welcome everybody to
uh
this session today from the gallup
certified strengths coach 2022 learning
series this is our fifth
session of the week
first four have been fantastic great
feedback great energy incredible
questions um a lot of sort of learning
provoking thoughts i've been saying all
along i i've got five six pages now of
just one-liners i'm just like little
little nuggets that i'm trying to keep
up with so uh as more of our our friends
join us i want to go over a few sort of
housekeeping things right chat is here
for you to interact with each other uh
to ask questions to engage if you have a
question that you want us to try to
answer in the conversation or a specific
thing you need address um chat's going
to be tough because there's going to be
there's already about 500 of you in
there uh and so as we get large numbers
in that it's hard to keep up with the
pace so the q and a function is your
place to ask questions i'll be
monitoring that throughout the whole the
whole time today
uh as we go through this again remember
this is for you
um our hope here at gallup uh in doing
this learning series every year is that
we can bring to you
uh our perspective
um some ideas some some best practices
but also i think the things we're
passionate about the things we care
about in terms of how we talk about
these topics how we learn about them how
we
work with clients and all the topics
we're discussing come from your feedback
right they come from you telling us what
you want to learn more about the kinds
of questions you ask us throughout the
year so today
i am just thrilled like this is just a
an absolute delight to welcome back one
of my best friends at work one of my
role models in this whole thing uh miss
micah librant who is going to lead us
through a conversation on some best
practices with group coaching and how
you handle
uh some of the issues that may come up
and how do you approach a group in a
team at a time this is something that i
think many coaches ask us about
um if you were to monitor our facebook
groups and our our questions holy cow
the number of of issues we get asked
about around team settings group
settings
all the time so when we were building
this agenda i went to mike and i said
micah
i need you i need your help with this
one because we share best practices a
lot but they get kind of stale we've
shared the same best practices all the
time i want you to do i want you to be
micah and come up with something cool
and different and
i think she's done that so i'm really
excited to let micah take over and as a
special treat to all of you who are
themed thursday aficionados over the
years
i'm going to take myself off camera
i'm going to mute myself i'm going to go
back in the background and monitor q a
this is micah and jim for the next hour
doing their thing together so it's gonna
sort of be a throwback a little bit of
homage because we don't have theme
thursday live right now uh i'm gladly
gonna step in the background micah the
floor is yours let jim do whatever you
want him to do
thank you austin what a a glowing way to
get to step into this role and so i'll
tell you just a little bit about myself
for those of you who haven't worked with
me before
mostly that i'm just incredibly grateful
to be with you today um here's my top
five and perhaps you can tell already
why a couple things that austin said in
his intro
were exactly what i want to step up to
the plate for that idea of do something
new i'm going to pick which one of my
top five you can see here on the screen
that might be
do something interesting
and show up and be micah wow what a
great way to set up a partner thank you
austin and thanks for everything that
this entire group has been doing all
week you have been
affecting the
world in a very positive way and the
drops that you have dropped into this
pond are going to ripple for longer than
even you know
i come to you from western nebraska
although i have the exact same
background that i had for seven years as
we were hosting theme thursday um you
you heard maybe some um
reflection of theme thursday let me just
help you understand it's a fantastic
learning tool
we didn't retire it it's not gone away
in fact i had a good friend of mine who
was my neighbor in virginia beach i saw
some virginia beach people here michelle
this morning said hey micah how do i
hear you talking about achiever it's
like i lived right next to you for three
years but here's the podcast and she
responded with i thought theme thursday
went away it's still there it's still a
wonderful
resource and a learning tool and of
course you can also check out everything
on the clifton strengths podcast as well
that's a bit around my background i'm a
senior learning consultant here at
gallup i get paid to keep my ear to the
ground on what's working at work and
then snap all that together with what
gallup is researching in a way that
shows up typically in a classroom or in
a coaching conversation
so it's great to be here with you today
um full transparency i've been focusing
a lot on
intentionally pressing pause in the
midst of a problem and asking myself how
would i what would what would be the
next step if this were easy
and what would be the next step if this
were fun
and i had fully prepared an entire
one-way keynote for you
because i fell into the trap that many
of us fall into of thinking that there
was a right way to do what you're asked
to do
um and then as i was driving to the
airport earlier this week i thought nope
easy and fun i'm gonna call jim
so
um thankfully i we get to do this i will
carry most of the weight of our
conversation today
but my very best friend in work and life
is here to make this conversational
so jim thanks for being here on a
thursday mark it's always great always
great to be with you and looking forward
to the topic today awesome just for
those of you who are joining if you
would like to
listen to the audio only it's going to
be a really great audio experience there
are a few slides you can see right now a
title slide it's just my name in the
title of the
session strategic positivity woo
communication ideation is how i come to
you um but i have a total
of about 10 slides um and i have you for
40 minutes so you're not gonna miss much
if you want to just plug in some
headphones or heck play this out loud
and walk around while you listen get
outside get some movement
i have a friend listening right now
who's currently making bracelets as they
listen just to keep their brain engaged
and their tactile movement happening i
promise that i will
describe for you what's on the slide so
you won't you won't miss that phyllis is
knitting it's fantastic
um jim should we jump in yeah micah what
are we talking about today friend we're
talking about conflict when austin
introduced me he didn't just say micah
is amazing he also said we handed micah
a really hard topic
and i think i i think today really will
challenge us um it will challenge us to
be incredibly real
and acknowledge that there's a lot of
challenges as coaches that we've been
facing that we haven't before
so for those of you who maybe cringe at
the word conflict you can also call it
friction and and that may help us
remember that conflict in and of itself
is not good or bad it's how you react to
it
and with great coaching
friction
can create better realities and isn't
that our job as coaches
to stay
tethered to that belief that tomorrow
can be better than what we're
experiencing today
and offer inspiration offer challenge
offer acknowledgement of the friction in
order to elevate our clients experience
so we got kind of a structure we're
going to do for this how are we going to
go about this
great so i've invited you jim um to
to join me mostly just to have fun and
be my friend but also i have two other
asks of you um please keep me grounded
if i get too philosophical
or too much into the frameworks that
i've cooked up because
i'm excited about them they're new i
have communication and ideation if i get
a little too what if if you could um
join me by asking those
the yeah right questions um or even
maybe share some micro stories of your
own experience you're in addition to
being a consummate professional and my
best friend you're also a manager and
have been really successful in that role
in the past so i'd love it if you'd kind
of ground me on that one um and if you
could also help me monitor this
incredible chat and think on your feet
like you always do um i want to make
sure that we're involving the community
who's here today
how's that sound yeah it sounds great
i'll be watching chat we can't cover a
lot of it you can use the q a for this
in particular but
uh micah let's take a second let's dive
in and get right on this thank you so a
couple
um guard rails that are important
especially virtually that we have to
create on our own that maybe when we
were in person were created for us that
i'd like us all to adhere to today
whatever is discussed whether it's from
me jim austin or anyone in the chat um
i'd like us i want to propose these
three agreements first is that we assume
positive intent
that we realize that we're all here for
a good reason and some of us might need
to say some things out loud before we
totally believe them this is a safe
space to do that and please assume
positive intent from the colleagues that
are here with us in the chat um in every
way possible communicate that you
respect the questions the sharing
and respond with curiosity
i got to be in a really meaningful
learning space earlier this week and
they were selling t-shirts that said
radically curious
so before jumping to conclusions or
ascribing any like personal judgment
towards something that maybe
triggers something in you good or bad
see if we can indeed respond with
curiosity
so let's do this i got a little bit
distracted by phyllis in the chat who
used a word that triggers me in a
positive way you know what it's going to
be don't you jim i do i do but say it
there's a peloton group there you go
i think they've been hashtagging clifton
strengths right you can follow me um you
got this mama and i i ride with the
queen
anyway here we are strength space teams
that's why we're here uh and here's
gallup's definition of strengths-based
teams you've probably seen this before
but i want to um drag your attention and
really spotlight a few of these words
one is the word imperfect
this might as well say humans instead of
contributors
because as long as humans are on teams
coaches are going to have a job
we've got
this also the acknowledgment that we
need each other so that's going to be
part of the representation and the
assumption that we move through when
we're talking about how to coach teams
through conflict
maybe it is worth that check-in of how
much do we need each other
and when we're working with
strengths-based teams we work with that
assumption that
solving our ways of working together
is going to get us somewhere maybe that
somewhere is
improving our own well-being or
improving our own engagement maybe it's
also
getting the stuff done that we have to
get done
so it's important that we when we're
coaching we don't skip the pre-show
uh jim when everything changed overnight
about two years ago
do you i remember a conversation with
you when we said how do we create a
great virtual environment for even our
own colleagues and there were three
things that you and i knew right away
it was
i i think i said camera on mute off and
then you added the third one you
remember what it was uh remind me just
because i want to make sure i get it
normally i give jim a script this is
totally off script here i said never
skip the pre-show and it was something i
learned from jim in in the podcasting
world how do you build a community
without being there with them physically
well you realize that as a coach
you're never on or off you're just
always there
you are their coach a hundred percent um
and so as you're coaching a team
we've always said go in and you coach
the manager first
um when you're thinking about especially
helping a team through conflict maybe
that coaching the manager
is in addition to
discovery and i think about discovery
like they talk about it in legal dramas
um you really do have to know what
you're walking into and what we're
expecting on the other side
how
um
how are people currently feeling valued
for their contribution what are people's
contributions
how much does this team really need each
other what's going on
what is the
the current state of their awareness
around their own strengths and around
each other's uh but i mentioned earlier
that as long as teams are made of people
there's going to be conflict as we dive
into
our conversation today you'll probably
realize what i did as i was taking notes
about this which is most of the conflict
or friction that we come up with can be
described by difference
and
there's probably no
this isn't science was going to sound
like it so disclaimer
there's probably no species on the
planet that within that single species
has more difference than humans
most dogs at the end of the day are
still dogs
we are super varied and that's part of
what's so beautiful about the the
strengths tool is our difference
so again it's how much do we need each
other where are differences that we
already know of and what does excellence
look like as we're addressing this um
the situation hey mike i want to clear
something up in the chat room so some
folks have not
been able to join us for what we call
the pre-show and
and so that reference may not land with
them let me explain that really quick so
when we would do theme thursdays live we
would have this time of pre-mid and post
shows in between the recordings and
oftentimes the real
kind of the real conversations right
would start
and end during the non-recorded portions
of what we were doing they were the
genuine and authentic moments in that
and so by not skipping this pre-show is
this idea of we even though we were
going to be on camera i think we still
needed to be genuine and authentic in
all the things that we did right it was
the real moments that mattered right in
there yes and it was it's also what it's
not
is you know we talk about it in the
podcast sense and then i'll i'll get
real clear about what we mean for
coaches um what it's not
is saying thanks for joining hang out
we're going to get started in a bit
and then when the
clock tells you to saying okay now we're
going to be started what it is
as a coach
is realizing the minute you pick up that
phone for somebody who says help i need
some strengths advice
you're showing up real in that moment
and that authenticity is going to to
filter through so it means do your
homework in the nicest way show up and
realizing that part of your coaching
experience part of the value that you
are bringing to
positive change for a team
is the conversation that you have before
the team conversation and the follow-up
that you have afterwards
micah can we set the groundwork for some
of these ideas of conflict i'm seeing in
the chat right now
some like it's already starting to
separate a little bit and i know you've
got kind of a framework in which we
think about this can you walk us through
that part alicia i see your question is
micah defining friction as difference no
no um what i'm saying is a lot of the
convicts so today we're gonna talk
through
um basically five different popular
conflicts problems reasons teams might
not be getting along
and my note about difference is that
difference gone unvoiced
can lead to a difference of expectations
that can lead to conflict there also
might be other reasons that there's
conflict but what i found as a
commonality across many of the conflicts
that i deal with with teams or many of
the reasons that you know colleagues are
brought in with teams or many of the
reasons i don't like people which is
very rare i can't i can't think of any
human i've met that i actually don't
like but think about reasons that
conflict arises at the heart of them
very often is different difference that
that goes unnoticed and valued or
unrecognized um thank you for asking
that and clarifying as you can see jim
and i really do love uh playing off of
what you need in the moment uh so please
feel free to type whatever you're
thinking in the chat and if i can
clarify it i certainly will if we skip
over it type it in the q a and austin
will handle it because chances are it
was a really hard question that i didn't
know the answer to
so we're going to talk about
five things today we're going to attack
and we're going to use frameworks that
you already know
that perhaps will just give you a
different take on being able to recall
these frameworks in the moment while
coaching a team
as i've been developing these ideas i've
noticed myself recall these frameworks
in the session in a team session um and
i've been able to use them sorted to get
a foothold as you're as you're climbing
the mountain i'm not going to give you
the answers to how to resolve conflict
i'm not going to give you a prescription
for which strength needs something what
what exactly it needs in order to feel
like they're in this utopia state but i
am hopefully going to give you a way to
conceptualize
friction conflict disagreement
so that you can feel confident
sitting with it and holding the space
for it and really guiding a team through
it couple assumptions this should not be
a 101 learning session for you there's a
reason that this is for certified
coaches you really do need to understand
live and breathe our five guiding
principles um and the the assumption is
also that you would be working with an
intact team so again that's part of the
pre-show of doing your homework and
checking out
what is the state of this team how
important is it that we work together
this has been way too much preamble for
the good stuff that we have coming up so
let's start with something i call
conflict zero or phase zero
and i call it that because it's probably
the piece that you graduated your
certified
course thinking about that if you're not
careful you could explain it away on
paper and that's the idea of strengths
that come from different places
and by their very nature
may not
work together if they're coming from two
different people so let's try that
this of course we're assuming positive
intent we're assuming we can get through
this we know that we
really value each each contributor's
contribution here but in the chat i'm
going to give you maybe three different
pairs of strengths and i'd like you to
tell me test your strength knowledge
here why two different people or groups
of people with each of these pairs
might experience friction
the first one is
strategic and restorative
let's say you've got two people on on a
team they do need to work together we've
done all our homework on there
and now one of them is leading with
strategic and the other is leading with
restorative
what could lead just on a strengths uh
location how might they have some
friction
and you want them to put that in check
go ahead and put it in the chat yeah not
in the q a we're not watching that one
respond in the chat so all your really
smart friends can see how smart you are
well let let me ramble a little bit mike
as folks for putting things in the chat
how's that sound i know you you have
strategic number one and i i think
sometimes
we would spend a lot of times
talking about the right things to do
but it took us a while maybe to get to
the decision where
restorative may want to approach that
from a scenario of getting that fixed
and fixed now other themes play into
that um uh in the chat we got fred says
one's looking back and one's looking
forward megan says one focused oh these
are going fast
this is not
this is not like um this is interesting
ricardo has him in his top 10 but
somebody earlier said that's 1 in 34 for
me
good reminder that there are no
opposites on themes right but there are
for people
if you have something number one the
opposite for you is gonna feel like what
you have at number 34. um but inherently
strategic is not the opposite of of
restorative i just want to acknowledge
what a lot of you have said here and a
lot of there's no right answer here
there's not research behind
the
the potential conflict between all 34.
um however i love where your head's at
because you're thinking about what that
could be just when strengths show up as
friction instead of function
strategic might
look around a problem and say we don't
have to fix this i can discard it it
didn't matter
restorative might say
i love sitting with this and really
making sure that we restore it or get it
right before we move on
so that could be one reason there could
be 17 other reasons and i throw out 17
loosely it's the number i use when i
mean a lot
so lots of other things that you said
here absolutely could be it i like that
you're seeing the framework of really
that phase zero conflict is
strengths that are showing up as
friction instead of function let's try
one more i think i said three but we'll
try one um how about
maximizer
and achiever
go ahead and type into the chat or if
you're walking i know several of you are
on the treadmill right now think about
it
tell your neighbor on the other
treadmill and later maybe they'll need
you to coach them i i actually like
i like those two together i like all of
these together i really like those
they might when gone unchecked just lead
to some misguided friction
look at all these great answers yeah
maximizer says um it's never done it
could always be better an achiever says
it's not real unless it's done
so maybe it's the pace that we want
maybe it's where we want to focus jim
what are you thinking in my case it
might be done versus more done like i
you know i'd like to do but i also like
to do a lot so
it may be that creating tension right in
that scenario of i thought we got that
done the maximizer says
but we could do it we could do more
i think you know better what better
would fit i like more but uh yeah so
that yeah i love that you're describing
just the like where do we land what is
what is the most important problem that
we're solving right here right right i
can i tell you i fretted over even doing
this activity because part of me thought
it was so counter
uh philosophy of strengths that oh we
shouldn't let coaches go there um and
then i reminded myself that we are
talking about energy we are talking
about how we as coaches can do the yeah
right and realign and adjust that energy
and if energy is not in a space where
you're aware of why there's a difference
that can explode right but if you can
align that energy and acknowledge that
it's real and acknowledge that yeah this
isn't always awesome
that's what it takes uh i heard a
podcast yesterday that said change is
always preceded by awareness
so we are doing this in a safe space
where we are with a bunch of people who
already understand the intention of
strengths and now we can get super real
about what actually may happen
so that's that's conflict zero i named
that you don't have to call it that but
it is remembering that sometimes
strengths are just gonna help you start
that conversation of awareness
again if they're if they start with
friction we also have to believe that
they can get to function
uh by by talking about that and again
that's another reason you really want to
set those those safeguard rails around
where are we going and what does what
does great look like
um the next thing i want to show you
this might be the only visual you
actually need
so for those of you on the treadmill i'm
going to describe it to you
if you think about what you know
about working with a team i'd like you
to in your brain
think about a specific
rub or friction or conflict or
disagreement
or not great thing
now i'm putting judgment on the conflict
think about a reason that a team might
not be functioning the way you want them
to
now if you're listening i'm going to
describe you exactly what i have on the
screen it's a four box
and along the vertical axis is the word
awareness
along the horizontal axis is the word
resolution
i am willing to bet that most reasons
for conflict among a team can fit into
one one of these four boxes so the top
right is
expectations that are voiced
and met
in the i mean that's awesome right
that's that's where we want to be that
is our goal as coaches is getting teams
to tell each other here's what i need
and then follow up on what that need is
below that
um
or the the bottom right i am really bad
at my right from my left i did a group
yoga class this week that was horribly
embarrassing i'm here for you
just disclaimer
bottom right um needs that are unvoiced
but met
so
maybe this is you know somebody that you
just jive with you're not quite sure why
but it works so you keep going
now the left column
is why the world needs coaches just like
doctors spend most of their time with
unhealthy people chances are this is
where you get to spend a lot of your
time as a coach
at the top on the left is needs that are
voiced but are unmet
and at the bottom is needs that have not
yet been voiced
and are not met
kara says it's like johari's window but
different i never quite understood
johari dean jones does a great video on
it um but here's another way that you
could take a look at this is let's give
it some words
so unvoiced and net or bottom right
that's what we just call chemistry
or
accidentally awesome
it's great if you can find it um but
that's just about hey i never even told
you what i needed and you read my mind
um probably also all too often what we
expect from our partners
in the top where we're aiming for is
we've talked about what we need and
we've met it for each other that's where
collaboration lives
and i've said it before on this series
and on others those elements of
collaboration from gallup's work around
power of two um they're they're super
powerful i think sarah is even going to
be talking about it a bit tonight around
acknowledging that you need each other
to get the job done that's around
complementary strengths a common mission
trust
unselfishness is kind of the pinnacle of
that where you go into a partnership to
benefit yourself but you come out of it
wanting better for the other person
we also call okay now let's go over to
the quadrant where we live as coaches um
the voiced but unmet needs that's
frustration
and if they're unvoiced and unmet
maybe that's just dysfunction or denial
maybe in some cases it's also
unhealthy resignation
thanks michelle for that um that
description there in the chat when i say
voiced i do mean have you told someone
you have this need
or maybe have you even told the group
that you assume you have an expectation
these could be those culturally spotted
expectations um has it been said
so we can use this to not have a
prescription but again to have a
framework of what do we do as coaches
first we take a look at the strengths
and we say is this just a friction
versus function state
can we just talk about different
perspectives
and that might be a quick solve that's
worth stopping at
but then
if we can't explain it away with
strengths and resolve it which you
usually cannot
then we look for how do we first
voice this conflict
then i'll give you a framework for
thinking about three different options
to meet it
but let's think about voicing the
conflict and your role as a coach
here's where i gave you a hook earlier
that we're going to use some frameworks
that were familiar to you
this is our framework that we typically
use for strengths development what do
you do now that you've taken strengths
well you name claim and aim it don't
forget that in our coaching courses we
remind you that trust is the
the ticket to entry that's where you
have to get your wristband before you
can go to the concert is establishing
trust with um with your clients and with
the team
out loud even if you've already
established trust with the manager of
that team
you really have to keep your eye on your
role of caring for the trust sandbox
that you are asking the team members to
play in
and then you can use
name claim and aim to really explore
what is this conflict that we're talking
about have you noticed that today we've
even tripped over our own words do we
say conflict do we say disagreement do
we say it's good or bad do we say
struggle well
it's normal that we don't have words for
this
up until you met strengths you didn't
even have words for all the different
ways people could be incredible
so give yourself some grace
here's just some really i think basic
ways to
ask what's going on again in that phrase
of voicing the conflict so name it is
what needs are unmet
claim it
what is important about meeting them
you might even go as bold as to say what
is the cost if we don't resolve it
and maybe
this is your out and you're done it
doesn't it's maybe it's a problem that
does not need to be solved it just needs
to be let go
elsa
but then aim it is where you bring up
your greatest coaching competencies and
really set the
rules of engagement for how we're going
to explore this together what do we
expect of each other as we discuss is
this a what happens in the room stays in
the room topic is this something that we
know is going to take us a long time
what can we cover in the time that we
have together thanks for catching that
lisa
and to help you remember your role as a
coach i do want to bring in the icf
coaching competencies here specific to
how they overlay with our trust sandbox
i don't think anyone's ever used the
word sandbox so if you're confused by
that it was just
the container
of that name claim aim live in
remember your role is to keep an eye on
the trust container and you do that
through how you set the foundation of
what this team is about to talk about
how you co-create the relationship or
set that agreement of how far do we
really think we can get about this what
does solved for today look like what
does solved long term look like it's
okay that those that those are different
um communicating effectively how do you
underline what some people are saying
without placing judgment on it
and again how do you let them go through
the conflict
hold the space to sit wherever they need
to sit
and also challenge them to grow from it
um i think somebody asked if they could
see this slide you know what just take
trust and draw it around the icf
coaching competencies that are available
for you from the international coaching
federation that's all these are
but what i'm hoping to help you connect
here
is that your
effectiveness across these is what
builds the sandbox of trust
and while we're still in that space of
voicing
the conflict
this is a place where you might want to
write these down
i've used name
claim and aim
to help you not talk about individual
strengths
and not even talk about in like the team
grid but really help you
all get on close to the same page of
what is this conflict we're discussing
that also might mean
are the right people in the room to
discuss this
and that might mean
we need fewer people or we need more
more parties to really address what's
going on
um a client shared with me a great story
that i'll share with you in a moment
about perspective
and how
first within trust again we're going to
acknowledge that however anybody feels
about this this perspective as long as
they deserve being in the room to solve
it their perspective is true
and so that's where we're going to
invite people to name their perspective
what do you think this problem is really
about maybe even what do you think a
potential solution is that we could
keep in mind and skip ahead to
some questions that help you
name it with a group not for a group um
my favorite one comes from a book that
kurt leasefeld um wrote in that his wife
rosie gave to me after he passed
the courage to teach by parker palmer
and
parker palmer talks about how to have
engaging dialogue in a classroom and
it's please and thank you
so
instead of me just pointing at jim and
saying jim what do you think
you'll notice that i do this when i
facilitate yours uh your sessions um i
say jim please
that acknowledgement that your
perspective is valuable and matters
then you might also just continue to
really make sure we're naming the
conflict what are you processing how
does it feel what is your experience how
do you view this
um
here's the story i told you i would uh
tell real quickly if we're all standing
around an apple tree and there's a big
juicy apple hanging from a reachable
branch
but the tree is in the middle of the
room it's a magical room the groceries
let that part go we're all standing in a
circle around it and everybody next to
me is salivating because
a we love apples
b
it looks divine
it is so ripe and so ready to be picked
but not too ripe you know i get all my
apples from the grocery store but you
can imagine you're standing in an actual
orchard where they grow
and i say okay guys we need to go pick
this apple
and so we take a step forward and we
even bring other people along with us
but then the rest of the circle is
standing on the other side and they look
confused
a little angry
potentially even disgusted at the fact
that we're about to go pick this apple
if i would have just asked what are you
seeing
one of them would have said micah there
is a giant
green
and black worm crawling out of the side
of that apple
instead i didn't stop to ask and they
said how could you possibly want to pick
this apple and then i put all sorts of
value on why they wouldn't want me to
pick it and we go farther and farther
and farther on
because we haven't done this first step
of voicing what the need is
and sharing the perspective that we have
so if the bad news is there's always
going to be conflict on a team the good
news is the team is the way through it
austin did that count as your one-liner
i think that that might come close to
qualifying for one yeah
that'll make a list
i was i didn't even think about that
ahead of time
um so we're talking about how do you
voice the need the second is you claim
it so thank you again from parker palmer
when somebody shares how they're feeling
we say thank you
we say okay
we say what makes that important
and again we're not solving
because then we'll get into the aim it
space where we might say
go back to that co-creating the
relationship from the icf competency
where would you like to take this
um let's revisit our goal
because sometimes this can bubble up in
the middle of a team session that was
billed to you as the coach as just come
do a retreat
right if you're doing your job right i
think sometimes you wade into this
territory where people are very honest
about difference in a way that is not
working out so maybe it is just saying
what would you like to
amend and from my high school
parliamentary procedure team i know that
there are three ways to amend something
at addition subtraction
or
um i don't know something else anytime i
give you a number i can't
remember all of them but what do we want
to do
we'll cover you on that one thank you
robert's rules three ways to amend the
main motion addition subtraction or i
don't know striking but it seems like
subtraction anyway
but i think it's important to say what
should we add to our original goal what
should we
take away from our original goal or what
should we change all together
an amendment to a main motion does have
to be germane to the main motion
otherwise you get a point of order
reword thank you laura
and then how does the awareness that
you're in right now serve our best
selves in the future so don't run away
from the conflict don't think you have
failed acknowledge it and say okay what
just bubbled up that is important or
will be important to you in the future
what should we austin said table it um
what should we set aside
and when should we revisit that
so there you've got
the name claim aim framework for how to
voice um a need austin you're back
as you're going through that framework i
think one of the themes that i'm i'm
sensing and i'm seeing some some
conversation and some questions around
is really about like you just said not
avoiding conflict in a session you're in
there with a team or a group
things aren't
perfect you can sense it
that as
as coaches oftentimes we either may feel
is is it my place to bring this up in a
group is it not do i call this out now
in the moment do i try to
pull people aside at the end like from
your perspective with this construct
when do i put it into practice like
when do i ask these questions when do i
when do i
have this sort of exploratory sort of
curiosity if you will
so i naturally lean more toward presence
than
preparation or mastery uh as i'm
facilitating so i know i have a bias
what i'm about to say is going to sound
really brave but it really is just
really true to me it's not as courageous
for me to say it as it might be for for
as it's about to come off
um there is
nothing more real than the present
moment
so when you ask this it's when it comes
up and with permission
again your job is not to make the team
perfect it's not to make the team happy
it's to help it's not to make the team
feel better
it's to help the team do better and do
might mean performance it might be
collaboration um and we have to stay
committed to that and be present as
coaches remember you're not just a
facilitator um if you do want your
experience with a team to be an event
a keynote a recognition space a really
fun
time that's fine
but if you're showing up as a coach not
just a facilitator who's got a great
powerpoint and there is value in that
there is absolutely value in that but if
your intention is to show up as a coach
i think you have to be fully present
with the moment and
ask for permission again acknowledge
keep your eye on the trust sandbox
if what you're about to ask and provoke
is going to
pop the trust bubble
um
then you can't go there or you might
need to ask if you can go there i was in
a team session this week and they were
in i mean it wasn't even negative
conflict it was they were in a space
where they were realizing they're coming
from different perspectives and i said
the question
i feel like you're getting to somewhere
really important is it okay if we stay
here a while
what i didn't have to say out loud was
that means i'm not getting to the other
cool activity i had planned
but
i think if you want
your work
to be about integrating with theirs and
accelerating theirs
then that is i have a slide on this that
comes back to where your
self-orientation lies and how
well you're building trust as a coach
your courage to go there to voice the
needs that are being unmet
means that if you're worth you're you're
worth taking a risk you're risking
walking out of maybe a client where
they're paying you
without them feeling sunny
because it's not about you because again
it's your job as a coach to stay
tethered to groups like this to peers to
inspiration to your own body to your own
soul and stay in that belief
that there is a better place you can get
to tomorrow and sometimes your job is
just to inspire that to remind them that
we're not just here for good that when
you agree that you're focusing on
strength you're focusing on
thriving and good is anybody's game
no micah
i love having you back on so
what i just heard and i'm gonna play
this back to you
what i just heard was you walk through
the difference
between
team coaching
versus a team presentation
or or a team workshop
if you're if i want to reiterate this
for we get jim i know you and i get
asked this question a lot
what's the difference between doing a
a discovery session a a training
versus
a team coaching session
and what i heard from you micah was the
difference is how do you handle the
unspoken issues of a session
do you put the team's needs first in
terms of being able to go where they
need to go in the moment
versus getting through what you had
planned
and teaching certain content it's also
realizing that you as you're naming it
and deciding to pursue it that's again
not your choice
because this question of you know let's
revisit our goal that might be hey i was
really here to train you on a tool that
you could then take forward um should we
stay
um where we are on that
and revisit this later
um so the good news is it's not you
don't have to make that decision alone
you do have to voice it uh with with the
client and with the team and it could be
very fair that they're not ready to
really address
what you're what you're sensing but
again i think i learned this from jackie
merritt 80 of coaching happens when
you're not there
so it's also about trusting people to be
their best most responsible respectful
selves after you leave and um and also
think about i think we all could be a
little bit better at the consulting and
feedback that might happen after a team
session that you can go back and say hey
manager um now that we're one-on-one i
sensed a few things um
let's talk about what we can do uh to
improve that
michael let me ask you the role the
manager in this because oftentimes we we
think of we're mediators in this but we
really just have we've been given a
manager that has a team conflict
and when we're having those early
conversations with those managers any
thoughts on
approaching a you know just the manager
in that way
yeah you know i think that that fits
really nicely into
the how do we meet i'm going to stop
sharing my screen if you were looking at
the screen and you just now see me and
jim that was intentional um i've got the
how do we meet framework and then i'll
bring the screen back toward the end um
so if we voice it through name claim aim
that's half of the battle and maybe even
more than half
depending on how long some of these
needs have gone unvoiced our next step
then is how do we help a team meet them
and
typically
uh i think your solutions can live in
one of three areas
the first
is
magical
that's where just talking about it
brings up somebody who's raising their
hand with a solution
um
all the dreamy ideas that we have around
um how could this be easy that falls in
the magical bucket and sometimes magic
happens i'm not saying that in a oh
dream state never gonna happen way
the second is temporary
which is typically just work harder
glad you voiced that we can't solve it
we're gonna fix it with effort
and the third is tough
and tough
might include
how you have a conversation with the
manager because it could roll back up on
is this manager really doing a good job
setting the the ground rules and the
defining the barometer uh setting the
barometer for how it feels to be a part
of this team
tough could also mean recasting
reassigning changing roles changing
goals
and
i think that that's important because
it's not going to be the same every time
but also
you're just redistributing the energy
energy is neither
created or destroyed right so maybe if
you can't do the tough solution you
prepare yourself a nice soft landing pad
for the temporary one
and you take into account maybe you know
what the cost of that is going to be
would it help if i gave you some stories
to
really illustrate that yeah it's for
time allows maybe we can dig into one of
those let's let's just do one um so
i think that you can probably consider
you know key reasons for conflict in
relationship to the four domains of
strength
an executing
conflict
is a pretty common one where people feel
unfair distribution of the workload
which is also i bet you heard this from
jillian because she's incredible
a key driver of burnout if work feels
unfair
but i think it's happens commonly um so
your first step is is this a strength
you know phase zero is this a strength
conflict right are there
um influencers doing the executing and
it's just not working
um and then let's voice it through name
claim aim and then three ways you could
meet that you know the the magical way
is once you voice it somebody raises
their hand and says oh my gosh i
actually love that part of our team's
expectations that you're saying you hate
why don't you just throw that over the
fence to me
that's great it sometimes happens
the temporary fix is
you're right i messed up
or we have this wrong
right now we just have to keep going
so let's at least adjust our
expectations and and soldier on
the
tough fix
is
discussing you know whether you've got
the right people in the right role
and that might include somebody who
doesn't like the work that they're doing
somebody who should not be doing that
work
and having the hard conversations about
what can you change
mike in a strengths-based organization
sometimes that's the hardest
conversation to have where
maybe somebody's not in the right role
and there's listen there's
we can't figure that out in 30 seconds
you know in a webinar right or
or give all the advice on that but
for a manager for somebody in that role
when that gets kind of obvious or maybe
not so obvious can you talk a little bit
about that
you come back to coaching
and again release yourself of having the
responsibility to make that call
your responsibility is to challenge that
manager or that manager's manager
to believe that better is possible
i think sometimes that's the reason it
doesn't happen we have these hedonic set
points where we stop expecting you know
something great we're just fine with
things that one day we used to dream of
having
but it's that's why you're on a learning
series you are supposed to be filled up
with that sincere passion that being
strengths based
doesn't just mean you can still do all
the things all the time and do just fine
um it is that nudge and and you also
need to do your homework on having data
to back you up there that hey there's a
big difference in knowing your strengths
and truly agreeing that you're gonna
spot to use them every day and that's
how you get to the six times increase
the three times increase on engagement
and well-being that's how you create
that sort of
yeah right experience that you you walk
around and you're like wow they really
do
do this here it's because they've been
bold enough to have the hard
conversations the number one question i
think i've heard austin alluded to this
a little bit earlier when we think about
hybrid teams and
i think as we've been thinking about
these conflicts we may be thinking
through the old framework of an office
and meetings and we meet together
today it's a mixture of that right can
you talk a little bit about the
challenges that
coaches may face in this new this new
hybrid world yes and it's gonna be
around forever we might as well prepare
for it yeah um well i and i'm gonna peel
back the curtain and just tell you what
we did with you today
and
part of the person who's just brilliant
at this is jim and and austin you set us
up so so well
um but i also want to give you something
in addition to the frameworks that we've
discussed um and that is a a concept
that i find we have to again create
where we may have just relied on being
in person to create it for us
it's that you have to make it makes your
job of tending to the trust sandbox all
that much more important we have to
create those guardrails did you notice
at the very beginning when i asked those
three rules of engagement
those we now use in all of gallup's
virtual courses
because we have found that in a virtual
environment it's more difficult to read
people
based on the ways that we used to
so you can use those as well it's
lead with positive intent communicate
respect and respond with curiosity
the other thing that we did with you
throughout and we did this a little more
organically because jim and i are so
used to reading chat you don't have to
be that level of use to the multitasking
that jim and i are you can use this idea
of uh check in
check up
and check out the check in that we did
with you today was asking you in the
chat where you were coming from but you
might do something else like what are
two words that describe you know what
you're bringing to this or how full is
your tank or what's what's a recent
success um the check up
is stopping halfway through more often
than you would if you were in person and
just saying how are we doing and it
might be as simple as uh yes or no
should we keep going should we should we
go faster should we go slower should we
take a break
but really just taking pause and
acknowledging again where we are and
finally the checkout what are you taking
away
so while each of you do your own check
out
i've got i'll summarize the entire
session for you how about that
um your check out question i'd love for
you to share in the chat
is what is something that you have will
be taking away from this session
what's something from the session that
you will be taking with you
and while you do that i'll just give you
a basically a summary of everything that
we discussed today because i know it was
a lot of
maybe new brain work
and i think you could summarize it this
way
number one conflict is not good or bad
um what you do with it
is what matters and is what creates the
positive or negative experience
number two a coach's role is to hold the
trust sandbox so the team can solve
you might also need to consider how you
establish that in the very beginning and
how you follow up with insights because
you do have that privileged perspective
of being an outsider not being part of
the team
number three first
get curious on whether it's just
friction over function change is always
preceded by awareness awareness might
clear it up
next voice it and you can use name claim
and aim
and create a team agreement of where
you're going then
meet it
find the strengths connection what is
being craved and not satiated
and then magical temporary or tough pick
your challenge
finally what i hope you take away is the
call to inspire others
you have to be about 10 more hopeful
and vocal about
the positive future you believe your
clients have in front of them than you
ever expect them to be
because this is not their day job it's
yours
and that's why you're here
micah that's so great austin we're gonna
ask you to jump back in and uh and i see
some questions out there catherine asks
what about teams where they all say
everything's fine
right you had that
situation mike uh nope no problems here
and you know that's just a that's just a
cover right any any thoughts is
or even a manager who says
everything's fine
we're all good thoughts
first it might be
it's rare but it might be don't dismiss
that
um
i would honestly that's probably what i
lead with is well then
what are we celebrating what is making
everything fine
but i feel like maybe behind that
question is a fine
inflection and they don't actually mean
positive
um that's again we we come back and we
start with trust i would bet that that's
a situation where the sandbox is not
being tended to and people don't feel
like they can voice
things that are less than fine so you
can use a lot of coaching tricks you can
reframe it by saying okay if i was
looking at this team from the solar
system or like bird's eye view what
would i notice what kinds of things are
happening here
um you could reframe it in on a timeline
um what do you want this team to be to
feel like being on in the future
um what do you hope this team never lets
go of or never never loses this week i
used in a conversation i said what do
you hope the team will let go of
um and you might also need to think
about modes for engaging individual
voices um perhaps it's
you know in a chat virtually you have a
really quick way to overcome group think
because nobody knows what you're
chatting until you say it so you could
do the you know give me two words to
describe how it feels to be part of this
team one two three go or in person maybe
you've got
notebooks or personal whiteboards that
you flip over at the same time
so i think there's a lot of tactics but
the principle that we're getting to is
you've got to focus on what can i do to
bring out the trust
first
oh micah
thank you
here
if we um if we were to try to put a bow
on this session
here's what um i would hope all of the
coaches out there can take micah just
walked through
a lot of
the the sort of mindset piece of this
the mindset you as a coach have to have
to be effective in the moment and she
put her strengths into action on how
she'd handle certain situations right
got a lot of questions around how do you
if somebody doesn't express it how do
you handle that or if they say they're
fine how do you handle that or
if um if nobody says anything how do you
handle that
part of what i hope you see
is take a framework and a structure like
this
and figure out how how do your strengths
shine through that framework
how would you activate that in an
authentic way in a session
and
how important expectations on the front
end
and maintaining your focus
as a coach
on the client and helping them get where
they need to be versus what it is you
maybe thought was going to happen we
could spend another hour on this i know
we could uh we've got enough questions
unfortunately we weren't able to answer
all of them if you have a question on
this topic you want to learn more about
again please email coaching gallup.com i
assure you jim mica and i will read any
question on this topic and we'll get you
an answer okay
as we wrap this up
tomorrow you'll get an email from us
with the opportunity to uh provide
feedback on the session and the content
and the sort of overall learning series
please that's a very important thing
uh for us to continue to build out
content and the the learning series in
the future
this is the kind of thing micah just
went through this is the kind of content
and sessions we're trying to do more of
to be able to get you different angles
on topics we've talked about a lot and
the the summit this summer one of the
biggest things i'm so excited about is
micah's got a hand on a lot of the
content and able to help presenters
prepare and get ready for our summit
this summer so she's got a great insight
this is the kind of thing we're hoping
to talk more about and we're going to
dig into at the summit
we have learning tracks for coaches we
have learning tracks around engagement
learning tracks around um you know
executive coaching so forth different
topics
june of this summer june 7th and 8th we
are fully virtual which allows the whole
world to join we're hoping to have
record numbers this year um so please
check that out be on the lookout for
more information from us
micah
bottom of my heart
thank you that was fun i learned several
things my list of one-liners got longer
i actually had somebody that asked me to
provide my list of one-liners so i'm
going to i'm going to go through and
type them because they're all just
handwritten you will be able to read
that but thank you micah jim as always
appreciate it and hopefully we'll see
you all tonight for our final session
with saurov
be well have a great rest of your day
thank you thank you