Scenario: Over the top

As an Action Learning Coach how would you handle the following situation: You are coaching a team inside a company. The problem presenter is the owner of that company. The problem person is very verbose and rambles on even after he has answered the question. You’ve asked him: “What question are you answering?” several times. He responds ‘that one’ and continues to add additional information.  

Tags: Action Leaning, Action Learning, Action Learning Coach, WIAL, WIAL Action Learning, WIAL Talk

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Comments (7)

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    Tomasz Janiak

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    I would go: Let’s stop for a moment to take a look at the quality of our work. Looking at the communication in our team, what is the level of precision and conciseness of the statements that appear? Why is it important that we keep our communication preceise and concise? How can we hold each other accountable of the quality of the communication? What shall we do if we see a negatice change in this?

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    bo xie

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    As an Action Learning Coach, I would stop for a moment to take a look at the quality of our work.I would ask the team: Have we improved the quality of our responses to each other’question? And then let the team discuss how to better keep our communication preceise and concise?

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    Alex Wong

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    I would first intervene and ask the team:
    – On a scale of 1-10, how what is the quality of our answers to the questions?
    – How does this quality of answers impact the team if we carry on?
    – What could we do better?

    If broad questions doesn’t meet the objective, I would state my observation of the owner’s long responses, and ask the team on what the impact is, and what they could do differently.

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    marc rutter

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    I would lean in and ask “How do you think we are doing in answering the question at hand? What could we do differently to improve our responses as we seek to come to solution? If those questions do not address the issue, I might add, “How can we keep our communication more concise as we move forward?”

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    DrBea

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    I’d start with the 3 standard questions: how are we doing on a scale of 1-10? What are we doing well?What can we do better?
    If it did not come up I’d follow with-
    How are we doing JUST answering the question?
    Why is it important that we stay focused on the question that was asked and succinctly answer it?
    How will we hold ourselves and each other accountable to JUST answer the question.

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    SHA SHA

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    I will intervene and ask the team:
    How are we as a team doing on a scale of 1-10?
    What are we doing well?
    How can we do better?
    If the answer is vague and doesn’t hit the point, I will ask:
    About answering the question precisely and focusedly, how are we doing on a scale of 1-10?
    How can we do to be more precisely and focusedly when answering the question?

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    Patrick Peters

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    Answer:
    As an ALC I’d intervene and start with the 3 standard questions of the AL script;
    How are we doing on a scale of 1-10?
    What are we doing well?
    What can we do better?
    After answering the questions by the team and it did not come up I’d follow with;
    How are we doing with answering the question?
    After the team answered the question I’ll help and tell them that it’s important to stay focused on the question that was asked and giving answer on it?
    Asked them to keep this in mind and please proceed the session.

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