Slides for the London Lean Kanban Days Conference April 2017

1. © 2017 ripplerock
Helen Meek

2. © 2017 ripplerock
Helen Meek
An experienced Coach & Trainer
Helen.Meek@ripple-rock.com
@Helen_J_Meek

3. © 2017 ripplerock
• A practical session that allows us to
practice our coaching skills in a safe
environment.
• Techniques that you can take away
and use straight away with your
teams.

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• Powerful questions come from a place of
genuine curiosity
• They are direct, simple and usually open-ended
• Generate creative thinking and surface
underlying information
• Encourage self reflection
A question is most powerful when neither the asker nor the responder knows the
answer, until the question is answered

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Senses &
Sensations
What has happened?
What could others observe?
What have you observed so far?
How often does this happen?
What has been said about this?
Emotions
How did it feel?
When you think about it, what
feelings are alive in you?
How often have you been feeling
like this?
How much motivation have you
around this?
How clear are your feelings about
this?
What are you noticing about your
feelings
Thinking
Where is your thinking right now?
How long have you been thinking
about this?
What have you learned so far?
How important is this on a scale
of 1-10?
How clear is your thinking round
this issue?
What insights are you having?
What have you noticed about
your thinking?

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The GROW Model is one of the
most established and successful
coaching models. Created by
Alexander Graham, Sir John
Whitmore and colleagues in the
1980s, it was popularized in Sir
John’s best-selling book,
Coaching for Performance.

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G •Goals
R •Reality
O •Options
W •Will or When

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• Get into groups of 3
• Each think of a scenario you might need help on
Person 1 – Seeker - Looking for help
Person 2 – Coach – Using powerful questions or 5 Whys
Person 3 – Observer – Provides feedback to coach
Lets practice those powerful questions!

11. © 2017 ripplerock

12. © 2017 ripplerock
Helen Meek

13. © 2017 ripplerock
SARA is an acronym that we often use to portray the relatively predictable pattern of emotional responses that people feel when an event
happens to them that they are not expecting
What does it stand for?
• S: shock or surprise
• A: anger or anxiety
• R: rejection or rationalization
• A: acceptance
Think about the last time that you experienced a situation or received information that did not fit your view of what you thought
would/should happen.
• Shock/surprise: Perhaps you felt surprise or some level of amazement/shock that what happened just happened.
• Anger/anxiety: Because you were caught off-guard, you might have experienced some level of frustration, discomfort or worry
regarding what the event or information might mean.
• Rejection/rationalization: In an effort to try to reconcile the information with what you believed should have happened, you might have
tried to “explain away” the disconfirming information. This is where we often look for excuses or “reasons why” things happened the
way they did. We will often try to find information that casts us in the best light (which usually aligns with our self-perceptions)
• Acceptance: After some time—and time seems to be the biggest variable between men and women—you reached a state of
acceptance. You told yourself, “it is what it is,” and you were ready to take action and move on accordingly.

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• It is important to remember that SARA responses are perfectly predictable and normal. We all move
through the different stages.
• Research conducted by Dr. Barbara Annis, expert on Gender Intelligence, suggests that men and
women routinely move through these stages at different speeds. Men tend to view unusual or
surprising situations as problems to be solved. If a problem can be solved, men tend to value taking
action and moving quickly to solve the problem. If a problem can’t be solved, men tend to move into a
state of Acceptance: realising that they can’t change the current situation, it makes the best sense to
let it go.
• Women, on the other hand, tend to spend more time in a rumination phase. Instead of being able to
move as quickly into Acceptance, women tend to stay longer in the state of Rejection and
Rationalisation. They wonder what they could have done differently, or worry about what happened
in the situation and what the possible consequences are, and cycle through this thought pattern for a
longer period of time.
• This is an important thing to remember when giving feedback and coaching.

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If you google ‘SARA’ you will sometimes find ‘SARAH’ as a model option. This is the same but with the added ‘H’ for help
Sometimes people are ready to talk about what help is required straight away. Many times though people do not want to talk
about it at the initial feedback stage as they need time to accept it.
Other variations are Healing or Hope 