This was on the BBC website recently and it made me smile…
In the US, President Joe Biden’s administration says it’ll distribute around 400 million high-quality N95 face masks for free as part of its effort to tackle the pandemic. A White House official described it as “the largest deployment of personal protective equipment in US history”.
Bless the White House official, clearly on message in spinning ANY information that might make the administration look good!
This reminded me that part of our BASIC NEEDS as a human being is to feel part of something (a sense of belonging) by not only contributing to our group/society (so we don’t end up an outcast!) but also TO BE SEEN to be contributing. We NEED others to recognise our worth.
Understanding this is vital in coaching others as recognising individual contributions in complex or hard to measure areas can be difficult so a useful way to approach this in practice is to work out how this NEED is met in different people by understanding their spin-rate…
Over-spinner – very keen to talk about their contribution and downplay the role of others. For whatever reason they REALLY want you to recognise their contribution so give them a bit of what they NEED while also asking fact-checking questions and encouraging them to work as a team.
Under-spinner – the very modest among us or those who lack confidence. Both will NEED to have their contribution recognised so be persistent in finding ways to talk about and recognise what they do well to make any praise meaningful and to look for ways they could improve.
Somewhere in between-spinner – a combination of the above!
Finding out someone’s spin-rate isn’t easy but in terms of the impact of meeting someone’s NEED for belonging in the pursuit of them reaching their potential I think it’s very worthwhile. How good am I at doing this? It’s hard to measure but if pushed I would have to say I’m outstanding ?
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