[Kym Hamer]

Q1 Marcia has a strong tendancy towards the explore voices – starting strongly with inquire then heading into diagnose and then probe – which I imagine would have been very useful in her previous role as a nurse and will stand her in good stead in her process change role, helping her to uncover information in order to form a summary of ie. articulate, the particular work/s to be done.

Q2. In this changed role, where she is not ‘taking care’ of people in the same way, these voices could be showing up as intrusive, over analytical and patronising, undermining her relatedness and communication with her peers and team. Her tendancy to diagnose before probing may also lead Marcia down inappropriate or ill-judged paths of enquiry and she may be showing up as someone who gets lost in irrelevent detail. Marcia’s under-use of voices such as advocate and challenge may also be seen as indecisive, unwilling to take a point of view or make recommendations, and may be under-mining her ‘champion’ role in this new position.

Q3-5. I would start this conversation by exploring how Marcia sees her profile, where she believes she has been effective in the past compared with this new role, and consider how some of the under-used voices could be used more – rather than making her feel wrong for over-using the ones where she is ‘strong’. Examples of these under-used voices would be advocate and challenge in light of her champion role in particular, and more of the very under-used direct voice where appropriate.

[Kym Hamer]

Q1. The strong preference for use of advocate, then advise and challenge. Also that his highest explore voice is probe.
Q2. Jack leans towards positioning himself as the expert, suggesting ‘best’ or most effective solutions or proposals then using the challenge voice to imply that it’s something the client ‘should’ consider and then using a probe voice to identify what the barriers are for the client in implementing the proposed approach.
Q3. One line of enquiry would be to explore that Jack’s predominant voices arefrom Jack to the client – what benefit could there be in being more curious (Inquire) and ‘Here’s what I’m hearing’ (Articulate) to a) engage the client in forming the solution, b) identify new information to uncover what the client thinks they need and c) consider why the client thinks this way to create a solution that will be of benefit to the client AND that they feels that they can progress with.
A second line of enquiry would be around the low use of the Direct voice and when used, how/in what situations is it appled.

[Kym Hamer]

Q1. Which negative voice/s particularly annoy you? Patronise and preach
Q2. How do you tend to react when you feel you are being spoken to in that way? I feel frustrated and switch off/stop listening
Q3. Is that reaction deliberate or largely instinctive? Instinctive
Q4. What effect does your reaction have on the interaction? Makes me clipped in my responses, sometimes brutally blunt