STEP 1:
Self-awareness
We all have our own values and beliefs, which shape our attitude towards what people say and do; this can get in the way when using counselling skills because these feelings can stop us from being impartial and move us into “telling mode”.
For example if you think about a manager who is a perfectionist and finds it difficult to tolerate mistakes, their attitude is likely to be less than empathetic to a member of their staff who has made a fundamental error. They may be tempted to tell the employee off and issue strong warnings about it not happening again.
The problem with this approach is that the member of staff has learnt nothing, now feels demoralised and will probably get it wrong again! A more productive result could be achieved if the manager could put his or her values and beliefs to one side and approach the situation impartially, without judging the employee. One approach might be to explore the reality and give the employee a chance to reflect and develop a solution:
- Ask the employee what they think went wrong?
- Did they lack information? What caused the error?
- How can they stop it happening again?
- What support or training do they need (if any)?
These are facilitative questions, which will be covered in step 4.
Most employees want to do a good job and often make mistakes due to time pressures and/ or lack of training. Giving them the time and space to think things through and come up with their own solutions will enhance their performance and benefit their manager.
STEP 2: Personal qualities and behaviours
There are three core conditions for using counselling skills with inherent qualities and behaviours. These are:
Acceptance:
Demonstrating acceptance of and respect for individuals for who and what they are.
Being open and prepared to listen, without jumping to conclusions or judging people if they don’t act as you would. It also means taking others seriously and not putting them down.
Authentic:
To be yourself - consistently straightforward and sincere, interested in others and helping them - without being patronising or condescending.
Being honest and treating others with respect, it also means only using counselling skills when it is appropriate to do so.
Empathy:
A definition: “Empathy means temporarily living in the other world whilst keeping a foot in your own; seeing the issues through the other’s eyes, feeling their emotions whilst controlling your own; remaining impartial without judging or sympathising”.
©Liz Brown/Fenman 1998
We can never know how other people feel, we do not have their values or beliefs and we haven’t lived their life, the worst thing we can say is, “I know how you feel” because we don’t! This is patronising and causes much resentment from the receiver. To use counselling skills effectively we need to try hard to interpret the other person’s meaning and to see the world as they see it.
For example when organisations decide to downsize or restructure, redundancies are usually the norm causing anger, uncertainty and ill feeling amongst the workforce. If people are not afforded the opportunity to talk about their feelings and concerns, they are likely to face problems with going through the transition to a new job elsewhere.
This situation can cause disruption whilst disgruntled employees remain in the organisation as they seek out others who will sympathise with their plight. This usually results in the spread of low morale and discontent, poor productivity and does nothing to restore the Individual’s self-esteem.
STEP 3: Active listening
Listening attentively and demonstrating that you are listening, this means taking in information that you are seeing as well as hearing; eye contact, facial expressions, mannerisms.
Most of us are not good listeners, we are too busy working out what we are going to say next or thinking about some other issue! So this is one of the more difficult skills to develop!
- Look at the person – use eye contact.
- Demonstrate interest by your facial expressions, nod - to show agreement and encourage, smile when appropriate.
- Adopt an open posture – palms open (receptive) try and sit on the same side of the desk to aim for equal status.
- No distractions – put the phone through or on voice mail.
- Don’t give out mixed messages – tapping fingers and sighing are clear signs of impatience!
- Give the other person time to think – don’t jump in and assume what they might say.
There is nothing more false or irritating than someone who says, “Go ahead I’m listening” when it is evident they are not!
STEP 4: Ask facilitative questions
Ask questions to facilitate an open channel for communications, use open questions to aid understanding.
These are not interview questions, nor is the aim to interrogate! The purpose is to give the recipient the chance to think things through for themselves, express feelings and concerns and in doing so find their own solutions through greater insight and understanding.
For example, within the appraisal process managers can use facilitative questions to encourage the employee to lead the discussion and take joint ownership of the process. Asking appropriate open questions in a supportive way without being critical or judgmental of the answers. Questions such as “How do you feel you have performed this year?” or “Tell me what you think went well? And not so well?” “What gave you the most satisfaction?”
Such questions can also be used to encourage self-development with questions like, “What difficulties did you encounter?” “What did you learn from these?” “How can you apply this knowledge in the future?”
Also to set objectives jointly, “What objectives do you want to achieve next year?” “How do you see your priorities in line with the business plan?” “What timescales do you suggest?” and so on…
Try to avoid the word “why” as it can sound judgemental and critical. Also steer away from leading questions such as, ”Wouldn’t you be better doing it this way?” This is giving your opinion in the form of a question!
STEP 5: Use summaries to clarify
- Draw together the main points of what the speaker has said and implied.
- Demonstrate that you have been listening and that you have understood accurately.
- Give the speaker the opportunity to correct you.
- Give structure and break down information into manageable chunks.
- Move the discussion forward.
- Recap.
- Clarify and confirm.
We all have a different perception of events and see things from our own individual perspective and as mentioned previously we are not good listeners. We need to become conscious of this and work at listening and understanding from the other’s perspective. Summarising is a useful tool in checking we have heard and understood the message as it was delivered.
When using counselling skills, effective summaries also attempt to reflect the feelings behind the words, if the person sounds and looks anxious you could say, “It sounds to me as though you are concerned about this….” before going on to summarise what they have said.
STEP 6: Reflecting
Reflecting words can be powerful, as words take on a new meaning when someone else repeats them back. It gives the speaker the chance to consider what they have said and reflect on it.
For example: A member of your staff who has recently been promoted to supervisor is not performingas well as you had hoped in the job, you ask them if they are having any difficulties with the work and he or she replies, “Well yes I am having problems, but that’s not surprising given the workload I am dealing with and the amount of complaints”.
There are clearly many responses you could make to this, which might include:
- “What do you mean not surprising?” This sounds slightly critical and accusing and could result in detailed complaints about the high workload and an unproductive debate!
- “What complaints?” Again this is picking up on the bit you would be most concerned about, rather than how he or she is coping.
When people are newly promoted they often need additional support and encouragement, their self-confidence may be knocked by not picking things up as quickly as they would like. They may also need more training or coaching or an opportunity to talk things through with someone with more experience.
Reflecting back just the word “problems” – empathetically, provides the opportunity for the recipient to expand on the problems they are facing and explore the causes, providing they are given the space to do so.
STEP 7: Focusing
This is appropriate when you are trying to pinpoint the area of concern; it narrows down the options.
For example, if the supervisor mentioned above said that he or she felt stressed by their role and did not feel they were coping, you might want to focus by reflecting back the word “coping”, framed as a question.
Stress is an individual reaction to events, it occurs when there is an imbalance between the demands placed on the individual and their coping resources, hence why it might be appropriate to focus in on the word “coping”.
Managers can use counselling skills to help individuals identify what stresses them and to help them to identify their own coping mechanisms. Is it the new position or are there other changes in their lives that may be causing stress? How have they coped with change in the past?
Helping them to draw on coping mechanisms to use in this situation e.g. asking others for help, delegating more, time management, planning etc. and exploring ways of relaxing away from work!
STEP 8: Prompting
Used to gain more information without turning a discussion into an interview or an interrogation!
By using prompting statements like “ Can you tell me more about that?” “And then…?”
The purpose of using prompting statements is to gain more information to help the recipient gain a greater understanding and to think through the issues, something people are rarely given the chance to do!
STEP 9: Giving feedback
Giving constructive feedback is also an important part of the process and is an area where managers can successfully apply all the elements of counselling skills.
Feedback should be directly expressed, specific and concentrated on observed behaviour; it should not be about the individual as a person. It should be non-judgemental, stating your reaction to what you saw, heard, read etc. stated as “When you said…. I felt that..” or “When I read that statement my reaction was…” Reactions, perceptions and opinions should be stated as such, not as facts.
It should be sensitive, taking account of the other person’s feelings and reactions and two-way; asking questions, checking reactions, ensuring comments are received as they were intended; no-one can act on feedback if they don’t understand it! It should also be encouraging, giving praise where it is due and being specific.
Feedback should also be actionable and you should concentrate on behaviour that the individual can change; alternative ways of behaving can be suggested and discussed to help the individual to consider how they might approach things differently.
STEP 10: The Steps
As with all skills, a framework is needed. The following steps provide that framework:
Step 1 Help people to talk – explore the problem or issue.
- Build rapport - acceptance, genuineness and empathy.
- Actively listen - don’t judge.
- Use facilitative questions, reflect, paraphrase, focus, prompt and summarise.
Step 2 Look at the options & examine the choices.
- Help the person to identify what they want.
- Enable them to think it through - are there other choices?
- Help them consider the implications of the various options, pluses and minuses.
Use questions like:
- “What would happen if…?”
- “What would be the advantages/ disadvantages…?”
- “Is there another way of doing/ approaching this?”
Step 3 Planning, taking action and goal setting.
- Brainstorm ideas - Help the person review how they are going to achieve their goals.
- Taking action - What would help them? What is hindering them?
- Goal setting - What do they want to achieve? When do they want to achieve this by?
A word of caution, Step 3 is not about pushing people into the actions that you might want them to take!