Guiding Practices

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As mentioned on the homepage, my work has been influenced by various practices including the Strengths-based practice, Action Reflection Learning (ARL) by MiL institute and LIM, Adaptive Leadership by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, Immunity to Change by Dr. Robert Kegan and Dr. Lisa Lahey, Systems-psycho-dynamics approach, Intentional Change Theory by Richard Boyatzis.  With my curiosity, I will continue to learn new practices which will further shape my work.    Yet, I believe what matters is to come up a practice of my own.    

 

The following is my attempt to describe my current approach.

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My View in How Development Happens    

 

‘Action-Aware-Experiment’

 

It describes in general how I approach the task of development, both for individuals and teams.   And by ‘development’, I mean the individuals and teams acquiring different patterns of thought and behaviour which can advance them toward whatever task or aspiration they set for themselves, or as agreed with their stakeholders.

 

This approach applies both on development on technical (e.g. Influencing skills - To influence others better) and adaptive matters (e.g. Leadership - To overcome self-limiting belief)    Let’s elaborate my philosophy more with these 2 examples.

 

Technical - Through direct observation, self-reflection and feedback from others on real work, the clients are guided to become more aware of their strengths and developmental areas.   We will then design experiments together, possibly with some inputs on techniques, on new ways of, say, influencing others (with focus on how to leverage on their strengths instead of spending time on weakness)

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Adaptive - Coachees / Participants are observed on their real work.  This could be in the form of on-the-job observation, our own interaction, action learning projects or that they simply bring in their recent stories at work.   I will then guide them to become better aware of the underlying dynamics at various levels i.e. intra-personal, inter-personal and organisational.    Sometimes, development already happens by simply making those unconscious dynamics conscious e.g. giving them names.   Sometimes, more work is needed - We will design experiments together to become more skilled at less caught by some of those dynamics or to gather data to invalidate some obsolete assumptions.