Habits of Mind

Huh, its 5.46am. I should be asleep however I am not, I am awake, the brain is active, I've enjoyed my first cuppa and have been reviewing material from Costa's Habits of Mind in preparation for working with a client. As I read through this material I was reminded of how easy it is to become stuck in how we go about doing things.

As a management coach I spend a good part of each day in discussion with individuals, asking a lot of questions and I believe I'm reasonably good at it - at least feedback indicates I am - yet as I reviewed the Habits of Mind material I realised how we create our own habits. Some of them are good, some not so. I realised also how we have a tendency to complicate situations.

Take asking questions for example. Costa talks about Questioning with Intention. To engage with plurals, What are some of your goals? rather thanWhat goal have you set? To explore tentatively using words such as might, could and may. To invite further exploration with questions that include an invitation to envisage, evaluate and to probe.

As I think through this process I am reminded that our 'toolkit of questions' doesn't need to be extensive. A handful of well designed questions, asked when relevant, will be more productive than a list. I recall that when I first engaged in coaching, some 7-8 years ago, I would go into a meeting with a bullet point list of questions to ask. I soon learned that coaching conversations are a journey, without a preset destination. They are not an interview. I learned how to replace my fear that I would forget to ask something with the ability to ask just one or two relevant questions and then to focus upon listening to the response. Further questions would derive from how well I listened to what the other person was saying.

We create our own habits. The challenge we face is to recognise this and to put aside time to reflect, to review our practices and to ask ourselves how we could achieve the same outcome without making the process complicated? I didn't conciousely set out to review my habits as I read through this material. I was seeking to adapt it for the adult audience of my client. I discovered that though Habits of Mind material is aimed at the school market, it is relevant to all, young and old.

All this suggests the key to a good life may well be to never stop learning, to constantly be trying to connect the dots and rediscover new ways of looking at old problems. Now that is getting a little to philosophical and probably reflects the time of the day and lack of caffine.

To those reading this blog, I hope your day has started as well as mine has.