Monday
Jun142010

Clean Gymnastics

I went to Coggeshall in Essex on Thursday to spend a day in a primary school classroom, with Julie McCracken, who has introduced her 5, 6 and 7 year-olds to the joy of Clean Language. Julie and I are writing a book together on Clean in the Classroom, so I’ve heard many tales of clean goings-on, but this was the first chance I got to see for myself how the children responded to clean questions (they call them the ‘Detail Detective’ questions). It was an action-packed day, with children both asking and answering the questions. This post is about what happened in the gym lesson.

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Posted on DateMonday, June 14, 2010 at 09:03AM AuthorMarian Way | CommentPost a Comment |
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Tuesday
May182010

When 20 and 20 add up to 6:40

A few weeks ago, I read an article in my Toastmasters Magazine about a new presentation style that has been described as 'an antidote to bad PowerPoint'. Called Pecha Kuchu (Japanese for ‘chit chat’) it’s a way of putting together and delivering a more dynamic presentation. It works because of two simple rules: you make exactly 20 slides, and deliver them in exactly 20 seconds each.

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Posted on DateTuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:21PM AuthorMarian Way | Comment4 Comments |
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Sunday
Mar212010

'Tinkering' with Clean Language

by Jewels Carter

I run a devised drama group at the Arthouse in Southampton. We meet on a project-by-project basis on Wednesday evenings, aiming to perform twice a year, and to give everyone a flavour of the whole creative process, regardless of ability.  

The group begin by looking at any themes they would like to cover and any characters they would like to play. After we have explored the characters and each actor has written their character's story I pull it all together and write the script based upon their ideas. This time, we were a month away from "Tinkering", our latest production, when disaster struck.

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Posted on DateSunday, March 21, 2010 at 05:54PM AuthorMarian Way | CommentPost a Comment |
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Sunday
Feb282010

The Doubts Buster

by Rosaleen Bloomfield

Imagine…

You know what you want. The big goal is clear. You’ve defined your challenging and reachable goal.

It is well-formed – specific, measurable, time-bound, positive and expressed in the present tense. You know the resources that will be required and the signs that will indicate that it has been reached. You’ve even broken this goal down into smaller manageable steps. The action plan is defined. You are pleased with yourself. Excited and rearing to go… 

Suddenly, from dark rocks immediately behind you a thin, sharp, metaphorical arrow fires. It enters your head and lodges itself in the mind and lo and behold you feel unable to take action - paralyzed. 

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Posted on DateSunday, February 28, 2010 at 10:28PM AuthorMarian Way | CommentPost a Comment |
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Tuesday
Jan052010

Clean in the Classroom

On my very first day at infant school, I fell in love with the idea of being a teacher. How wonderful, I thought, to be standing at the front of the class telling everybody what to do. So I spent the next seventeen years working towards this ambition - and when I got my first teaching post, I walked into school feeling very proud of myself. I was a teacher at last! But pride comes before a fall and it wasn't long before I realised that teaching mathematics in a secondary school was NOT what I really wanted to do with my life after all.

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Posted on DateTuesday, January 5, 2010 at 12:12PM AuthorMarian Way | Comment1 Comment |
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Tuesday
Oct202009

Should I tell my client I am 'doing Clean Language' with them?

This question was the subject of a discussion initiated by participants at our recent More to Explore training. Most of my clients know I will be using Clean Language with them - the reason they come to me is because they are particularly interested in receiving this kind of facilitation. But if you are working in the corporate world as a marketing expert or a project manager, or if you are just introducing Clean Language into your coaching practice - should you tell your clients that you are using this tool?

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Posted on DateTuesday, October 20, 2009 at 09:02AM AuthorMarian Way | CommentPost a Comment |
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Thursday
Sep032009

Designing a Clean Workshop

How can we create a workshop that's 'clean' (i.e. attempts to not give people our models, theories, ideas, suggestions, advice and metaphors but instead creates experiences that enable them to learn from themselves and others) AND which has a distinct topic?

This is the challenge Penny Tompkins and I set ourselves when we first conceived our Discover Your Assertive Self workshop - and it took a LOT of thinking about. We were so tempted to add in a few pearls of wisdom, and to talk about our favourite models! We had to be strong for each other when one of us made a 'let's tell them' kind of suggestion. We had to notice what assumptions were going into activities we were designing.

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Posted on DateThursday, September 3, 2009 at 11:05AM AuthorMarian Way | CommentPost a Comment |
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Friday
Aug282009

A New Platform of Success

This is a case study of mine that is to be published in "Coaching Skills for Leaders in the Workplace: How to Motivate and Get the Best from Your Staff", by Jackie Arnold. It was written about a year ago.

Lizz Clarke is the Managing Director of Logical Creative Marketing (LCM), one of Hampshire's leading PR, marketing and design agencies. Lizz has built this business from scratch over the past 19 years and has had to face up to lots of different challenges along the way, as she’s developed the business from a ‘one-man band’ to a company which employs 10 members of staff and has a turnover of nearly £1 million per annum.

I first coached Lizz (using Clean Language) five years ago. At this time she had two members of staff as well as people she outsourced work to. During one session, she spoke about being scatterbrained, and I asked a few questions to develop this metaphor.

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Posted on DateFriday, August 28, 2009 at 04:51PM AuthorMarian Way | CommentPost a Comment |
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Wednesday
Aug262009

Clean Remedy for Toothache

When Jane came along to the Clean Language practice group in July, she was hoping to find out about Clean Language and to maybe have a go at asking some questions. That she also was able to get rid of a raging toothache that she’d had for nine months was a welcome surprise.

The pain was in a pre-molar that had been root-filled. When her dentist investigated, she found it was caused by the molar next door, which was badly inflamed, and gave her root canal treatment for this. But the pain didn’t stop… the dentist said that the molar tooth was still ‘settling down’ whilst the root was being destroyed by the medication, and further treatment was planned. Jane still had the pain when she arrived at the practice group. She couldn’t eat on the left hand side and drinking or eating anything hot or cold caused her excruciating pain.

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Posted on DateWednesday, August 26, 2009 at 01:54PM AuthorMarian Way | CommentPost a Comment |
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Thursday
Jul232009

Using Clean Language Principles in Coaching Sessions

By Liz Brant www.pineappleconsulting.co.uk

Having had three one-to-one Clean Language sessions with Marian working on my own challenges, I have now started to apply just two of the techniques she uses with my own coaching clients and I have been very impressed with the results: first the outcome question, "What would you like to have happen by the end of this session?" and second, repeating back exact words, regardless of grammatical sense.

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Posted on DateThursday, July 23, 2009 at 03:24PM AuthorMarian Way | Comment1 Comment |
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Friday
May152009

Way To Go!

If you're anything like us, you find metaphor fascinating, elegant, sometimes astonishing.

When we're working with clients or training people in Clean Language, we often catch each other's eye when we hear someone describing their experience with a particularly arresting metaphor. Sometimes we say aloud what we're thinking: 'Aren't people amazing!'

You might think we'd be used to it by now. Yes, we appreciate how metaphor is central to the way we think, yes, it is a great way to encapsulate a large amount of information in a small package, yes again, it's 'one kind of thing represented in terms of another'. We know all that - and people still have the capacity to delight and astound us with the creativity of their metaphors.

We know it's not just us who have this reaction.

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Posted on DateFriday, May 15, 2009 at 02:10PM AuthorMarian and Phil | Comment1 Comment |
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Wednesday
Apr292009

Less is More and What Happened Next

By Sheryl Andrews, Step By Step Coaching

I attended Apricot Island’s Less is More training in March 2009. It was really amazing and I knew I wanted to do more, so I have booked all the other trainings and the Personal Journey weekend. Immediately after Less is More I practiced Clean Language with my daughter who wanted to stop sucking her thumb, and although she has popped it in her mouth once she is now viewing herself as someone who doesn’t suck her thumb.

A couple of weeks later I attended the Clean Space training, and found I was able to put that into practice straight away, too…

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Posted on DateWednesday, April 29, 2009 at 02:32PM AuthorMarian Way | CommentPost a Comment |
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