factor?

However it does seem possible that the step-by-step the "recipe"  may impact, influence or change some of these factors to the extent that stroke victim or their partners change their belief, assumptions, accountability, and thus their behaviour, and thus improve their approach to communication which is more about meaning and understanding than about the ability to talk.

Maybe for some people the the "recipe"  unlocked something for the stroke victim or their partners that for others was left untouched. It would be really interesting to examine all the combinations but possibly a difficult task without an infinite amount of time to accommodate all combinations or some super Artificial Intelligence which can do the modelling for us.

Do do feel there is much to learn from Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) taxonomy, if only as a guide of options for coaches and consultant conversations. I certainly welcome any comments from Speech and Language Therapists on their experience of what works and what doesn't in conversations that are geared towards communication, understanding, and change.

We are after all able to communicate meaning and understanding with our offspring well before they are able to talk, so there is no reason that should stop if they loose the ability to talk.

TimHJRogers
Consultant Mentor Coach
Helping people and organisations get things done:
http://www.adaptconsultingcompany.com/coaching/

Adapt Consulting Company
Consult CoCreate Deliver
@AdaptCCompany +447797762051


Behaviour Change Wheel
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1748-5908-6-42

The taxonomy of behaviour change techniques to a conversation therapy for aphasia
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09638288.2019.1703147

Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs)
See  Table 3. Reliably agreed BCTs identified in Better Conversations with Aphasia.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09638288.2019.1703147

Also Electronic Supplementary Materials Table 3. BCT Taxonomy (v1): 93 hierarchically-clustered techniques
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1400691/1/Michie_et%20al.%20(in%20press)%20-%20BCT%20Taxonomy%20v1%20development%20paper.pdf

Also
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK327624/table/table4/?report=objectonly