Mmmm...delicious. Would you like some?

Picture the scene: I’m sitting on a comfortable sofa, in the airy foyer of a Holiday Inn, when a waitress comes over and serves our drinks. Just as she finishes and straightens up, I lean forward, catch her eye and say:
“Tell me about your muffins…”

What would your reaction be?

In this case my friend Joe coughed and gargled his iced water in surprise and my other friend Debbie, just stared at me.

The waitress, who didn’t seem to mind, just grinned and replied:
“Well, we have chocolate chip, banana, plain, or raisin and pecan.”

“Ok, thanks,” I said, “I’ll let you know if we want one,” and she smiled and wandered off.

I then had to explain to my stunned friends that the reason for my unexpected and slightly dubious question was that she was wearing a badge that read: Ask us about our muffins.

So, all I was doing was following instructions; whilst wondering if the double-entendre was a deliberate piece of corporate mischief, or simply a slack bit of marketing?

The next time you’re designing a piece of promotional literature perhaps keep an ear open for ambiguous statements that might be well meant, but have an idiomatic slant that renders them open to lively sniggers.

Personally I’m not a big fan of muffins and tend to prefer breakfast baps. What about you?

Tagged as:   story · tip
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Paddington Station: Watch out for fairies. And bears.

I was told this story the other day by a colleague and just had to treat you to it, if only because it is true and, from my perspective as a coach who likes to build a safe environment; appalling. My colleague dubs this work ‘fairy coaching’ and I tend to agree with him, on the basis that it falls into the happy-clappy-hessian-knitted-teepee brand of coaching which can give life/business coaching a bad name. See what you think, here’s the story:

At his place of work my colleague has an MD who likes to hire the services of a particular ‘coach’ to help team development and promote harmony. The ‘coach’ likes to get people down and dirty on bean bags, which is not always the best way to make people feel comfortable (the client should choose, not the coach). Last month the team were treated to a new way to confront their fears. They all caught the train into London and when they disembarked at Paddington a soap-box was produced and one by one the team had to stand on it and shout out their fears to bemused commuters.

Yes really!

I had thought this kind of misguided exercise had been binned at the end of the 90’s, along with suspect outward-bound style management ‘bonding’ weekends, which only served to create ill-feeling amongst staff and in no way replicated the working life of the business. (I’ve been on three of these and having learned to abseil, found that this wasn’t a great deal of help when trying to plan a complex factory).

No New Learning

Having finished on the soap-box what did my colleague learn? Only to avoid the police, who asked the group to “Move along please” as a shop owner complained they were blocking her flower stall. The experience also confirmed my colleague’s suspicions about ’fairy coaching’ and as for team harmony, well you can guess the general reaction to the stunt.

Safety Counts

Coaching starts with clear contracting to build a safe environment. If there isn’t a contract then in the words of an experienced Supervisor: “You don’t do no coaching.” If only more people understood this and realised that coaching is client-centred, not ego-centred, then the world and my colleague would both be a bit happier.

Tagged as:   coaching · contracting · How To
Comments: 8 Comments