‘I Can See Clearly Now’…this evergreen song by Johnny Nash is playing in my head.
“I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day…”
Two experiences from the week gone by, got me in touch with an insight that helped me spot something I believe the world needs right now. The first came to me during a messaging and spokesperson training workshop that I was conducting and the second from a learning program that I had enrolled in. Let me start with the second lesson that came to me in the classroom. The trainer played a wonderful video by Tim Gallwey, being interviewed by the Association of Coaching where he said “My role is not to teach, but to help a student learn…” (Timothy Gallwey is The Founder of the Inner Game, author of The Inner Game of Tennis, and is widely acknowledged as the godfather of the current coaching movement.)
When I think back to the training session I conducted, I realise that the real value I delivered to the spokesperson was in helping them see something in themselves that had been hiding in plain sight. The clarity and conviction that emerged from the workshop energised and excited the spokesperson about the opportunity to tell the story and be an agent of change, for the organisation and the world.
The “Knowing-Doing” gap is something else the classroom brought back to my awareness. Knowing the techniques of being a good spokesperson commonly referred to by trainers as “Bridging or Pivoting” away from a question or topic they don’t want to talk about, and towards the one they do want to shine a light on is the easy part. The clarity and conviction that “this is what I want to speak about”, and “this is how I am going to bring it alive with a personal anecdote” and “this data point will be the best one to use” cannot be taught, it needs to emerge from within the spokesperson”. And that is exactly what happened in the workshop.
What made it possible? Creating the space, time, and opportunity to explore the subject and allowing the spokesperson to listen to their inner voice. Helping the person overcome some limiting self-beliefs and then arriving at a central theme was the thread that connected the necklace of messages into a compelling and credible story. It was something that we co-created.
My teacher in the classroom talked about the journey from ‘Data to Information’, and then to ‘Insight’ that finally leads to ‘Action’. Data was all the things the company could speak about, information was the distillation of the relevant pieces for the story, and insight came in the form of how all of this connected to this one person (the storyteller) in a way that created something unique and differentiated in the way it was going to be delivered, which finally led to the actions of making a speech / talking points and audio visual collateral for an upcoming speaking engagement.
The secret sauce was the space between insight and action. In a world that is speeding up, time is never enough to get through the task list. It is very difficult and yet all important, to create the opportunity for “positive reflective inquiry” (another term I heard in the coaching classroom). This space for deep reflection allows the person / organisation the opportunity to digest the learnings and derive the nutrition that it offers. This is what I can see clearly now. In a world that is in a hurry to succeed, if I can be the person who slows it down (just enough) for the insight to be digested, performance will be enhanced and success will come. Creating the reflective space for a company or an individual to identify meaningful goals and focus areas that are based on deep insight and allow the forward movement that is aligned is how reputation work will deliver real impact in the world.
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A trusted coaching and communications professional, Nikhil Dey is a certified life and leadership coach (International Coach Federation - ICF). Nurturing talent and helping clients achieve their goals is what makes him happy. He loves learning from students of communication, teaching courses and guest lecturing at various educational institutions. When he is not working you will find him on the tennis court or out for long walks with his family and four legged friends.
Previously he has held senior leadership positions at Weber Shandwick and Genesis BCW.
He can be reached on twitter @deydreaming
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