Welcome to Dear Social Worker, Let's Talk, the podcast that
prioritises you, the person behind the title.
I'm your host, Lisa Ran, and I'm the founder of Social Work
Coaching hub.com and I'm here to help you become an emotionally
intelligent social work leader and of course, to promote your
well-being at socialworkcoachinghub.com
through one to one leadership development coaching events and
of course, this very podcast alongside our online resource
hub. Welcome to another episode.
I am today excited because I'm simply going to talk about one
of the main models that I use in my coaching sessions.
So if you've been listening to me for a long time, you will
know that I'm an award-winning life coach.
I have been awarded two years in a row, best coach in Birmingham,
which is excited. Birmingham is an area in the UK
and I'm excited to share this model with you because it really
helps you identify exactly where you are and reframe what it is
you're thinking. Before I go into that though,
there's one thing I'd like to share with you, and I've never
done this on the podcast before, but I have delivered a weekly
podcast now for approximately 18 months straight and I've been
thinking I'm going to take a break this summer.
So this is going to be the last episode before the next season.
I'm already setting up guests for the next season and
hopefully I won't have a cold by then, so you'll have a smoother
tone when we meet back again. So today, briefly, I want to
talk to you about the sphere of influence.
And if you're one of my coaching clients, you're going to go,
yes, I know this very well. You should, right?
This fear of influence comes in really handy when you're in a
dilemma, when you're facing a challenge, when you're unsure of
how to move forward, when you're unsure of how to unpick
something, or when you're thinking about a topic and you
just keep going over and over and over in your mind.
This fear of influence is a very helpful tool to help you
compartmentalize what's happening so you can manage your
emotions better and of course, come to your solution.
I want you to think of it as this.
There's three circles, just like when you do an eco map, there's
three circles, a circle in the middle, which is called control
and the colour of that is green. The 2nd circle is yellow and
that is called influence and the 3rd circle, the outer circle is
red and it's called no influence and no control.
And this model I use in the majority of my coaching
sessions, it's a great starting point.
So let's say you're fed up of a colleague or your manager or a
parent that you're working with. If you've tried everything you
can to communicate clearly with them, the result that you're
looking for is not there. You're not sure what to do next.
First question is what is within your control?
That's the green area. That's the middle circle.
And when we're talking about control, we are not necessarily
talking about the outcome. So, for example, let's use
another example of writing a court statement.
When you're writing a court statement, you're in control of
what goes into the court statement, right?
You're in control of who you see and what you write, what your
recommendations are. Most of that you have autonomy.
When you think of the yellow area, the yellow area is about
influence. So where who can you influence
or what in this scenario can you influence?
So if we use the example of a court statement, the influence
part comes in in the way in which you write that court
statement. And then lastly, your
recommendations. Your recommendations are set
with a view to have an outcome that you feel is best for the
children and family. Then when you go into the red
zone, no control or no influence, this is the part
where it gets interested because the red zone is actually, in my
experience as a coach in the past 10 years, this is where
most people's brains navigate to.
When there's a dilemma, when there's a challenge, whether
it's work or personal, the red zone is where the mind goes to.
It thinks, OK, how am I going to navigate this?
But I have no control over that. I have no influence over that.
How am I going to navigate this? I have no control over that.
I have no influence over that. And it continues to go round in
that cycle in an attempt to find a solution, but the solution is
not available within the red zone.
Until you know you're in the red zone where you have no control
and no influence. You continue around that cycle
literally thinking, how am I going to manage this?
There's no way out. Now part of that is due to the
programming in your subconscious and we won't delve too deep into
that, but on on the surface of it, there are patterns that are
formed when we're children. We know this from our child
development training and they can follow us into adulthood
unless we have an awareness that they are there and that we want
to do something about them. And that will bring us into the
the muddle of the theory of change, the cycle of change.
Coming back to the red zone. Now, if we're cycling around the
red zone, sometimes we don't even realise we're there.
And most of the time when a coachee comes into a coaching
session, when a social worker comes into a coaching session,
they are talking about an issue as if they have absolutely no
control. That means they're not talking
from an empowered place, they're talking from a place of fear,
they're talking from a place of worry.
Now, there are scenarios that will create that space and
that's understandable and we acknowledge those feelings.
But once you've given those feelings of space to breathe,
then we need to be thinking of my first question to you is, OK,
what is within your control in this scenario?
What outcome do you want that you have some control over the
green area, that middle circle, that first circle, that is the
area of empowerment. That is your place of power.
Now it may be that when you think of your areas of control,
you may be thinking these areas of control are far less right.
You may have two options in that green area, but isn't it more
effective to have options of which you can control, rather
than thinking yourself into the red zone and cycling in the red
zone where you have no control and no influence over the
outcome? Guaranteed there's no solution
there. Sometimes we need to reframe the
way that we think about things, and some of that reframe begins
with identifying what was your objective in the first place?
What was your objective? What did you set out to do?
Was it clear? Was it timely?
Was it measurable? When you think of those
elements, you begin to realise that some of the things that
you're thinking about in the red zone no longer apply.
Then let's think about your area of influence.
Who or what can you influence was the question that I asked.
In the scenario where you have your court statement.
I referred to the recommendations.
That's your area of influence. The way that you write your
court statement, that's your your area of influence.
If we're talking about a conflict with a person, whether
they're at work or at home, who or what is your area of
influence? Is there someone in your family
that you know that listens well or that someone else listens to
well? It's literally deducing from
your challenge or your scenario. What is your green area?
What is your yellow area? You may not be happy with what
you find in the green or the yellow, but ultimately that is
where your control or influence lies.
Either way, that red area will not bring you the result that
you're looking for, the solution that you're looking for.
I hope this is helping someone today.
I hope this is helping someone think about what challenge are
they facing right now? And you know, are you thinking
about it from the perspective of the red zone, yellow zone, or
the green? And I'm telling you, I've seen
this over and over again with hundreds of social workers I've
coached. The relief that they feel when
they've identified they're in the red zone or perhaps even in
the yellow zone when they've got Green Zone options.
The relief the way that you think about things and the way
that you feel about things and the way that you respond to
scenarios. They change once you've applied
the sphere of influence model. Now I want to remind you,
Saturday the 19th of October we are hosting the first National
Black and Diverse Safeguarding Professionals Conference
happening in Birmingham, UK. It's the first event of this
kind ever to take place in this country and I will be hosting
that event with lots of speakers and a black-owned business
marketplace. You can go to
socialworkcoachinghub.com/events to access tickets to go to the
event. And next year Mark will be
having another event called the Empowering Social Workers
Conference and the Social Work Coaching Hub Awards.
It's going to be a great, great day.
So stay tuned for all the information about the events
happening next year in London. But this year I want to see you
all there at the Black and Diverse Safeguarding
Professionals Conference in Birmingham, 19th of October.
Here's some special guest speakers.
I will say, that being said, recap sphere of influence, green
area, your area of control. Yeah, how you can have some form
of control over the outcome or the solution.
What is your area of power? What's going to make you feel
empowered? Your yellow area is your area of
influence. Who or what can you influence so
you can get closer to the solution and outcome you're
looking for. And then the red area is the
area of no control and no influence.
That's the area that often as humans, we spend the most time
in because we are unaware that we're going around in this
cycle. And I want you to think about
your scenario using this model, putting it into those 3
categories and really identifying what are the
possible solutions from this scenario.
From that note, a reminder, I will be taking a short summer
break and coming back bigger and better than ever for the Dear
Social Worker podcast. I might do a bonus episode or
two. You know me as I feel like I
can't help it sometimes. Until then, have a blessed
summer and I will see you all very soon.