I gave a workshop the other day about counselling skills for managers. It's part of a programme for newly promoted supervisors or junior managers over a number of days.
Counselling involves many skills.......among them, the ability to communicate well......the ability to actively listen and of course the wisdom to facilitate change. We have to counsel employees when there is a problem, either the employee can't do something or won't do something.
People bring all sorts of baggage to work and have all sorts of issues that they have to deal with, and sometimes they need help.
I have a number of simple role-play exercises that I use on this workshop......really basic stuff, for example, an employee who is consistently late and you, the manager, have to deal with it.
People get to have a go and we video the interviews, playing them back afterwards.
Two things that over the years have amazed me in their consistency.
Firstly, how easy it is to get sucked into trying to treat the symptoms and not the problem. I might have a blister on my foot. I can put some ointment on it but I am not treating the problem. The problem may be that my shoe is too tight.
Secondly, how people encourage the monkey that is sitting on the employees shoulder, to jump onto their own shoulder!
"Ok......he's lost it folks"...... "The mad englishman is ready for the funny farm!"........ "He's seeing monkeys now!".......
Let me explain.............
We ask the delegates to imagine the problem as a monkey sitting on the employee's shoulder. The name of the game is to get the person with the problem to solve it themselves. If a person is late for work on a regular basis, then they have got to sort it out....it's no good the manager running round to get them out of bed and giving them a lift. That's not solving the problem. If you try to solve people's problems for them, you end up collapsing under the weight of an entire tribe of the blinking things! (monkeys that is)
So, where are we? Have I forgotten the thought process behind this post?
Ah......yes.......smoking is a problem, or is it? Is it not the symptom of an addiction?
Can we help others to stop? Of course we can! but we cannot take the monkey, we cannot physically stop smoking for them, we can only