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Practical Language Management to achieve outcomes

These are Language Management Resources based on the principles of chao-dynamics and the outcomes-based approach.


One of the key concepts is finding ways of understanding, and then overcoming objections.

This document outlines a series of language management techniques that will result in better shared outcomes.

Three-step responsibility:

1) As you say, it’s important to be clear (open/discreet/truthful/straightforward/find a solution/avoid further misunderstandings)
2) AND, so that we can do that in the best way (in the way you feel comfortable with)

AND in order to reach a good outcome (find a mutually-beneficial solution)

3) What would you propose?
How do you suggest we (you / I)) proceed?
Where do you want to take this next?

How long do you think we (you) may need? 

Depending on the exact scenario/context/desired objective:
How much (time/money/effort) do you recommend we spend on this?
Who do you believe is best suited to deal with this?
Which aspect do you think should be tackled first?
What options are you thinking of?

Etc..

Avoidance of WHY? And “Yes, BUT”

Do not use the question “why?”
Refer to why as problematic for all concerned –

1) “the question of why this happened is delicate” etc..

“that’s a logical objection…”
“I see where you are coming from there…”


2) AND, in order to move forward on this AND to find solutions that will work better in the future (avoid a repetition of this)

3) How do you propose we approach this?

Etc

1) I understand that you have issues with why this happened and are still feeling unconvinced in some respects

2) AND, in order to deal with this effectively AND ensure a better understanding without pointing blame and escalating the problem,

3) Tell me, how do you suggest we analyse this?

 

Setting the framework (starting a meeting / putting in the picture)

The purpose of this meeting is to…

We’ve been asked to meet so as to find…

In my capacity as (….) I’ve called this meeting to…

The reason we are here is to…

(reminding others of where things last stood)

As you will recall …

Last week you agreed to …

Remember we …

As mentioned (in our last meeting) …

May I remind you of what was said (at our last meeting).

Let me remind you …

Allow me to reiterate the conclusion of our last meeting.

 

Open questions to encourage openness

When would be a good time for you?
Where would you feel comfortable going through this?

Who would you like to have there?

Where is a good place to start?
Where can we start?
Where did we leave off?

Where do you prefer to begin?
Please carry on if you are comfortable to do so
Please feel free to say what you feel comfortable with

(Clarifying)

What exactly do you mean by?

What are you getting at when you say…?

What you trying to tell me when you say that…?

(Getting to the facts)

When did this issue first present itself?
How long have you been feeling this way?
Since when has this been happening?

When you say “….”

What do you base that on?

What leads you/brings you to say that?
What’s the reason behind your saying that?
What grounds are you basing that on?
What does that mean to you?
How should I interpret that in order to understand you correctly?

(Interpreting or checking meaning)

What are you driving at/getting at ?

What should I read into your reaction?

What exactly are you trying to tell me by reacting in this way ?

Amplifying (Reassuring)

That’s very important.

Thank you for telling me…

What you say is important …

Thank you, I appreciate your frankness.

Rest assured, we take what you say very seriously.

It’s true that … All the more reason to …

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

 

Motivating / finding a bridge

To avoid (any) misunderstanding…

In order to clarify the situation…

So as to give the best possible answer to your question,…

In order to ensure we’re talking the same language,..

In order to be sure we’re on the same wavelength,…

So that I can answer your question to the best of my ability,…

In order to find the best solution
So that we can deal with this in the most professional / suitable way

Establishing a link

You’ve said X and you have also stated Y – just to be clear – how do you feel these are related?

In your opinion what is the connection between … and …?

What has … got to do with…?

For you, what is the link between … and …?
So that I can understand you clearly, where is the link exactly?

If the answer is NO link:

In that case, how am I to understand what you’re saying?

Highlighting Paradoxes

I’m puzzled.

On the one hand … on the other hand…

You say that… but at the same time you …
There’s X yet simultaneously there is Y…

In order to be sure we understand each other…

How do you explain that?
How does that work?

What am I missing?

What’s going on ?

Metaphors

We seem to be going round in circles.
It appears that we’ve come up against a brick wall.
It feels as if we’re going nowhere fast.
There seems to be a cloud hanging over this today.
We have been here before, haven’t we.
This sounds like the same point we reached earlier

 

Re-setting the framework (This can also be used at the start)
If we could step back for a moment …
Sometimes it helps to look at things from a completely different angle
I can see that things are not right for you
I sense that there has been a backward step somewhere along the line
I get the feeling that you are not comfortable right now
I can tell that you are unhappy
I know (because you told me so) that you are struggling over this

So (in order to make a breakthrough / so that we can look for a better way forward)

How else can we look at this?

How would it be best to view this?
What perspective would you like to consider this from?
What other time or place would suit you best?
When would be a better time?
Where would you feel more comfortable?
How would you feel about thinking this through?

Presenting options

We (seem to have) have two options. We can either… or we can…

Two / three options lie before us. Firstly…, and secondly…

Which do you prefer?


It looks like we have three options:

  1. carry on like this and leave an undercurrent of dissatisfaction that we would have to return to later;
  2. walk away and even abandon the project altogether (quit);
  3. or thirdly, look for something better that we would all feel happy with (that you would be happier with)


So that we don’t carry on going around in circles …

So that we can make a breakthrough

In order to ensure the best possible outcomes for you/us

Tell me, at this point in time, what do you prefer?

(Many people will opt for the second! – so be sure that “quitting” ia an acceptable option first)

I’d prefer the third option, what about you?

I’d go for the option of looking for something we can all be happy with, how about you?

Getting commitment

Great,

Well, it’s good to hear that
I am delighted to hear that

How would you like to proceed just now?
When would be a good time to come back to this and to take that forward?

Dealing with late objections
3rd party / Devil’s advocate / Using the other person’s words as a stepping stone…

Anyone listening to this might be forgiven for thinking that…

To an outsider this would appear as if …

If you want to just walk away that’s fine, how would that work?

If as you say you want to let things carry on as they have been doing,

It may seem as though you don’t want to find a solution.
How do you feel about that?

it was YOU who said that you…

Didn’t you just say that you… ?
I believe that earlier you made the comment that …
Imagine that you were the one dealing with this…

Put yourself in the other position…

Try looking at this from a higher perspective …

Let’s say you abandoned the project that then…..

Let’s suppose we let things carry on without addressing them, then later…

Supposing you were told X…., how would you react?

Just for the sake of looking at it from all sides…

In the interests of not leaving any stone unturned…

Just so that we have looked at every possibility…

What do you think might happen / would happen if we…?

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Working online?

Performance in English works in York, England, and internationally,

With the C-19 lockdown, our courses are being provided

on Skype, Teams, Webex and Zoom

http://tostig.co.uk

info@tostig.co.uk

• Qualified trainers and coaches with more than 30 years’ experience of training and business management:
• Having impactful communication skills is essential to successful outcomes in business – does your team have a level of performance required to lead international projects in English?• All our workshops are tailor-made to each client’s needs with the aim of maximising effectiveness in the complex international workplace.
• Our programmes are hands-on and in English to focus on key aspects of participants’ performance in real contexts.

Skype sessions are proactive, practical and – while using state-of-the-art theory – are geared around key outcomes for each session, however short.

1) Performance Coaching in Leadership Skills
2) Negotiating and Conflict Management
3) Managing and Influencing others
4) Embodied approach to Destabilisation
5) Language Management for better Outcomes
6) Voice Coaching for Public Speaking
7) Bridging Cultural Differences
8) Active Listening Skills
9) Change Management where English is the Lingua Franca
10) Agile use of coaching techniques

What we do and how we do it!

“There is no way around hard work. Embrace it. You have to put in the hours because there’s always something which you can improve.”

– Roger Federer

Measurable outcomes.

• Subjective and objective improvements, every step of the way. Outcomes-based, objectives-oriented.

• Challenging hard edge of language coaching.

• Understanding – Processing – Self-composing pathway.

• Repetitive practice.

• When you have reached your goal, set yourself another.
1) Performance Coaching in Leadership Skills

“Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.”

– Marshall Goldsmith

There is leadership theory and there is the performance of leadership, performing as a leader.

• A business leader must perform successfully in a variety of high-pressure, high-profile situations, that we create in performance coaching.
2) Negotiating and Conflict Management

“There are two people alike. No two people who understand the same sentence the same way… So in dealing with people, you try not to ft them to your concept of what they should be.” – Milton Erickson.

• Avoid zero sum negotiations

• Identify a BATNA

• Negotiate with an eye on the future. IBR vs Distributive approaches.

• Bringing issues into evidence
3) Managing and Infuencing others

“The mind is not a vessel to be flled but a fre to be kindled.” – Plutarch

So often, meetings fail to energise their participants, due to the way language is used

• Learn how to Inspire!

• The quality of communication shapes the quality of life.

• Power, Rules and Interests. TUPAC approach to influencing.

• Why are people doing the opposite of what they say?
4) Deal with Destabilisation

“The irreversibility of time is the mechanism that brings order out of chaos.”

– Ilya Prigogine

What state are you in?

• Is it “business as usual” – are you in the “drone zone” – or the “anxiety zone”, or the “learning zone”?

• Even the best-organised structures tend to dissipate, and negative spirals can take over.

• Convert downwards into upwards spirals

• Language investment that assures a win-win
5) Management for better Outcomes

“A great company is a conspiracy to change the world.” – Peter Thiel, Zero to One

A great thinker once said “The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words, the truth”.

• Another, not so great, said “Do as I say, not as I do”.

• Achieving great things implies wisdom and understanding.

• Walk the talk • Stepping back

• Emotional Intelligence • Neuroplasticity
6) Voice Coaching for Public Speaking

“The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.” – Joseph Conrad

Announcing uplifting news, or a hard message? Showing executive presence? Networking, building rapport, or coaching? Pitching to a client or delivering in the boardroom? Turn-taking in a conf-call? Giving an after-dinner speech, story-telling….?

• Using the voice with confidence

• Overcoming Nervousness

• Using Tempo, Pitch, and Emphasis

• Powerful self-composition and projection
7) Bridging Cultural Diferences

“What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.” – Montesquieu, Lettres Persanes

What makes us different? What is culture and how does it manifest? How do we bridge differences?

What core values do we share?

• Avoiding misunderstandings • Using profiling methods • Working styles • Pragmatics and Proxemics • “Discovery” Role-play approach
8) Attentive Listening Skills

“The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people’s thinking.”

– Nancy Kline, Listening to Ignite the Human Mind

Appreciative listening, deep on-boarding and respectful focus with critical and self-critical thinking,  help to nurture customers and colleagues, overcome negative feedback, are time-effective – – and change how we view the world!

• will benefit everyone • measurable improvements in atmosphere • and the bottom line

• more than a powerful courtesy, a creative act that can transform everything!
9) Change Management with English as the Lingua Franca

“What got you here, won’t take you there.”

– Marshall Goldsmith

We offer same-company (small group) training. Are you involved in culture change?

• Are you rationalising or restructuring?

• Do you need to develop new company strategies and initiatives or changes in mission?

• Bring a group of key players to the table

• Tough transitions can be handled in a healthy way. We help solve your communication issues.
10) Agile use of coaching techniques

“Great vision without great people is irrelevant.”

– Jim Collins, Good to Great

• Coaching based on tried-and-tested principles

• Coaching techniques including SMART, GROW,

• Push- and pull- styles,

• Transition Curve, ways of Influencing,

• Opening up Options, finding focus, ,

• OSCAR, CLEAR and other models

• STAR, FUEL and others

Specially-designed programmes

• For teams, rising stars, and also for VIP and high-status individuals

• Meeting new challenges in a huge range of contexts.

• Coaching based on tried-and-tested principles

• Discretion and sensitivity to needs

• Fully bespoke packages
EMAIL NOW
REGISTER via our website NOW

 

 

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Embodied coaching workshop for managing Destabilising Scenarios

This workshop will develop practice around the coach in a facilitator role when helping manage communication and self-awareness problems caused by a destabilising scenario.

I will build on the more theoretical aspects of last year’s session (which explained cross-overs between language teaching, learning and acquisition, with outcomes-based, target-oriented and process-based methods adopted by coaches or trainers) and, using the subject’s own personal experience of destabilising situations, develop an embodied practice, using an entirely flexible approach that allows for feedback and both objective and subjective improvements. This will be mainly a stand-up workshop, where the nature of destabilisation – within organisations and the bodily experience – based on personal experiences and systems and organisational theory, will be examined. The workshop is tabled to last 2 hours but could go on longer. A manageable number for this is around 12 persons max.

The coach develops skills that help the subject to grow in embodied self-awareness and social awareness, embodied self-management and social management while at the same time exploring his/her own levels of linguistic awareness. This process allows for the emergence of new language to better manage destabilised scenarios, that each person is comfortable with, and to observe how this works, making for more congruent behaviours and the internalising of processes by awareness of one’s inner dialogue. In so doing we explore the fascinating connection between our visualisation of situations, the feelings these create, and the language used to explain them and to communicate histories, goals and intentions. This has value for learners of all sorts.

This will be a stand-up workshop built around story-telling and exploring how language is processed and experienced. It will involve reenacting (extemporising or relating, declaring, expressing and manifesting) and then rehearsing and effectuating new approaches in embodied practice to manage and lead others involved in destabilising scenarios. It also means that the linguistic output can be evaluated and learned better.

Make sure you come with a destabilising scenario to recount!

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The perceptions and scaffolds of emotional intelligence

It’s interesting to consider if we can separate words and communicating them, from feelings and experiences and their environment.
At a recent coaching session at The Hawkhills, outside Easingwold, I considered with my client how emotional intelligence is related to our perceptions and the distance we take from them.

Eric Coaching York

Stepping back

It can be good to step away and view things by letting the mind roll into new spaces, having a pleasant environment for that to happen.
Susan David suggests “successfully happy people are unstuck, they are agile.”
Agility is a physical state. The mind has a tendency to stuckness; nature has a tendency to become rotten, petrified, to gather dust and cobwebs; organisations and all structures have a tendency to dissipate and collapse over time; communication tends towards misunderstanding. By stepping away as at the session with my client, it was possible to consider how language can work creatively to oppose this – as a gardener manages a garden – and how various perceptual positions assist.

Seeing the wood for the trees

Seeing the whole

Seeing the whole

Where relationships are affected by so-called “negative somatic markers” we are aware of hot, warm and cold energy as time goes by from the initial disruption, and how the time and effort needed to “clean” the thoughts that become solidified out of the original emotions, multiply accordingly. Emotion turns to reasoned thought after time and creates the reality we perceive as normal.

Emotion and identity

Hot, warm or cold?

In the coaching context, we connect the various channels for experience: what are the images when the client thinks of the problem and its outcomes for themselves, what are the words associated with these evoked images, what are the emotions they feel and where do they feel them?
The gap between envisioning something and the action itself and feeling the best way towards doing it … is filled by our voices, by our conversations with others and ourselves.

perceptual positions

Co-active and more ….

So, the induction process of closing one’s eyes, listening, then thinking of a place and being in that, experiencing what is associated with that image, is about how to catalyse or uncover, from different levels, the rules or games of the activity that is under observation and the paradoxical language, incongruent behaviour and cognitive dissonance that are evoked along with it.

Conference comfort

Conference comfort

In amongst the awareness of how language works internally and when used with others, and the elements of coaching that cover change psychology and theories – where the framing and reframing of experience, and the embedded presuppositions and beliefs of the other person are concerned, the co-active measures coaches employ as effective – we discussed how to cool off or park the emotions: by writing and re-reading our thoughts, later; by considering emotions as bodyguards; by realising that “the other is not me”; by understanding that taking more than 21 days to process the emotions leads to them becoming stuck; by remembering that when we sleep we cannot make mistakes, and that we cannot just “give” happy solutions, success, etc; then by considering our options for addressing the obstacle that may be felt to be preventing or blocking a good outcome, using various kinds of scaffold to reach those goals.

scaffolding types

Layers of scaffolding

 

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Being Here – or There?

Our words and actions – even the smallest ones – affect our state of mind.

being-there
A research paper recently published, conducting a textual analysis of 63 Internet forums (over 6,400 members) used linguistic inquiry and word count software to examine “absolutism” at the linguistic level.  Its results provide clinical evidence of how several features reflect meaningfully the state of mind of the speaker or writer.

This will not come as a surprise to language teachers, to counsellors, or to coaches who pay attention to the words their clients use. Some years ago, James Pennebaker’s excellent and provocative book “the Secret Life of Pronouns”  engaged us in this topic, and – long before – the founder of Hypnotic therapy, Milton Erickson wisely stated “The map is not the territory” – in other words, the way I see the world is not necessarily the world itself, only my personal version of it filtered by my words and images and feelings (and those handed to me).

Nowadays there is a lot of faith put in positive thinking, and this is not so new…

“On how one orients himself to the moment depends the failure or fruitfulness of it,” Henry Miller asserted in his beautiful meditation on the art of living, “The Wisdom of the Heart”. This is not to be confused with coaching that tries to impose a glamorous target-oriented “successful” way of fitting in, viewing unhappy people as self-sabotaging, and as Susan Scott has asserted, toxic to the organisation that they work in. While not disagreeing with the importance of “Mastering the courage to interrogate reality” and the emphasis on truthfulness to oneself, I find the insistence that being unproductive is something to be confronted with brutal non-compromise to be disconcerting where creative solutions are concerned.

quote-every-person-s-map-of-the-world-is-as-unique-as-their-thumbprint-there-are-no-two-people-milton-h-erickson-78-43-84

Our constant escapism from our own lives is our greatest source of unhappiness.

Today’s Millennial generation – anxious to impress and to succeed at the expense of the deeper more fulfilling aspects of life –  might think of the advice given by the famous Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard, who was only thirty at the time he wrote them. He began a chapter of his altogether indispensable 1843 treatise  “Either/Or – a Fragment of Life”   with a powerful observation – so relevant today, amidst our culture which considers being busy and forever dwelling on the mistakes of the past and the high goals of the future to be a badge of honour:

“Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work.”
In the chapter “The Unhappiest Man” he wrote “One is absent when living in the past or living in the future.”

We should not be, as the great Alan W Watts described “The working inhabitants of a modern city … people who live inside a machine to be batted around by its wheels.”

alanwatts

We live today with such anxieties, reflected in our depressive language and sometimes futile attempts to reverse our sadness with New Age collective thinking and coaching “success” that we never find our true balance. Watts, in his book “Wisdom Of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety” continued: “If we are to continue to live for the future, and to make the chief work of the mind prediction and calculation, man must eventually become a parasitic appendage to a mass of clockwork.”

Amusingly, in the film “Being There” the chief protagonist’s simple and naive words and childish world-view are taken as great wisdom, when they are merely misunderstandings. Yet Erickson reminds us that the truth emerges from the unconscious and not the frantic analysis of the rational mind.  Neuroscience reinforce this message, since the over active mind racing in Gamma Wave exultant “highs” soon crashes down to the comatose state of burn-out and despondency.

 

States of Mind

States of Mind

Every so often new “models” appear incorporating the latest acronyms and buzz-phrases, and without doubt, from the groundbreaking 1979 “Inner Game” of Tim Gallwey, Sir John Whitmore’s 1992 GROW to the many more being designed in the present day, many present key words and phrases that help focus the conscious mind – even to the exclusion of all else. However we should strive as coaches not to crowd the mind with ever more models, but to enable new and creative forms of words; not to constrict by imposing models that others have determined that may work for some – but not for the person in front of us.

In my article in the latest edition of iCN (International Coaching News) I make the case for a truly embodied approach to listening, thinking, communicating and acting.

ICN-Issue-20-cover-800x1132

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The Best Restaurant in the World

As Performance in English heads north to Yorkshire and to facilities being hired at the impressive Hawkhills conference centre, and close to the beautiful historic cities of York, Ripon, and the world-famous Spa town of Harrogate, our thoughts turn to food and the great culinary traditions – so little appreciated outside these small islands – of England.

 

Three Pies

Traditional foods…

A modern touch

A modern touch

It will surprise many that Yorkshire is proud to have been voted the best restaurant in the world, The Black Swan, in Oldstead, beating Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck in Buckinghamshire and Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir near Oxford.

Wonderful surroundings

Wonderful surroundings

 

Ox tongue

Ox tongue

In fact, England currently has the top two restaurants worldwide; while Maison Lameloise, in Chagny, France, came in third, and  L’Auberge de l’Ill, Illhaeusern, France was voted fourth and Martin Berasategui, Lasarte, Spain, fifth.

IMG_0549

York Minster

The beautiful county of North Yorkshire has an amazing array of attractions and natural beauty, and – as a coaching client with us at The Hawkhills – you can also enjoy shopping in York or Harrogate, visits to places of tremendous interest, and the benefit of all sorts of entertainment.

From world-class World-famous theatre, to world-class shooting, and world-class tea rooms.…

Harrogate-VisitEnglandBettys-Tearoom1

World-famous

Anyone for tea?

…to world-class coaching…

Conference comfort

Conference comfort

 

 

 

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Manage your words well

Using English well in an international context is as important for native speakers of the language as it is for non-native students and other international users of English.

Whether this is because English happens to be the lingua franca of the organisation, company, corporation or community, or because those involved in any meeting have chosen to use English themselves, there is every chance that there will be people with differing ranges of experience and ability in the language, just as this would also be the case with people speaking French, Hungarian, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin, Turkish, Arabic, Swahili or Gaelic!

~0523161

Who of us can say we would be confident to attempt to do all that we do in our own language in any other language? We can perhaps learn how to order a prawn sandwich or a taxi, or to greet someone at the airport, wish them a good journey or thank them for their help. This does not take long and is a sensitive and polite thing to do when doing business with others.  It shows that we have made a little effort to learn about their ways.

Just as we can learn a few words, we can also learn about the cultures we interact with.

This process works both ways, because – though there is common ground within cultures for anything that we may need to discuss, and certainly room for exploration in a number of areas (or business would never happen or have been going on for thousands of years!) – there are also certain highly sensitive areas of “sacred ground” where discussion may be very difficult or even impossible.

Encroaching on these sensitive spots is risky and potentially rude. This is as true of the English-speaking culture as it is of any other.

The things that affect our identity are hard to define and having a well-researched book to refer to is essential; I recommend Richard Lewis’ excellent work for a clear and intelligent model when entering new ground in any culture.

Where the deeply-embedded elements of a culture’s specific core value system and the individual’s own modus operandi can have multiple layers that are not open to scrutiny, the language itself can give us the clues we need to how a people think.

We should take care with our words whether with other native speakers or with non-native speakers.

The Ratners Jewellery store in Regent Street, London, part of the chain owned by Gerald Ratner, which made a 112 million profit in 1990.

The Ratners Jewellery store in Regent Street, London, part of the chain owned by Gerald Ratner, which made a 112 million profit in 1990.

Careless language can be very costly. 

A famous story is that of successful businessman Gerald Ratner who in 1991 wiped £500m off his share value with one speech, when talking of his own high-street jewellery, he inadvisedly announced it was “cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich and probably wouldn’t last as long”.

Another story is that of the Topman clothing chain and the firm’s brand director, David Shepherd, asked in an interview in 2001 to clarify the target market for his clothes, he replied: “Hooligans or whatever.”  He went on: “Very few of our customers have to wear suits for work. They’ll be for his first interview or first court case.”

The company later suggested that the word “hooligan” would not be seen as an insult among its customers.

happy hooligan

Such careless words may seem amusing or tough but they have consequences. In 2006, John Pluthero, the UK chairman of Cable & Wireless, sent a memo to staff, which said: “Congratulations, we work for an underperforming business in a crappy industry and it’s going to be hell for the next 12 months.” He warned of job losses and added: “If you are worried that it all sounds very hard, it’s time for you to step off the bus.”  Many did just that and found work elsewhere.

Another pitfall is translation and translation devices. They are not capable of understanding cultural and linguistic nuance. The ambiguity of translation is well summed-up with the example of a biblical quote, meant to express the struggle facing the industry at that time and to motivate the employees to make an extra effort, and that was used in an after-dinner speech translated into German
“The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”.
This came out as “The schnapps is strong but the meat is rotten”

turn off

Language is not a set of conditioned responses triggered by previous words, because we can change these patterns at will. This allows us creativity and individualism.  Chomsky’s “poverty of the input” hypothesis tells us that what a child can produce in language is MORE than the input they have received via their parents or peers. This “new potential language” has come from within the child as he/she has acquired the deeper syntax. Somehow, the child knows that the structure  “Daddy what did you bring that book that I don’t want to be read to out of, up for?” is the only right use of syntax for English, for this question.

Pace is a deciding factor. People are more inclined to get excited and emotional speaking their own language than speaking English, this is hard to lose in a foreign language, suggesting that the control of output and having to pace themselves, will affect themselves and others

Impact

There are several negative and positive associations: native speakers are imagined to have more sensitivity but often they have less. Consequently natives can benefit from observing how a non-native speaks, or try to compose themselves in FL to see how it feels.

Having a slower pace enables better listening and more self-composure. However the emotions inside the L2 speaker are likely to be very high and for the L1 speaker, having to modify their language to obtain better results may at times feel frustrating, too.

portfolio-style

At P.i.E. we can help you develop sensitivity to language that leads you to better outcomes. As a non-native we can show you how English works and how to use it effectively, in your own specific situation, according to different scenarios and your personal choices, understanding norms and idiosyncrasies.

Equally important, as a native speaker we can show you how good language management will lead you to better relationships, deeper awareness of communication and the avoidance of costly mistakes, and to a level of self-composure that is not over-confident but mature and manifested in a spirit of mutual respect.

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Confidence in English

One of my clients not long ago was the kind of person you’d look at and immediately think they were totally in control and confident.

The Financial Director of a multi national company is usually bursting with inner confidence, yet, after finding out that he had to start using English for his board-level presentations, he had discovered that he was extremely nervous about doing this (especially in larger groups or more than about 4 people ) – something he’d never have thought would happen! So how did we help him?

nervous man

He understood that it is an important thing to be able to communicate internationally; he knew that because we live in this increasingly interconnected world, using English enables you nowadays to be more successful by accessing more opportunities and connections, and that this was in any case necessary for him to retain his position….

He recognised the importance, in our rapidly-changing world, not only of “connecting” with other people who live in different countries, even with their culture and their way of thinking, but also shared with others the feeling of how tremendously enriching to life this can be. He realised how valuable the new “global” aspect within his organisation, was and is.

But this was not exactly the problem. If anything, knowing all this and being reminded of it, as his company underwent significant and far-reaching changes internally and externally, was adding to the problem even more!

This hard-working man loved fishing; his English was relatively low-level but adequate for the task of reporting to his Board; and he was terribly blocked; afraid; sweating in front of his audience; his voice shaking, he was very red-faced.

fisherman fishing boat

He had been very quiet on arrival, it all came out when I took him out for a meal and he explained that all the English language teaching and correction and instruction in cross-cultural communication that he had received in other places; the do’s and don’t’s; all the sentences and key phrases to repeat; all the reams of photocopied vocabulary – that he sort of knew anyway passively –  the “enforced scenarios” he had to prepare for the next lesson, all the things we tend to find in schools were useless to him.

He told me how all the “cross-culture” training was making it worse; the endless corrections, more pressure, more theory; more “do’s and don’t’s and so on….  he needed to get over that, but he didn’t know how.

 

I found the way with him, by judicious use of NLP visualisation and anchoring techniques, shifting his associated problems by dint of changing his emotional associations, dissociating him away from the issues, and putting new thoughts and connections in their place.
It worked, overnight, after a short “out-of-context” chat in a restaurant, eating fish together and talking about fishing – in a certain way.

fresh fish plate2

Sadly some may have had the experience after previous training and learning, of feeling worse than when they arrived – both on paper tests, and in real life – and therefore very dissatisfied. Poorly-devised training or blanket solutions (one-size-fits-all) can indeed make things worse.

As a proviso here, language schools do have their place but often cannot offer that specialised coaching which meets each individual’s needs….and being with clients of other nationalities does not always offer the right combination of guided acquisition and pleasant immersion in the language and culture which makes for more effective and rapid acquisition.

That is why at PIE we use many different techniques and according to the specific needs of the client. We use absolute discretion, go wherever needed, and spare nothing in terms of flexibility and total listening to the client, to ensure that the outcome is good.

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You never listen!

“You never listen!”

How often a frustrated teenager might say that, and, in business too, how often people might be thinking this, but they do not say it – and barriers are building up, unseen?

How do we “get” people to listen?
Are we “really listening“?

 

Boy (3-5) covering ears, eyes closed, close-up
A child might have listened a hundred times to the being told he/she should clean their teeth every night. But do they do it?
As the saying goes, it takes patience to listen but it takes real skill to pretend that you are. And while this is not something we recommend at all, many people are good at pretending! All the outward signals are there to convince the other person ……

In today’s busy world, where time is always pressurised, arguably there is a lack of true care for others in society. We “listen”, but is there any inner processing going on?

Plus, what works with talking to children doesn’t not necessarily work the same way when dealing with business associates etc.. If we are not listening, what alternative does that give to our colleagues?

© elkor 2009

 

Good listening matters at every level.

Everyone likes to think they know best, so, listening to what another person needs to say, attentively, is not just a real skill, it is also potentially a means for powerful change. How do we do it, when our own heads are so full of stuff we are desperate to get done, and get said?

It is important to remember that not everyone wants to be the one “up there” doing the spotlight work and receiving the credits.  There is equal importance in what we do to help people achieve their own personal goals, wherever they work.

That goal might be to speak and understand English fluently and effectively, whether they are the Managing Director, in the back office, or at the front of house in a retail role. Having the right skills to really hear what is being said, can change the way an entire organisation works.

Actually, when there is good listening, all sides listen and benefit.

good listening
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How do we measure success?

Bluebird water speed

What is success?

Certainly, from a coaching perspective, it is reaching one’s goals.

The famous holder of the world land speed record (and on water too), Malcolm Campbell, famously said:

“When you have reached your goal, set yourself another“.


Bluebird Proteus CN7 Donald Campbell landspeed record car
His son, Donald, continued the proud tradition of tempting fate and taking speed to the limit.

On that fateful day, on Coniston Water, England, on the 4th of January 1967, Donald Campbell had broken the water world speed record, and he wanted to do even better. He turned the Bluebird, and, fearing a change in the weather, sped across the water once more. Onlookers were horrified to see the boat flying up into the air and crashing down on its back, into the waves. These waves were the remnant of the wash that Campbell himself had created on his earlier and successful attempt.

Some might justifiably say, it’s important to know when you have done enough!

We have met and worked with hundreds of people, some who needed to go “just that little bit further” and others who had a “mountain to climb” or who “made huge improvements in no time at all”!

Our job is, that by giving prompts and tools the client is empowered to make inner changes themselves; the coach is a facilitator, not some kind of guru!

Everyone is a kind of expert who can tell you how to do things and what to do. But actually the only expert on you is YOU.

Just as only YOU can interpret the messages in your dream, 20 people can give the same presentation but it will be different in each case. Some will connect with their audience but others will not? Why is this?

This is where a great coach can make a world of difference.

Acting when the time is right, making the critical decision, knowing when to act and when not to, and acting swiftly and decisively, or taking one’s time to think things through.

The difference between winning that business contract or not; the difference between being successful in something or not; between becoming excellent at something, and going far enough to know what success feels like.

 

donald campbell and k7 crew

“Hurry boys, hurry, we have to make a quick change or the hour will be up.” – Donald Campbell

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Performance in English portfolio pages.

Details of our Coaching work, Business Communications, other Services, including Personalised Action Plans, Resourcefulness, Impact and “modelling” techniques including Embodiment skills and much more, now for Actors as well as all Business communicators.

www.performanceinenglish.com

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