I’ve never much liked having BBC Radio 4’s Nick Robinson in my kitchen first thing in the morning. He’s the smug, sneery-toned Today programme journalist who may well be as disliked by his co-presenter Emma Barnett as me.

The Times – of which I am a subscriber – reported a few weeks ago that Emma and Nick had not co-presented the BBC Radio 4 breakfast show for more than 90 days and that “before their last outing in mid December, they had shared the studio three times in more than 150 days.” This got me thinking about when it is useful to avoid versus surface the tension that exists between us and a colleague.

My occupation brings me into contact with tales of interpersonal conflict at work on a frequent basis, with coachees using session time to explore existing dynamics; reflect on the role they have played in where they are now; consider how they would like the relationship to be instead and, crucially, generating and evaluating possible routes to creating a better working relationship.

Ken Thomas and Ralph Kilmann, two psychologists in their professional prime in the 1970s, developed the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) to assess conflict-handling styles. “Avoidant” is one of their five styles and Emma and Nick’s adoption of it might be a well-chosen strategy. [Side note: I’ve written about the pros and cons of the other four conflict-handling styles here].

Thomas-Kilmann Five Conflict Styles

The model identifies 5 distinct conflict handling styles based on two dimensions: assertiveness (the extent to which a person seeks to satisfy their own wants) and cooperativeness (the extent to which a person seeks to satisfy the concerns of others).

Here’s a summary of the five styles:

Competing: High assertiveness, low cooperativeness. This style involves pursuing one’s own concerns at the expense of others. It’s effective in situations requiring quick, decisive action, such as emergencies or enforcing necessary but unpopular rules. It’s not ideal for maintaining long-term relationships as it can be perceived as aggressive and uninterested in the needs of others (for example, if Nick were to insist that he does the prestigious 8.10am political interview every time he’s on air with Emma*).

Collaborating: High assertiveness, high cooperativeness. This approach seeks a win-win solution by addressing the concerns of both parties. It’s ideal for resolving complex issues where mutual understanding is crucial but it takes time and effort so best reserved for things that really matter (and not who gets which studio mic).

Compromising: moderate assertiveness, moderate cooperativeness. This style aims for a middle ground solution that partially satisfies both parties. It’s useful when time is limited or when the stakes are not high. It’s unlikely to fully satisfy either party so it’s less effective for deeply personal issues. (A great tactic if there’s argument about who gets which desk in the studio: Emma gets the ‘best desk’ from 6-7.30am and Nick switches in 7.30-9am*).

Avoiding: Low assertiveness, low cooperativeness. This style involves sidestepping the conflict altogether. It can be appropriate for trivial issues or when the potential damage of confrontation outweighs the benefits. (For example, Emma not saying anything when Nick asks to be named first in the closing credits*).

Accommodating: Low assertiveness, high cooperativeness. This approach prioritises the concerns of others over one’s own. It’s effective for preserving relationships, harmony and for when you want to show generosity but could lead to resentment and passive aggressive behaviour if over-used. (This could be the approach Nick – a man who mainly drinks fizzy mineral water – takes if Emma suggests the Radio 4 team get a coffee machine for Christmas and not a Quooker. It could be a whole different conflict style on Nick’s part if he was a herbal tea fanatic*).

*All the making of my imagination.

When an avoidant approach is useful

In my coaching practice I’ve noted that the oxymoronic sounding ‘avoidant approach’ is useful when:

• Interactions consistently lead to heightened emotions that leave one or both people unable to perform the way the organisation needs them to.
• There is no willingness and/or resources to help the parties understand each other and find a way to work better together.
• When the work can be done without the two people collaborating.
• When the coachee is busy talking to head hunters and making exit plans.

Avoidance is also a useful temporary strategy that allows emotions to cool and a more constructive approach to be planned. In Emma and Nick’s case, there’s an option for them not to work together given they are part of a five-person presenting team, although I suspect this sometimes causes a scheduling headache for the production team (holidays and sickness absence for instance).

Disliking a colleague could drive your career

One upside of Emma’s dislike of Nick – if that is what’s driving their lack of working together – might be it that it fuels her career. According to a recent piece of research about learning motivation with veterinary students in Bulgaria, the biggest external motivator for learning was a desire not to fall behind students whom the participants disliked.

Mediation and Executive Coaching

If Emma and Nick did want to work out their differences, mediation is likely to be a helpful tool. Empirical research on workplace mediation effectiveness has shown that, in general, mediation has good settlement rates, varying from 60 percent to 80 percent (e.g. Kim et al. 1993; Mareschal 2005; Wood and Leon 2005; Swaab and Brett 2007; Poitras and Le Tareau 2009). More recent research exploring the long term outcomes of mediation (measured at 1 year post mediation) with Dutch co-workers shows positive outcomes (Kalter et al, 2018).

Before mediation might come executive coaching for these two exceptional bright minds. If I was working with Emma I imagine we‘d spend time exploring what she wants in her career, what she values, how she wants to be perceived by her co-presenters and broader colleague set and to what extent the behaviours she dislikes in Nick are behaviours she too displays. There’d also be some Appreciative Inquiry in our coaching time to illuminate the thoughts and behaviours that have been at play when things have been going better between her and Nick – as well as Nick’s admirable qualities. We’d also design some experiments for her to run between coaching sessions which would increase her sense of agency and hopefulness that things could get better.

As for Nick, I’d invite him to work with one on my excellent coaching colleagues – people who haven’t explicitly described him as smug and sneery. For the time being he has no chance of changing my mind as my default DAB setting is now Times Radio. Have you heard the newly appointed Times Radio Breakfast presenter-journalist, Kate Borsay? She’s terrific.

Jessica Chivers | December 2024.

This ‘reflective essay’ was written at the end of a three month Professional Group Coaching programme with coaching psychologist Ana Paula Nacif. I share as a window on Group Coaching training and to inspire and encourage other executive coaches and coaching psychologists to keep developing their practice and their self-understanding. It is the full, unedited version.

 

Approaching Group Coach training

I approached the learning with positive anticipation after hearing Ana Paula speak about group coaching at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Coaching Psychology conference in June 2024. This was serendipitous as I’d only weeks before discussed with a colleague who runs group coaching on an executive education programme at London Business School the merits of group coaching for a particular need/population I am keen to work with.

After 20 years of coaching training and CPD activities I have learned that I am most successful at applying what I learn when I am thinking from the start how/when/with whom I will make use of it. I came to the group coaching training with the intention of piloting a group coaching programme for parents of neurodivergent children who are seeking support to maintain or increase their own wellbeing and maintain or progress their careers. I’ve found it helpful to have this intention sitting in the background throughout the programme as it’s helped me really think about the application of what I am learning.

I thought I knew what was meant by ‘Group Coaching’ (GC) when I started the course and I soon realised what I was holding in mind was more akin to hot-seat coaching. Hot-seat coaching does technically fit within Nacif’s definition of group coaching “A collaborative and time-limited small-group process in which a professionally trained coach uses coaching principles and approaches to work with a group of individuals on their own personal goals and/or outcomes.” (Nacif, 2021, p.172) The experiential reality of GC, however, as taught and demonstrated by Ana Paula is that the group is always together as one, with all goals/outcomes always present event whichever person is talking. It’s like a complex interwoven web of threads where everyone is ‘getting somewhere’ at the same time.

 

Is the Group Coach really necessary in high-functioning groups?

As a group we sometimes wondered whether the Group Coach was really necessary as the group seemed to be functioning so well without her/him. We reflected that part of the apparent ease of the group working together is likely to be because of the skills we have honed as coaches and these same skills are perhaps less likely to be present in the groups we go onto work with. This said, there were times when we came out of practice sessions that we reflected on how important it was to know that the Coach was there. That the presence of the Coach allowed the conversation to happen because we felt ‘secure’ that there were boundaries being held by the coach. I have heavily underlined these words from “Group and Team Coaching: The Secret Life of Groups” (Thornton, 2016) which I read as part of the training programme:

“What does not change is the Group Coach’s role as boundary keeper, the person who holds the framework within which the group works. The group coach, like the individual coach, focusses on the group’s task mainly indirectly, by promoting group members’ capacities to tackle it. The primary focus is on helping the group move the task forward by concentrating on the quality of interactions in the group. If the group coach is seduced into focussing on the group’s task rather than his/her own, which is to help the group improve it’s functioning, the group and its task will be the loser.” (p. 38)

 

The magical and fortifying qualities of Group Coaching

I’ve been struggling to find a word that precisely captures the beauty, magic and efficacy of the group coaching experience. What I see and feel is that learning is taking place constantly for all group members, albeit at different paces, and that the insights group members get (that relate to their goals/objectives) often come seemingly out of nowhere, sparked by something another group member says. It’s such a rich experience.

I’ve been struck by how validating and useful GT can be for people who are experiencing something that makes them feel different/separate/alone and that is not easily discussed with or understood by the people closest to them. To come together as a group under a uniting theme such as ‘working and living well as a parent of neurodivergent children’ is to say “your challenges are real and shared by others. You are not alone”. This is a unique and precious feature of GT than 1:1 coaching cannot replicate. I think it’s fortifying to spend time with people who share similar struggles and aspirations.

 

Different flavours of Group Coach

When I’m learning something new I will pay attention in a forensic way, attending to exactly how the teacher/instructor is doing what they’re doing. In the beginning one doesn’t know if those particular words, body language or timing – for example – are quite deliberate and integral to the practice. It’s easy to get caught up in thinking the way the teacher/instructor is doing something is the way it ‘must’ be done! Ana Paula has a warmth and humility about her which came out in a specifically reassuring way in the first session “This is just one way…you will bring your own approach and style” or words to that effect. I relaxed a little.

Seeing other coaches in action helped me see that of course there will be different flavours of Group Coach, just as there are many different flavours of Executive Coach or Coaching Psychologist. We in ourselves are different, will attend to different things and will bring different philosophies and tools into the groups we work with. I have started thinking for instance about how I might bring a solution-focus and strengths-based approach to the work I do with groups.

One of the things I most liked about the GC programme was the experiential nature of it: the broader learning that comes from experiencing (when being a participant in a fishbowl exercise) or witnessing (when outside the fishbowl) different ways of being as a coach not just in relation to the topic at hand but generally. There are ways of being and questions I enjoyed that I will bring in to my own practice. For instance:

• “What do you need from yourself?” (Asked by the coach at the start of the session before asking “what do you need from the group?”)
• “Where are we on this topic?” A question to help the group pause or re-set.
• What do you like about groups? This was a question Ana Paula asked us at the very start of the first module as a way for us to start to introduce ourselves and get to know one another. I thought it brilliant because: 1) it avoids the introduction of status or hierarchy (which is the case if we introduced ourselves by saying what we do for a living/who we work with/where we work); 2) it relates to the task at hand (learning about GC); 3) it allows participants the choice to go deep or stay ‘light’ with their responses and 4) it has a positive bent (which is useful when we think about Frederickson’s Broaden & Build Theory of positive emotions).

 

Developing my practice

To do is to learn. There’s only so much one can learn – or think we learned – by thinking about it in theory. I am grateful that another participant on the course suggested and took responsibility for setting up a GC practice group, of which I am a part. We’ve set up six practice sessions and are rotating the role of Coach. My turn is in January which I’m looking forward to, although feel a level of butterflies-in-stomach about. I know that this is wrapped up in holding myself to irrational standards and expecting myself to be proficient in something that I haven’t done before.

Thinking about how I move my practice forward, I would like to be a participant in a GC intervention that is led by someone who hasn’t be trained or worked with Ana Paula so that I experience something completely different.

I am looking forward to working with my first group in the spring, most likely on the theme of living and working well as a parent of (a) neurodivergent child(ren). This will also be a new experience in the sense that I intend to run it as an open programme, meaning there is work to do to construct and execute an effective marketing strategy. This will be a project in itself!

 

And so to endings

Before the final module I read the paper Ana Paula sent us by Birnbaum et al (2002) on endings. This is an area I think I can do better with my current 1:1 coaching work. I noted two important things from the research in this paper:

1. There is increased satisfaction of group members when there is a purposeful ending to each session.
2. There is an increased sense of accomplishment of group members when there is a purposeful ending to each session.

Questions such as these can support members in looking for meaning in the single group event and what they take away and use on the world outside the group:

• What did you learn today?
• What stood out for you in the session?
• How would you compare this session with previous?

A purposeful ending also enhances the transition between sessions by eliciting suggestions for further discussion.

Spending time thinking about endings as part of the GC training has translated into better endings of 1:1 coaching sessions as I have been mindful of consistently bringing coachees to a point of reflection five minutes before the end. I realise that in the past I have been inconsistent in doing this and I have been too willing to let coachees keep talking, thinking and problem-solving right up to the end of a session and then needing to check in that we can run over for a minute or two to close off the session. This is not ideal and not always possible! A purposeful ending also allows the coachee to feel calm and relaxed – not rushed and still processing the content of the coaching session – and set them up for whatever they have next in their day.

 

REFERENCES

Birnbuam, M. L., Mason, S. E. and Cicchetti, A. (2003). Impact of purposeful sessional endings on both the group and the practitioner. Social Work with Groups, 25 (4) 3-19.

Nacif, A. (2021) BeWell: a group coaching model to foster the wellbeing of individuals, International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, S15, pp.171-186.

Thornton, C. (2016). Group and Team Coaching: The Secret Life of Groups. Routledge: Abingdon.

 

Hello, I’m so pleased you’re here.

I’m Jessica Chivers, a coaching psychologist, founder of The Talent Keeper Specialists and author of “Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work”. I’m also mother of two neurodivergent teenagers and I’d really like to know your experience of being a working parent to one or more neurodivergent children.

 

Here at The Talent Keeper Specialists we are growing our understanding and capability to coach people whose careers and work performance are affected by neurodivergence. Working people who are ND,  line managers of neurodivergent team members and  working parents of children who have ADHD, autism or who are neurodivergent in another way.

 

Survey to understand the experience of working parents with (a) neurodivergent child(ren)

We would like to deepen our understanding of how parents’ careers, relationships and wellbeing are affected by their child being neurodivergent. We’re starting by inviting working parents to tell us about their experiences via a confidential survey.

The survey has two sections:

1. The first section is quick to complete. It will take about 5 minutes.
2. The second section asks for more detailed reflections from you about your career, wellbeing and relationships as someone raising a child (or children) who is/are neurodivergent. This is likely to take 15-20 minutes depending on how much of what I’m asking is sitting top of mind. You might like a cup of tea and a comfy chair for this bit.

When I wrote my first book I used a survey like this to gather insights before I started writing. People told me they found answering the questions cathartic and looked forward to subsequent surveys gathering their experiences for specific chapters.

 

My experience of raising a child with ADHD, oppositional behaviours and “atypical autism”

My son was permanently excluded from school four months before his GCSE’s in 2022 for ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’. My marriage has been on the brink. And quite frankly I’ve thanked my lucky stars I began working for myself age 25 as I don’t know how on earth I’d have kept earning as an employee these past six years. I LOVE my job but being a parent to an ND child requires higher levels of flexibility and understanding than most employers will give.

I have learned more than I ever would have liked to about how to stay upright and afloat professionally and personally when you’re caring this extra complexity of caring load. School refusal, being called out of meetings, being called into school meetings, fighting for an EHCP (and winning!), cajoling kids for CAMHS appointments, feeling judged by other parents, living with an anxious feeling in your chest…the list goes on.

I was screened for ADHD using the Qb in 2022 and was formally assessed and given a diagnosis of ADHD in November 2023.

(The photo above is from the entrance to a CAMHS space in Hertfordshire at my son’s last appointment July 2024 as he approaches 18).

 

A few helpful resources right now

• Add-vance.org – The ADHD & Autism Trust supporting parents and carers of neurodivergent children (UK organisation). Has a closed FB group for peer-to-peer support.
• National Autistic Society
• Additude – US organisation with an excellent podcast and lots of online information about ADHD.
• ADHD Women’s Wellbeing podcast with Kate Moryoussef
• ADHD Chatter podcast with Alex Partridge.

 

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Please be in touch if I raised anything in this post that you would like to discuss, including coaching: hello@talentkeepers.co.uk and +44 (0)1727 856169.

Whilst I was peeling carrots last Sunday my daughter reflected on how happy she is that she’s been allowed to drop GCSE Spanish. She’d fallen behind in Y9 after three months medical leave and I mused that it was a shame because she’d always seemed to enjoy it. “No,” came the reply. “I was good at it, but I didn’t enjoy it.” In Strengths Psychology speak this is a ‘learned behaviour’ – something that you’re good at but don’t find energising (at best) and might even feel drained by.

 

What is a strength?

A ‘strength’ as defined by Dr Alex Linley, the developer of a psychometric called Strengths Profile, is “a pre-existing capacity for a particular way of behaving, thinking, or feeling that is authentic and energising to the user, and enables optimal functioning, development, and performance.” Note that word energising. A strength is only a strength of you’re good at it and you feel good when you use it. The Strengths Profile tool distinguishes between Realised and Unrealised Strengths: Realised Strengths are ones you’re making regular use of and Unrealised Strengths are those you never or rarely use in comparison to your Realised Strengths.

Why and when do we use Strength Profile?

When we’re working with coachees on our Comeback Community employee experience programme we invite them to complete Strengths Profile and have a debrief on their profile just before they return to work. It’s a great way to get them connecting with what they are good at and recalling past successes at work. This way our coachees usually feel more ready, able and energised for their return from maternity, sick, shared parental other leave from work.

What are some examples of strengths?

In the Strengths Profile tool there are 60 possible strengths that could appear in your profile. Here are some examples:

• Action – You feel compelled to act immediately and decisively, being keen to learn as you go.
• Compassion – You really care about others, doing all you can to help and sympathise.
  Detail – You naturally focus on the small things that others easily miss, ensuring accuracy.
• Humility – You are happy to stay in the background, giving others credit for your contributions.
• Personal Responsibility – You take ownership of your decisions and hold yourself accountable for your promises.
• Strategic Awareness – You pay attention to the wider context and bigger picture to inform your decisions.
• Time Optimiser – You maximise your time, to get the most out of whatever time you have available. (Interesting side note: when the Strengths Profile team analysed 21,000 profiles in March 2021 they found Time Optimiser to be the most frequently occurring Weakness. It appeared in 48% of profiles).

What happens if I’m not using my Strengths at work?

You’re probably not performing as well or feeling as good as you could. Research by the team at Cappfinity (the organisation behind Strengths Profile) finds that when managers emphasised performance strengths, performance was 36.4% higher, compared to a 26.8% decline when emphasising weaknesses. Some more benefits of focussing on strengths at work:

• People who use their strengths more reported lower levels of stress over both 3 and 6 month periods.
• Increased use of strengths correlates with mindfulness which can help control stress and counter depression. (Jarden, Jose, Kashdan, Simpson, McLachlan and Mackenzie, 2012).
• Strengths use supports goal attainment: Strengths alignment increases the setting of personally meaningful goals. (Madden, Green and Grant, 2011).
• Strengths use is a good predicator of workplace engagement and people who use their strengths at work are six times more engaged. (Harter, Schmidt and Hayes, 2002, and Gallup, 2012).

Can strengths help me find my work more enjoyable?

YES and let me tell you about Unrealised Strengths in particular. I’ve had many coachees returning from maternity leave who tell me they stayed in a job they would otherwise have moved on from if it hadn’t been for trying to get pregnant or being pregnant. Strengths Profile distinguishes between ‘realised’ and unrealised’ strengths: strengths you’re already making quite a bit of use of and strengths that you’re not using much if at all. The Unrealised Strengths quadrant is a box of delights when it comes to helping coachees who are bored/tired/less enthusiastic about their role than they might be. Considering how you can make use of Unrealised Strengths in your work can freshen up how you’re feeling and bring a new angle or interest. You’re bringing novelty into your role when you use strengths you’ve neglected or when you consciously use a Realised Strength in a new way.

Why is the world’s most frequently occurring Strength a problem?

When the Strengths Profile team analysed 21,000 profiles in March 2021 they found Humility to be the most frequently occurring Realised Strength. It appeared in this quadrant on 57% of profiles. (The most commonly occurring Unrealised Strength was innovation, defined as “approaching things in ingenious ways, coming up with new and different approaches”). Whilst humility can be a wonderful strength, we need to be cautious of the potential downsides of not owning, celebrating and communicating our contributions, which can include:

• Other people getting the invitations and opportunities that are deservedly yours.
• Your perspective/knowledge/help not being sought.
• Resentment when your contributions aren’t recognised.
• Direct reports modelling your behaviour and experiencing the same downsides.
• And one study found that if a team members feel their boss is being humble towards them because they are an exceptional employee, this can lead to a sense of entitlement and ‘deviant’ behaviour (see Qin & Chen et al, 2020).

If humility is one of your top strengths I invite you to share some of your achievements (that you’ve written in your What’s Gone Well? journal, if you’re one of our coachees 😉) with a team mate or two this coming week.

In HR? Comeback Community employee experience for returning employees

COMEBACK COACH is one part of a broader package of support that we call the Comeback Community employee experience. It’s a blend of online resources, coaching, live expert Q&As, career development tools and line manager support that we deliver in organisations such as CIPD, Lily’s Kitchen, GAM Investments, Federated Hermes, FDM and more. Drop us a line and let’s set up a time to talk: hello@talentkeepers.co.uk.

Returning to work? Comeback Community employee experience for you

You dear Bright Mind are the best possible person to help make the return to work experience where you work, a better one. There’s a simple, straightforward and quick way you can help us to start a conversation with your HR team. Just visit www.comebackcommunity.co.uk/introduce, fill a few boxes and leave the rest to us. And you can join us on Instagram @comebackcommuk for daily inspiration to keep you feeling confident, connected and cared for throughout your leave and return to work.

Until next time,
Stay Bright.

This is the transcript of episode 83 of COMEBACK COACH, the podcast for people returning to work after a break.

Hello Bright Minds, I’m Jessica Chivers a coaching psychologist, the author of “Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work” and founder of The Talent Keeper Specialists. I’m also the developer of the Comeback Community employee experience designed to keep employees feeling confident, connected and cared for when they take any kind of extended leave from work.

This short “JUST JESSICA EPISODE” is about managing rumination, how to keep healthy habits going when you’re consumed by work and the psychology of mindful meditation. It’s inspired by a particular coaching conversation I had one Tuesday a few weeks ago. I put these episodes together myself without the lovely Chris cleaning up bumps in the sound or adding in the swanky intro and outro and I hope you get something from it. If you do, I’d love it if you shared it with someone else who you think might like it too.

 

What’s gone well since last time we worked together?

I start all but the first coaching session with my coachees by asking “what’s gone well since the last time we worked together?” There’s some psychology behind this question that comes from the work of social psychology Professor Barbara Fredrickson. She developed the Broaden & Build theory which says that positive emotions do much more than cause us happiness, joy, and contentment in the moments we experience them. They also broaden our behaviours (or what she calls “thought-action repertoires” which basically means the range of behaviours we can perceive and subsequently decide to take). The more positive emotions we experience, the wider the range of thought-action repertoires we have – in other words, the happier we are, the more flexible and creative we are in the way that we work.

Imagine a communications manager who’s worried about redundancy. She’s unlikely to come up with daring, innovative, award-winning comms because she’s focused on safety and survival, and not much else.

On the other hand, if we’re feeling good, our broadened behaviours help us build rich work-related knowledge, skills and abilities which Professor Fredrickson refers to as personal, physical, intellectual, social, and psychological resources. These broadened resources outlast the good feelings that initially helped generate them and they also help us cope better with difficult situations.

So by opening coaching sessions by asking “What’s gone well?” since last time I’m aiming to generate positive feelings. It’s also why we encourage coachees to reflect daily or weekly on this same question using the beautiful WGW journal we include in their Welcome Back Box that greets them when they return to work.

Coaching Charlie who was consumed by work problems

One coachee, let’s call her Charlie, answered the WGW question recently by telling me how she’d got through an uncomfortable time at work managing two people out of her team and was pleased that she’d handled it professionally and with as much care and compassion as she could. Although this was a story about what had gone well, she described how her mind had been completely consumed by the situation. This left her less able to get on with business activities in the way she normally would, distracted at home and enduring broken sleep. Our conversation happened a few days after both individuals had left the business and she was feeling enormous relief, was sleeping better and had got a shedload of work tasks ticked off in the two days since they’d gone.

In coaching time Charlie reflected that she hadn’t realised until after the team members had left just how consumed she’d been with the situation and the effect it was having on her. By consumed I mean constantly thinking about the situation, or ruminating, not working on the activities associated with managing the situation.

Here’s what else was happening to Charlie:

• Not exercising
• Drinking alcohol midweek
• Not eating breakfast or lunch
• Fuelling herself with coffee
• Being distracted and distant at home
• Falling asleep on the settee at 7pm
• Waking up in the night
• An aching, tired body

The problem was, Charlie wasn’t noticing these things. And without awareness you can’t change things. The things are a mixture of causes and symptoms (some are both) and taken together these will have put even more load on Charlie’s mind and body on top of the emotional stress of having to performance manage two team member out of the business.

I wondered whether having a ‘healthy habits’ checklist that Charlie runs through at the end of each day – irrespective of whether she feels she’s having a hard time at work – could be useful to help her in the future. My thinking is that if she gets into the habit of checking in with herself every day, she’ll spot warning signs earlier and be able to course correct.

Daily Check-In Tool

So Dear Bright Minds I put together a DAILY CHECK-IN tool and whizzed it over to Charlie for her feedback and she thought it would be helpful, so here I am sharing it with you. If what I’ve described at Charlie’s situation resonates or you’re simply curious, head to www.comebackcommunity.co.uk/dailycheckin.pdf to get a copy you can print and use.

Now let’s say a bit more about what rumination is and how to deal with it, because rumination is a problem behaviour in itself.

Before I do, if you’re listening to this before 21st May 2024 you’re in time to join our live Q&A with clinical psychologist Michaela Thomas on HOW TO LIVE WELL WITH ANXIETY AND OTHER MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES. We call these live live Q&As ‘Comeback Conversations’ because they’re informal chats with experts on topics of interest to people coming back to work from a break. They’re part of our Comeback Community employee experience programme that we deliver in some great workplaces to keep their people feeling confident, connected and cared for when they take any kind of extended leave from work. Once our clients have had first dibs we open spare spots to all absolutely free. Incidentally, you can also hear Michaela on episode 81 talking about perfectionism, ADHD and keeping resentment at bay when partners becoming parents in the context of her experience of returning to work from maternity leave firstly as a clinical psychologist in the NHS and then after her second maternity leave, working for herself.

Greg Siegle is a Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Translational Sciences at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and he’s spent 25 years exploring rumination. That’s a lot of thinking about thinking.

Rumination

Rumination is defined in the Oxford dictionary as thinking deeply about something. I like to ruminate, may you do too. But the concept of ruminating doesn’t have particularly positive connotations – we tend to think of it as a problematic behaviour. And rumination becomes a problem when you’d like to stop thinking about something but you can’t. You might be familiar with replaying an embarrassing or hurtful conversation in your head, mentally dissecting what happened, considering what the consequences might be, why you didn’t do things differently and just going round and round in this horrible loop that takes you nowhere and leaves you feeling sh1t quite frankly and totally drained.

There’s a collection of areas of the brain that have been labelled the Default Mode Network which neuroscientists have found are active when we’re awake but not directing our attention to anything in particular. For example when we’re sitting on a train gazing out of the window day-dreaming. The flipside is when we’re concentrating on something specific such as giving someone directions or explaining to a colleague what to include in a client report, the Default Mode Network is less active.

And why do I tell you this? Well the Default Mode Network has been found to be more active in people who are prone to unhelpful rumination – and by that I mean rumination that gets in the way of daily tasks, our ability to concentrate, connect with others or to experience positive emotions. People who have a clinical diagnosis of depression are likely to have higher levels of DMN activity.

 

Distraction as antidote to rumination

So what’s the answer? Well according to our friend Professor Siegle from the university of Pittsburgh its DISTRACTION. Distraction is the number one way to move ourselves on from unhelpful rumination he said in the New York Times earlier this year and there’s good evidence for that. And that makes sense because when we’re actively engaged in a task that needs a lot of concentration we’ve reduced the activity of the Default Mode Network, that functional collection of areas in the brain that’s more active when we’re ruminating. Still with me? I hope so.
Right, let’s talk about meditation and how that links to all this. Meditation has been shown to reduce the activity of the Default Mode Network and to be a super helpful way to reduce rumination. Meditation exercises are essentially ways to focus very specifically on the here and now. In mindfulness meditation, we’re learning how to pay attention to the breath as it goes in and out and notice when the mind wanders. This practice of returning to the breath builds our ability to concentrate as well giving us a break from whatever has been racing around our minds. I also like using meditation mantras from the kundalini yoga tradition and I’ve included links to a couple of tracks I find myself returning to time and again.

I’ve put a link in the show notes to a very readable yet packed-with-research references link to an article about meditation and the DMN on the Mindfulness Association’s website.

As with all the episodes of COMEBACK COACH I hope you got something from what I shared today and if it’s left you with questions or wanting to make a comment please do come and talk to me. You can reach me by e-mail jc@talentkeepers.co.uk or on Instagram using the handle @comebackcommuk.

Comeback Community employee experience

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Until next time,
Stay Bright.