Case study one: Facilitation

Facilitation of a half-day session for members of Durham University’s Coaching & Mentoring Network  – a network supporting the University’s internal coaches and mentors, which has members from across the institution.

The purpose of the session was to introduce participants to the 10 Components of Nancy Kline’s Thinking Environment® and to consider how these could be incorporated into their coaching conversations with staff and students to create an environment in which individuals are enabled to think for themselves and produce their very best quality thinking.

I began by introducing the participants to the 10 components of a Thinking Environment: attention; incisive questions; equality; appreciation; ease; encouragement; feelings; information; place; and diversity. They then took time in groups to consider which components were most important in the context of coaching and which they felt most/least accomplished at incorporating into their coaching practice. We concluded the session with coaching triads (coach, coachee and observer), giving participants the valuable opportunity to experiment with incorporating one or more of the components into a coaching conversation.