International Teaching Seminars Blog

Ian McDermott introduces himself and International Teaching Seminars at a recent evening event.

Leadership is perceived as being in short supply. We are, so many believe, crying out for leadership.

Leadership, I have found, is like charity - it begins at home. To be a good leader of others you first need to know how to lead yourself - and when you can lead yourself you can lead others.

Leadership, when you are true to yourself, flows like a river and is without effort. It emanates and radiates. It is not something that is forced out with determination, or that creates high blood pressure and sleepless nights. Put another way, leadership is about personal congruence, and the key to personal congruence is being able to pace yourself.

You need to be clear about the journey you wish to make, the speed at which you wish to travel and the beliefs and values that will guide your path.
It is about becoming the leader that is already within you.
Once you can pace yourself you are ready to lead yourself and others.

You need to be able to honour and acknowledge the different aspects of yourself whether your conscious mind likes them or not. You will also need to address your own particular habitual patterns and experiences.
If this sounds like a tall order, the good news is that the ways to achieve this can all be taught.

In addressing these areas you will find yourself personally changing and becoming more completely aligned, a process which goes on over a lifetime.

It is like becoming a charioteer with all your horses running in the same direction, at the same speed and
with the same intentions.

The pay-off is enormous as you are truly able to walk your talk, to practice what you preach or to do what you say. It produces a particular kind of leadership style which is sometimes called ‘leading by example’. This is about leading by being: being one whose behaviour is naturally aligned with who you are and what matters to you.

So often when I’m coaching executives my function is to draw out what they have not recognised that they have within themselves. The more competent the person becomes, the less they need to dominate.

My experience is that once people know they can have this, they want it very badly because it is profoundly healing and very empowering. The fruits of such self-empowerment are readily apparent.

Unfortunately, many find themselves in businesses and organisations, in positions where they are expected to demonstrate a leadership style which is not really them, a cultural ‘norm’ that just doesn’t fit. If the culture is one of ‘have to’ as opposed to one of ‘want to’, real leadership suffers.

To enhance someone’s ability to be a leader in their life, one must first enhance the individual who will be that leader. There is no better way to do this than to create structures which draw out of an individual his or her own unique vision and mission. Why? Because these are born of that person’s identity.

The more you can draw on these the better you are able to influence. The more influential you are, the less you need to try to control.

That’s what leadership coaching means to me.

Ian McDermott, founder and director of International Teaching Seminars (ITS), offers practitcal tools for personal, business and clinical success in this three part article.

“I just want things to be like they were before I got ill.”

Working with people I have heard this sentiment expressed many times over the years. But of course if this really could be achieved; if things really were just the same as before this person got ill, guess what? Other things being equal, we might reasonably expect a repeat of what happened before. In other words they’d get ill all over again.

I think many practitioners have heard clients or patients say similar things; they want a return to what for them feels normal. Too often though normality is confused with the familiar. For most of us the familiar is deeply reassuring.

However, if that familiar way of functioning has got you to a place where things aren’t working for you, then it’s going to be necessary to do something different. And that probably means you’ll be doing something that feels unfamiliar. In NLP there’s a famous dictum which says, if what you’re doing isn’t working – do something different! This may sound pretty obvious advice but when we’re feeling stuck, by definition, we are not at our most innovative. Indeed we often fall back on our old familiar ways of being and doing.

There’s a danger that the more stuck or helpless we feel the more likely we are to just do more of the same but with more effort – this is what I know how to do so I’ll just try harder doing what doesn’t work. As one client said to me when they realised the need for change “doing virtually anything different could lead to an improvement for me if only because it would shake up my old routine.”

Motivating Clients

This is true in any area of our life but the implications of this for health practitioners and clients are particularly significant. Very often how effective we’re going to be depends on how able we are to motivate a client so that they can see the value of stepping outside their old patterns and doing what may feel unfamiliar. Much of my work in NLP has been focused on developing ways to ensure this really happens and many of my trainings are designed to teach this as a learnable skill.

I’ve found building such motivation easier to do when I can provoke a reassessment and some new thinking on the part of the client. I want to explore with clients what would need to be different so that a better life might be possible. But first I need to get their attention. I mean really get their attention. And that’s how I came to develop different ways of responding to what they said. To take the example above:

Client: “I just want things to be like they were before I got ill.”
IM: “What! You want to be ill again?!”

Of course that’s the last thing that either of us wants. What they want is for things to be different and better. But whenever we want things to be different and better it means some things are really going to have to change. So what specifically will that mean for this particular person? Together we need to get clear on what change will mean and how we’ll know if it’s happening.

Reviewed by Dr Peter Stokes, principal lecturer/division leader, Lancashire Business School, University of Central Lancashire.

This is straightforward, nut-and-bolts “how to” guide to coaching. The book takes the reader through the necessary basis of the coaching process and options. It is well-written, sticks to the business at hand, and is true to its “Essential Handbook” title.
However, don’t overlook the sections “Coaching – The Larger Issues” and “Coaching and Beyond”. These create a platform from which readers can progress to further reading.

One of the more intriguing and interesting sections of the book is “Being Impeccable”, which brings a moral and ethical dimension to the subject area. Coaching has been considered as a novelty and has, like many fashions, clearly attracted its fair share charlatans. The aspirations and code of conduct discussed here are worthy and valuable aspects of the coaching world.

Useful -
Well-written -
Practical -
Inspirational -
Value for money -
Overall -

The Coaching Bible can be purchased from the ITS site by clicking here.

Below is an extract from ‘Fantastic Federer’ by Chris Bowers. ITS founder Ian McDermott was invited by the author to lend his opinions on Roger Federer’s rise to dominance and continued excellence in his sport.

The technique of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) was developed in California in the 1970’s. It’s designed to illustrate excatly why one person can perform a skill well while someone with the basic attributes can excel at that same skill, and then work out ways for others to emulate (or model) the successful person. The technique is used by numerous athletes in many sporting disciplines.

One of NLP’s leading authorities is Ian Mcdermott, who runs the british based initiative International Teaching Seminars. He suggests looking closely at Federer’s mentors. “Children grow up modelling,” says Mcdermott, “so Federer is going to have been influenced by his social enviroment - and one of the biggest influences he cites in his childhood was Peter Carter. Everyone who speaks about Carter talks of the inherent calmness of the man, and it’s interesting that Federer’s most significant breakthrough appears to have been his response to his outburst in Hamburg in 2001.

If you look at the phrasing he uses when looking back on that event, he is clearly disasociating himself from his angry reaction to the way he played and saying he has to change the relationship he has with his own response. And in the back of his mind was this mentor who was calmness personified. Carter’s calmness may be the most important thing Federer has modelled.

“Culturally, I think we’ve tended to become very critical of people who express strong anger or emotion after losing sporting contests. What Federer did in Hamburg was a clean response, as opposed to a muted reaction to defeat with the anger and emotions let out later and away from public view. But Federer obviously felt that this angry reactin wasn’t working for him, so he learned how to change his response. Since then, he’s operated a form of iron discipline, which we see as a calmness on court. These days there are just the occasional controlled explosions of anger or emotion when he threatens to boil over, like the time he blasted the ball away in his match at the Athens Olympics, or bursting into tears after winning the Australian Open.- When incidentally Peter Carters parents were present as his guests”.

With his experience of working with successful people in all walks of life, McDermott suggests that, having reached the top, Federer biggest challenge might only now be beginning. “To get to number one, Federer will have paid a price,” he says.

“A commitment to excellence when combined with a strong competitive streak tends to produce an extreme focus that can result in a certain unbalanced development, simply because you’re so busy putting everything into the area that matters most to you. My experience of working with successful people is that very often the price they’ve paid is higher than it needed to be. Once they come to realise that a rebalancing can take place, but this doesn’t have to result in any diminishing of excellence. I can’t help wondering wheather Federer has paid a higher price than was necessary. Where has the fun loving boy gone? Where is the prankster from the Basel tennis club who loved having fun on court but then found his concentration wandered? Perhaps if Federer were, say to rediscover a little of his on-court sense of fun in matches while at the same time not losing the bite that makes him excel, he would reclaim a fuller sense of himself. That wouldn’t just increase the accomplishment of his titles but would also make him much more attractive to fans, because people would have more of him to engage with. It would also reduce the risk of what happened with Pete Sampras happening to Federer – namely that, because he was so successful the same way, over and over again, people found that they had less to care about and even started to say he was so boring.”

Only Federer himself can know how much fun he gets from being at the top of the tennis tree. The standard facial expression he has during matches is very dour- unflinching, focused, almost depressed-looking. Only when a match ends does the humanity return, almost as if the true personality was suspended for the duration of the contest. Perhaps if he does ever find himself wondering where his next challenge lies and where he might go from here, maybe one option might be to attempt to move from being one of the worlds most watchable tennis players because of his elegance of his strokes and his inherent good sportsmanship, to being one whom people care about as well as admire- and that might enhance his appeal even more.

International Teaching Seminars is pleased to introduce “Coaching and NLP”, a workshop run by Henley Management College that introduces new NLP techniques and reveals their effective use in a coaching context.

Understanding patterns in thinking and behaviour can have considerable implications for the success of coaching situations. The workshop is presented by Ian McDermott demonstrates specific techniques for successful executive coaching.

Benefits

• Achieve an understanding of what NLP is, and how it can be used in the course of mainstream executive coaching.
• Gain new confidence in how to credibly incorporate these approaches into your coaching work.
• Experience key techniques in action, working with the acclaimed master of NLP Coaching.

About Henley Management College
A business school established 60 years ago by business, for business. High pragmatic and relevant programmes are readily applied back in the working environment, to make a real difference to individuals and organisations.

Is Coaching with NLP for me?
You don’t need to be NLP trained to be able to benefit from this workshop - and it will be invaluable to professional coaches, and to managers coaching in the day job.

Date
31 October

Time
9.30am - 4.30pm

Dinner can be booked at 7pm - at a cost of £19, payable at time of booking.

Fee
£555 (€840) plus VAT.

How to Book
To book online go to www.henleymc.ac.uk/coachingworkshops.
For further information please contact executive eduation on tel: +44 (0)1491 418767 or email exec@henleymc.ac.uk.

Please note: This is not part of the International Teaching Seminars course structure, this is offered by Henley Management College.

If you are uncertain about whether to go for certification you may want to consider what it has meant to different people:

• Proof of Competence
  Getting a certificate means that you are recieving external feedback about your capability. It confirms that you are considered to have achieved a certain level of competence.
• Validation and legitimation
  You will be part of the ongoing process of passing on knowledge of NLP to other people either formally or informally. For some people it is important to have permission to do so. Certification can be the equivalent of being told “Now, go ahead and do it. Go out into the world and know you can legitimately claim a level of expertise in this area.”
• A rite of passage
  You will have changed in many ways during your training. Your sense of who you are, your knowledge of what you know, and your capabilities will be different. You went through this process and you emerged successfully at the end, and you have closure on it. In a sense a rite of passage allows you to put the elements together - you have integrated your own experience. You know what you know. Now you can move on.
• A sense of an ending
  For nearly everyone certification comes to represent a symbolic completion of a significant experience. Certification will give you a sense of an ending.

Proof of competence
Certification depends upon you demonstrating in your behaviour that you can do what has been taught. That means you are being a behavioural demonstration of what you have learned. It is no good having an encyclopedic knowledge of how to establish rapport if you don’t actually do it. Therefore if you get Certification you will know that you have demonstrated a suitable level of competence.

The process is analogous to the Driving Test. We need to know that you are able to handle the vehicle (of NLP) and that you are no danger to others on the road (of life). We do not expect you to be an expert, nor do we require you to name all the parts of the engine. We presume that your learning is just beginning and that continued practice hereafter will enhance your behavioural skills. You take off the L-plates and the next stage of learning begins.

1. Enjoy Learning

Regard trainings as the antidote to all previous formal learning.

• Engage with your innate ability to learn, by learning as you did before you ever started formal education.

Ask yourself:

• “What is going to make it interesting for me to be here?”
• “What is going to affirm me in my sense of myself?”
• “What will allow me to learn in my own way?”

2. Know your Outcome

Ask yourself:

• “Why am I here?”
• “What do I want to achieve from being here?”
• “How will being here make a difference to my life?”

3. Be Curious

• Ask yourself “What am I curious about?”
• Be proactive in getting to know and working with other people. You will be amazed at the different world they have created for themselves.
• Test your reality!
• Know that the answer to “Doesn’t everybody do this?” is “No!”
• Be open to what happens rather than immediately judging it for yourself.
• Be willing to experience the unfamiliar. Tolerate not know and even some confusion.

4. Choose your State

Ask yourself:

• “What would be the best state for me to be in if I want to learn the most, and the most easily?”
• “What would the qualities of that state be?”
• “Do I have to be sitting down to learn?”

If you learn better by moving around, or standing, then feel free to do so, at the back or at the sides of the room.

5. Get a Different Perspective

• Move your position in the room frequently. In this way you will literally get a different perspective. The training is very different from different parts of the room.
• During demonstrations feel free to move so that you can see what is going on.

Read more »