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Clean Time

May 042012

I started considering Clean Language and time. That led to other ideas, collating the ideas of others and suggesting exercises. Some of that seems to work and be useful and some of it could do with more work. I think some, but perhaps only certain types of situations could be coached well with questions that are heavily time based, as opposed to desired outcome, form or space based. Some of it seems clean, others less so, or do we just need to get used to them as we got used to other questions? “Clean Time” is too grand a term, but simplicity wins out. I would be happy if some useful discussions, thoughts, exercises or other learnings could happen by sharing this information with those interested in Clean Language and seeing what happens next.

There are two google documents below.

Clean Time Ch1
Clean Time Ch2

Clean Change company’s May 2012 Newlsetter with offers

General No Responses »

May 012012

Move fast: a wonderful special offer for the Clean Conference, 19 – 20 May, Central London

The moment for booking your place is now – both because time is running out, and because we have a superb special deal for you: book for the conference weekend by 5pm on Tuesday 8 May and get a place on the brand new Archetypes Workshop (see below) absolutely free!

Book this special deal by phoning: + 44 (0) 20 8400 4832 – it’s for one week only, so find those skates and get them on.

Important conference links:

The final schedule for the conference: http://www.cleanchange.co.uk/cleanlanguage/2012/03/13/schedule-of-speakers-and-events-2/

Details for each session, and speakers’ bios: http://www.cleanchange.co.uk/cleanlanguage/2012/03/07/clean-conference-2012-speakers-and-sessions/

To book a ‘normal’ for the Clean Conference, please click here: http://www.cleanchange.co.uk/cleanlanguage/shop/international-clean-conference-2012/

Please pass the special offer on to anyone you think might be interested, and please let all and sundry know about the Clean Conference – blog, tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other way you know how! Many thanks.

Complimentary Taster Teleclass for those new to Clean and attending the conference: 9 May or 10 May, 7-9pm (UK time) with Wendy Sullivan

To encourage all to arrive at the Conference able to participate to the full, we have made our Taster Teleclass complimentary and added an extra date: 10 May. The 2-hour class covers the basics of Clean and gives you the opportunity to experience Clean as a facilitator and client. To book and for more information, click here: http://www.cleanchange.co.uk/cleanlanguage/shop/taster-teleclass/

Archetypes Workshop, 2 July 2012, Richmond, West London, £97.97

Our exciting new one-day Archetypes workshop will run on 2 July, rather than straight after the Conference, giving you more time to make space in your diary. Its aim is to enable Clean facilitators to recognise and make use of Archetypal patterns as they facilitate. Archetypes provide a rich source of musing-and-modelling information to a Clean facilitator. Because they are universal patterns, assumptions based on Archetypes fall in the ‘reasonably safe’ category and can be particularly valuable early on in a facilitation for getting a sense of the general kind of patterns that the client is experiencing or those that are represented in their desired outcome metaphor landscape. Having a sense of these patterns can alert the Clean facilitator to the likely presence of certain challenges and resources implied by the active Archetypes; information which might not otherwise have been apparent until later. The end result is that the facilitator could use this to inform their questions and help their client to ‘get to the heart of it’ more quickly.

See the very special deal above, or book by phone +44 (0) 20 8400 4832, or book on line: www.cleanchange.co.uk will have all the details within 24 hours.

New-to-Clean people welcome at the London Clean Practice Group, 8 May, 7-9pm, Central London

In the interests of people new to Clean who are coming to the conference, in May the London Practice Group which is normally open to those with 4 days’ training, will cater both for those who are new to Clean and those with experience. The group will meet in the new venue, Concert Artistes Association, 20 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9PH

Email info@cleanchange.co.uk for more details

Certification and the Advanced ‘Jedi’ Clean Modules, 20 June onwards, Richmond, West London

Foundation-level Certification is running on 28- 29 June in Richmond, West London; details are here:

http://www.cleanchange.co.uk/cleanlanguage/shop/certification-foundation-level-2/

The Advanced Modules run between 20 June and 27 September; each of four modules are 3 days long.
Click http://www.cleanchange.co.uk/cleanlanguage/2146-2/ and scroll down to find Modules 5 – 8. As you’ll see we have special deals for booking a more than one Advanced Module.

When you book, we will send you the hand-out manual(s) for your modules so that you can start reading and absorbing, to make the most of the module when you attend it – they aren’t called the Jedi Modules for nothing!

Discover your assertive self: An Innovative Workshop with Marian Way and Penny Tompkins, June 23-24

A participant (Edith Albers) on last year’s DYAS workshop recently reported:

“Since I did ‘Discover Your Assertive Self’ I am aware of my changes every day. I had an ‘assertive’ talk with my boss in my annual progress review and took responsibility for my life. As a result I created a new role for myself – I am now a competence coach, and with ten other coaches will train the whole company to align the organizational perspective with the individual perspective to create a shared future!”

Contact: marian@cleanlearning.co.uk

Visit: http://www.cleanlearning.co.uk/workshops/discover-your-assertive-self/

Symbolic Modelling Lite in Texas, January 5-7, 2013 – with James Lawley and Penny Tompkins

James and Penny return to Austin, Texas to introduce Symbolic Modelling Lite and Clean Language. The training balances explanations with demonstration and practice so you’ll learn about it, facilitate it and experience the delights of exploring your own metaphor landscape. We’ll be at a 22-acre wildlife sanctuary in Cypress Creek in the beautiful Texas hill country. To find out what’s on offer, visit:
http://www.nlpresourcesaustin.com/clean-language-symbolic-modelling-austin-texas

Contact: Katie Raver – katieraver@gmail.com

A Self-Modelling Retreat in Texas, January 10-13, 2013 – with James Lawley and Penny Tompkins

A personal development retreat aimed at therapists/coaches/facilitators with some training in Clean Language. Penny and James will work with participants and debrief the Symbolic Modelling process as
it unfolds. There will be time for questions, discussion and supervision.

Contact: Katie Raver - katieraver@gmail.com

Online Clean resources

There are a number of Clean groups online that offer something for everyone including community discussion, meeting people, low-key promotion of clean events, perhaps getting your questions answered and finding practice partners.

There is a LinkedIn Group is called Clean Language Facilitators in business that has 160 members and a Facebook Group, Clean Language Private Discussions that is also active.

Thanks to Brian Birch for his role in these groups. He reports:

Beginners and those with a little training are using the groups to clarify their knowledge.

International users get access to Clean Language people they otherwise wouldn’t.

Business owners ask and get suggestions, contacts and exposure, supporting their businesses.

There is also the Clean Forum, www.cleanforum.com, which is a specialist Clean discussion forum, run by Phil Swallow.

Creative Exploration: New approaches to identities and audiences (2007) by David Gauntlett

This rich and readable book relates to a project in which the author asked people to build metaphorical models of their identities in Lego. It discusses identities, media influences, social research and creativity. People noticing the book on our ‘book table’ at trainings make a dive for it and get immediately immersed.
Thanks to Heather Cairns-Lee for mentioning it.

Through their own words: towards a new understanding of leadership through metaphors by Thomas Oberlechner and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger

This article does what it says on the tin: it explores leadership using a variety of commonly-used metaphors, and compares their entailments. Thanks to Heather Cairns-Lee for mentioning it.

http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/55917/CPL_WP_03_6_OberlechnerMayerschonberger.pdf?sequence=1

Clean and visual methodologies in the business, management and organization studies fields

The launch of the inVisio/ ESRC Researcher Development Initiative: inVisio inspire takes place on May 22nd in London, with a keynote address by Professor Sarah Pink, Loughborough University.

The relevance of this is that Dr Paul Tosey, a certified Clean facilitator, with a small input from Wendy Sullivan, contributed Clean-based materials for this prestigious initiative. InVisio is highly regarded in the
academic world: good for Clean’s credibility. The inspire resources have been assembled by the International Network for Visual Studies in Organization (www.in-visio.org) and include free to access, online reference materials, “how-to” guides, video case-studies. They will be premiered at the gala event on the 22nd May and publicly available after this date.

To attend the complimentary launch, email invisiolaunch@gmail.com by 10 May to reserve a place.

Download the Launch flyer here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31317125/Launch%20Flyer.pdf

This newsletter is issued by Clean Change Company in association with The Developing Company. It aims to keep you in touch with the latest developments in Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling, spread the word of what people are doing in the Clean Community and offer opportunities to develop yourself, both professionally and personally.
Number 4 – 2012

Great work by Training Attention/ Caitlin

Clean Language, Clean Language Introduction, Clean Language training and events, Clean Language videos, TrainingAttention No Responses »

Apr 192012

http://www.trainingattention.co.uk/

Training Attention’s Caitlin Walker tells us about how Clean Language can help people’s personal development plans in education (I assume it would apply to business).

A great introduction to Clean Language

Clean Language

Clean Language, Selffacilitation No Responses »

Mar 312012

Would you like to hear about and try out a coaching process that can help you with the desired outcome above?
Clean Language questions can be asked by a facilitator to a client. They are designed to help the client have or gain their desired outcome (get fit, feel calm, get a promotion etc). The client may start with “I want X”. Here, we are suggesting a desired outcome. If that is a relevant one to you, continue. If not, a Clean Language faciliator can work with you on a relevant one. In fully “clean” sessions, the facilitator uses only a small set of questions, few assumptions and makes use of the client’s words.
Clean Language questions can get to the nub of thing quickly. New knowledge isn’t always easy and some clients can feel things are repeating, feel frustrated or want something to be different. I suggest you express that and then keep with the process. Questions are open and some words are ambiguous. Any interpretation that comes to mind is valid and wrtite that down, whether it is about the question, something else, yourself or the process. The process is designed to ultimately bring knowledge and access to the desired outcome with the minimum effort. CLean Language ofen encourage a client to say what they are aware of, including metaphors about how things are.
Usually, the best way to ask the questions is person to person, face to face and with questions that vary according to the answers. Using an online spreadsheet is an experiment and has a fixed set of questions, based on a generic but popular desired outcome. Read or read aloud the questions and type your answer in a free column on thr right. Move on to the next question if you’ve been on the current one for 60 seconds or so. It’s a public spreadsheet, so you can write private answers elsewhere, type using a codeword for privacy, or delete them at the end. While this is designed as a positive, supportive and learning process, if you feel upset or unfit to continue, please stop the process.

This is a google spreadsheet in a webpage.

The code is here:

Self-facilitation ? … !

Clean Language, Selffacilitation No Responses »

Mar 272012

Clean Language

Selffacilitation No Responses »

Mar 272012

From a facebook discussision: When a client has numbness and responds “I don’t know” a lot.

Great discussion, thanks all.

1) Nothing has ‘made a dent’ (clients words). Where could dent come from? What happens after dent?
2) What would “numbness” like to have happen?
3) Agree that “I don’t know” could mean many things or be pre-verbal.
4) I have a metaphor for anxious, overwhelmed or “small child within” that they are in a fog and don’t have access to the usual landmarks. Add sea-sick to that and referring to certain thing such as the sea, would disorient them more.
5) I know someone for which clean space can work brilliantly when “I don’t know” is repeated. “Anything else” questions may work but questions about what kind of I don’t work for this person.
6) Mentally, I’m toying with a time question. David focused on identification, form and space; and I think time can be explored. “When do you know something?” is the time near-equivalent of “Is there a space that knows something?”. Actually, it assumes that one once knew something (for which the facilitator has evidence). It can encourage a journey forward or back until the client knows something. Perhaps I’ll develop that more another time.
7) What happened just before “I don’t know.”? Is more conventionally clean.
Thanks Judy for the edge of the map story. I can see how this can help the facilitator navigate to more knowing shores.
9) Wendy Sullivan has course that talk about adjacency; basically developing material the client knows about “near” the thing they can’t quite point to or talk about. Keep the client talking about the location of the elephant in the room (or thing that can’t be named etc) and they might acknowledge it.
10) Provocative; while it’s tempting, I have mixed feelings and some strongly negative. I tend to ask for sessions to be clean now.
11) “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know… I don’t know” seems easier than what I have got which is “I don’t know, I don’t know, I want to stop the session”. If a client stays with “I don’t know”, you have a chance to explore the edges of the map, to use that metaphor from David/ Judy.
12) I’m not clear if you have a Desired Outcome (I assume numbness is a problem), but I also assume you have a contract. You may be able to go back to these to get back on the map and explore more.
13) “The space where we can’t get responses that contain new data from the client.” “I hold that if a person is willing to ask themselves or receive a question, or be open to wonder (“?”); then search for information or respond (“…”) then a result can come about (“!”). The mechanism might be clean but use CL, CL, power of 6, whirlygig etc. So I’d say you can take away the facilitator and you can take away the answers and then you’d be left with a series of self asked questions, self-done searches. That could continue until I asked an answerable question (go back on the map) or got an answer to a question (an emergent piece of knowledge off the original map). So I suppose if you can’t do what David wanted and ask the question the client wants asked, perhaps we can train the client to ask themselves those questions and indeed use the most appropriate means to get the answers (CL, CS, Po6 etc). For a mini-presentation, see http://brianbirch.com/Dating-Relationship-Singles-ewp/cleanlanguage/self-facilitation

What are the key qualities that you think a Clean Coach is providing?

Clean Language No Responses »

Mar 132012

A great Clean Coach will do or provide:

an environment where the client can follow their thoughts and feelings, in the context of a goal (usually), develop resources and understand what is necessary for success;
be clean – leave out their stories, suggestions, assumptions and judgements;
give generous time and attention;
setting the contract out well at the beginning. Warning the client about repetition may help. I’m wondering about checking if the client is interested in pursuing useful thought, even if this involves repetition, perseverance or patience;
a sense to the client that they will be with them on their journey or exploration, supporting them without influencing the direction; and
allowing the client to make what seems like mistakes, flounder a little, be somewhat uncomfortable to discvoer these feelings and perhaps gain the resolve to choose appropiate goals later.

For Clean Language, it’s about:

delivering the right question, one the fits; “David Grove also talked about “a delivery system that delivers a question without any resistance” and it “feels right to the client”. [Resolving Traumatic Memories by D. Grove and B.Panzer.]
understanding the landscape, forces and nature of the resources of the client to deliver the right question.