New insights do not automatically lead to new skills. re:lead shares how we build a bridge from inspiration to integration through 'directly supervised practice' — a structured working method in which the supervisor intervenes in real meetings and helps groups develop sustainable relational skills.
It is widely known that new insights do not automatically lead to new skills or courses of action. In fact, there is often a frustrating gap between what one knows and what one experiences being able to do.
From many of our development programmes, we know that clients experience something new and transformative, especially in relation to the relational. Group processes change; everyone feels it, and it creates appetite to sustain and build upon these experiences in everyday life.
At the same time, one's own role and shared responsibility in the dynamics becomes clearer, and thereby also a binding opportunity.
Change can also be at the 1:1 level, where complicated or feared conversations suddenly become possible and productive, through the guidance we provide.
The questions many clients are subsequently preoccupied with are — how did you work out what we needed, and what were the interventions that created the changes?
And — naturally, as the most important — can we ourselves be relied upon to create that kind of enriching experience, or integrate it into our own leadership practice going forward?
The honest answer is — No, you rarely can.
Old patterns do not change from one day to the next, and new situations bring challenges one has not foreseen or prepared for. For insights to develop into action skills and well-integrated competencies, one must practise and be supported and challenged through qualified feedback.
The obvious place to practise acquiring these processual skills — such as being able to adjust relational dynamics and foster a developmental community — is in meetings or conversations at one's own workplace, with the people one must work together with. This makes the training relevant, realistic and developmental.
At re:lead, we have good experience in undertaking all parts of this process: from insight creation through training sessions to feedback, reflection and integration.
The method we use is called directly supervised practice.
It is a structured working method with clear agreements about both roles and focus for the work. The supervisor has agreed beforehand with the client what the focus for the work should be.
The direct element consists in the supervisor being present during the meeting and having the task of intervening with adjustments to the interaction, so that participants immediately feel the effect of the change.
Direct supervision is help towards self-help in that it is not the supervisor's primary task to put forward solution suggestions on the content side of what is being discussed. Instead, the focus is on the processes that need to be developed, so that the group, through their own efforts, can now and in the future create developmental processes and satisfactory collaboration.
A leadership group has realised that their meetings often go in circles. They do not clarify dilemmas and differences of opinion; too few speak up actively, which is why decisions are not made or rest on an unclear basis. They experience the meetings as unproductive and frustrating. The attempts they have already made with regard to structuring the meeting format have not led to any noticeable change.
The group has decided to receive help — not for solving a particular question, but to generally be able to hold meetings in a new and more developmental way. This requires that they are willing to let the supervisor observe and intervene in one or more real meetings. The meetings now have two equally important focus areas as something new: the content (what is being discussed) and the processes (the interaction or the way it is being discussed).
In this particular case, it turned out, among other things, that several participants held back from expressing themselves critically towards the group's leader. His reactions were defensive and gave the impression that he took criticism personally. No one wanted to hurt him, or be perceived as disloyal, which is why they preferred to pass, rather than speak up properly. The leader opened up to the fact that he was certainly vulnerable in relation to how committed and dedicated he was to achieving results, but that he equally certainly lacked feedback and would definitely work to change his signals.
Before the meeting, the supervisor has clarified with the client which challenges both the meeting leader and group members have already identified. These will naturally be part of the supervisor's focus. At the same time, the group's participants cannot themselves identify and put words to all the relevant dynamics. There are shared blind spots, which the supervisor, with their external perspective, will be able to spot.
The focus is threefold:
During the meeting, both the supervisor and the meeting participants can call a time-out, where the conversation stops, whilst transparency is created in relation to the dynamics that otherwise influence or drive the interaction beneath the surface.
After the timeout, the meeting resumes with renewed focus, and continues until it again becomes necessary to intervene, create clarity and point to new communication possibilities. This process is repeated as needed throughout the meeting.
Finally, the supervisor and group gather together the key points, with a view to how the group can continue the work on their own.
Direct supervision is a demanding and rewarding working method. Its strength is that it does not work with hypotheses about how a situation might be changed — but that it directly creates changes and thereby experiences of other possibilities than those already known.
When a group works in this way, you typically experience that trust and mutual understanding grow, whilst new forms of collaboration show themselves to be possible.
Direct supervision is an obvious follow-up to both group reviews and leadership development areas that have been identified, for example through ITC work. Direct supervision can with advantage be supplemented with individual sparring/coaching, to ensure that the new experiences are integrated as well as possible.