Breakthrough Conversations for Coaches, Consultants, and Leaders

This is an excellent resource for coaches, managers and/or leaders in the workplace. Basicallyfor anyone who wants to be more thoughtful in their conversations with others. Graham has structured the chapters so that they are brief, informative, and yet not overwhelming. He makes suggestions and provides frameworks which the reader can choose to use in their own way. This is a text which I keep coming back to for ideas and inspiration in my work.

I met Graham on a coaching course where he trained on psychodynamic coaching, I was hugely impressed by his skills and coaching presence. I immediately purchased both of his books! Both of which I recommend reading. In terms of this book, Graham provides a practical science based approach to powerful breakthrough conversations based upon Neuroscience, mindfulness and psychology research together with his significant experience in the field. Much more than a book on conversations…

Through a creative and imaginative linking of ideas Graham Lee provides new perspectives on how to think about the conversations we have. Putting conversation at the heart of things grounds us in an everyday realm of how we go about living our lives, relating to others, making decisions and through this exploration we are fed a feast of ideas drawn from psychoanalytic thinking, attachment theory, neuroscience, mindfulness and physiology. The ideas are clearly set out and the book is laced with case studies and diagrams that make it a very enjoyable read as well as a valuable guide for all those who are interested in how people work together effectively.

What a wonderful book. Graham Lee invites us to explore how to facilitate Breakthrough Conversations in a way which involves not only our minds but also by cultivating and working with body-brain awareness. The book is packed with information which is offered in an accessible way, including research, practical examples and tools which can be used to support conversations. Highly recommended.

Many executive coaches coming purely from a business background lack the psychological depth needed to help clients make significant and long-lasting change. While much of the popular coaching literature overlooks or simplifies the challenge of personal change, Leadership Coaching provides an accessible guide to coaching from a mature psychological perspective. Graham Lee introduces a number of valuable frameworks which, along with a series of case studies, provide the coach with valuable resources to deepen his or her practice. First the nature of the self is explored using the notions of ‘compliance’ (responsiveness to the needs of the organisation) and ‘defiance’ (responsiveness to one’s own needs). An important goal of leadership coaching is to identify such patterns of relating and to work towards ‘authenticity’. (As someone else put it, as human beings “we tend to collude, or collide. The challenge is to connect”.) Second the nature of change is explored in terms of how individuals establish habitual ways of experiencing and making sense of the world. Lee introduces the ‘ACE FIRST’ framework: Actions, Cognitions, Emotions, Focus of attention, Intention, Results, Systemic factors, and Tension (in the body). These eight factors provide a valuable focus for the coach’s attention, enabling the client’s patterned ways of being and relating to be brought to light. Third, Lee provides a down-to-earth explanation of the place and significance of the unconscious in coaching. For any practitioner who is unfamiliar with the impact of ‘unconscious process’ on coaching, this may be the most valuable section of the book. It’s remarkable that concepts such as transference and counter-transference are omitted from much coach training, so essential are they to any coach serious about helping clients change established ways of being. Fourth, Lee introduces a process of leadership coaching, termed ‘LASER’. This covers ‘Learning’ – concerned with creating and maintaining the conditions necessary for change. ‘Assessing’ – concerned with collecting and reviewing information. ‘Story-making’ – forming and testing hypotheses. ‘Enabling’ – recognising which factors will enable and which limit the possibility for change. And finally ‘Reframing’ – designing interventions that enable the client to see aspects of their experience in new ways. All coaches who are getting serious about facilitating change in others, and who understand that resistance to change is normal, and that deconstructing established patterns of behaviour requires the right conditions, would do well to read this book.