Scenario: Overly Focused (2024)
Tags: Action Learning, ActionLearning Coach, Team Coach, WIAL, WIAL Action Learning, WIAL Talk
Trackback from your site.
Comments (6)
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Tags: Action Learning, ActionLearning Coach, Team Coach, WIAL, WIAL Action Learning, WIAL Talk
Trackback from your site.
John Chang
| #
As an AL coach, I maintain neutrality towards the content of the team’s discussions and respect the team’s ideas for advancing the issue. I would consider two approaches:
1. During the team’s reflection, I would ask, “Have we fully discussed various aspects of the problem and focused on the problem to be solved?” and “How should we deal with those perceptions/ideas/opinions/facts that have not been discussed?”
2. To confirm the direction of the team’s discussion with the PP, I would ask, “Has the team clarified the problem?” and “What is the relevance of the current discussion to your original problem?”
Reply
Jan-Joost Oostenbrink
| #
As their coach it’s not my role to take part on the content. However I’ll play the part of coach on the process and their learning. Therefore I would choose one of the following interventions:
1) I would call for a check in – asking the team how they are doing on progressing on their alternatives on the true nature of their problem, what they are doing well / what they might improve upon. This to see if they being overly focused themselves. This so they can take ownership of their own process & learn while going about it.
2) If they don’t make the observation on being overly focused I would ask the question “You have generated a number of alternative perceptions, ideas, opinions, facts, etc.. as to the true nature of the problem. Following that you have now spend x amount of time on one of them, what is the effect of this?
Reply
Huy Nguyễn
| #
I will intervene by asking PP:
“According to you, what is the most important keyword in the issue you’re raising?”
Then I will ask the whole group:
“Is the team currently focusing on the keyword PP just mentioned?”
“If not, what is causing the team to lose focus on it?”
Reply
Sunrui Wu
| #
First, I would invite the problem presenter to restate the problem.
Next, I would present my observation of the current situation: “I notice that there are very diverse inputs when discussing the essence of the problem. Currently, the team is focusing the discussion on one of them. How does everyone feel about this?”
Then, I would ask the team: “What impact does this have on our team?”
Finally, I would ask the team to make a decision: “Based on our recent discussion, what do we think would be the most helpful next steps for our team?”
If, after discussion and reflection, the team still decides to focus on this particular issue, I would respect the team’s decision.
Reply
Brandon Korosh
| #
If the team begins focusing too much on one idea and overlooks the others, I’d make a note of it and watch how the conversation develops. If it seems like they’re getting stuck or narrowing in too early, I might intervene before asking if we have agreement on the problem with process question like, “What happened to the other ideas we generated?” During the reflection at the end, I’ll ask the group what they noticed about how they handled competing ideas and whether anything was left out that might be worth revisiting.
Reply
Dida Khairullah
| #
I agree with the earlier comment that as a coach it’s important to remain neutral regarding the content of the discussion. However, we can use the teams process of navigating different perceptions, ideas, and opinions as a valuable learning opportunity instead.
For example, during an intervention I would ask the team, “How are we doing as a team in addressing the problem?” followed by, “I noticed that many ideas, opinions, and pieces of information were shared, how did we handle it as a team?”
I would also guide the team through revisiting their current consensus of the problem by asking them to write down and read aloud their problem statement and whether there is an agreement to the problem. Furthermore to have a deeper reflection I would ask a follow up question “What can we do better as a team moving forward?”
This encourages the team to reflect on how they processed the wide range of information and consider whether their current focus represents a thoughtful and collective decision while also maintaining respect for their decision.
Reply