How to use questions to find out more about resourceful states, desired outcomes, future events. How to give Clean Feedback. How to notice Metaphors. Where to look for more information

1. T R I A G I L E C O N F E R E N C E
A P R I L 5 , 2 0 1 8
A N D R E A C H I O U
U B I Q U I T O U S C O A C H I N G W I T H
C U R I O S I T Y U S I N G C L E A N
L A N G U A G E Q U E S T I O N S

2. Andrea Chiou, Agile Coach
Connections-At-Work, LLC
@andreachiou
andrea@connections-at-work.com
IIBA-DC - 2014
Agile Alliance 2014
MAFN-DC 2015
CBODN 2014
Lean Agile Scotland - Oct 2016
Who Is Using Clean Language, Anyway?
https://leanpub.com/whoisusingclean
Agile Santa Barbara 2016
AgileDC 2014
Innovate VA - March 2018
Triagile NC - April 2018
Agile Games, MA - April 2018 Agile Alliance Conf - Aug 2018
CAST Conf - Aug 2018

3. Andrea Chiou, Clean Coach
Connections At Work, LLC
@andreachiou
andrea@connections-at-work.com

4. A R E W E P E R C E I V I N G T H E W O R L D T H E S A M E WAY ?
!4
Think of an elephant

5. W H E N Y O U A R E C U R I O U S AT Y O U R
B E S T
!5
YOU ARE LIKE WHAT?

6. W E A R E E A C H U N I Q U E I N O U R T H I N K I N G
!6

7. C L E A N Q U E S T I O N S G E T U S T H I S FA R
!7

8. Location Questions
Where is … ?
Whereabouts is …?
Attribute Questions
What kind of … is that …?
Is there anything else about … ?
Moving Time Forward
Then what happens?
What happens next ?
Moving Time Backwards
What happens just before …?
Where could … come from ?
Use these a lot!!!!!
Metaphor
And that’s … like what?
C L E A N Q U E S T I O N S

9. W H AT M A K E S A C L E A N Q U E S T I O N ?
• Contains no content from the coach/listener/questioner
• Has a specific structure
• What kind of …?
• Uses the exact word or words of the person you are facilitating to fill
in the ‘…’ in each question.
• Keeps the focus person in ‘their’ current thinking space
• And helps you to build a model closer to their thinking - knowing
more about what the values, beliefs, experiences are behind their
words.
• Is bias free, but not influence free - because we are training the
other person’s attention to a different place
!9

10. S T E P S T O A C U R I O U S S TA N C E
• Remember the words your partner is using. Quiet your
urge to respond from your perspective (hard!) Accept
and extend their thinking with questions. You’ll also
get to enhance your model of their thinking.
• Step 1: Listen, paying exquisite attention, remembering
their words. Create rapport with non-verbals.
• Step 2: Repeat a bit of what you remembered, in a
pause. Wait for them to keep talking.
• Step 3: Ask one or two clean questions of a word or
phrase they used.
!10

11. !11
A busy bee
1. When you are learning at your best, you are like what?
2 What kind of busy: Flying from
flower to flower, never stopping
for more than a few minutes
3 Anything else
about busy bee?:
Very serious and on
my own
7 Whereabouts is on
my own: I like to stay
in my room to rest
and recuperate
9 Anything else about flying?: I
hate being interrupted
4 When busy what
happens next?: When
I’ve visited enough
flowers I like to rest.
5 Where does busy come
from?: I worry I’ve missed
an important point. I
need to keep checking
back.
6 When you’ve visited
enough flowers, is there
anything else about
enough?: About six
different topics
8 And keep checking
notes - and what kind of
checking?: I keep lovely
neat notes that really
make good sense to me.
Example from www.trainingattention.co.uk

12. !12
Response to 1
2 What kind of part of Response 1 ?
3 Anything else
about part of
Response 1?
7 Whereabouts is
part of Response 1 ?
9 Anything else about part of
Response 2 ?
4 When part of
Response 1, what
happens next?
5 Where does part of
Response 1 come from?
6 When part of Response 4
?, is there anything else
about some word in
Response 4?
8 And what kind of part
of Response 5 ?:
1. LAUNCH A QUESTION, EXPLORE A USER STORY, ENVISION THE NEXT SPRINT

13. W H E N Y O U A R E W O R K I N G AT Y O U R B E S T, Y O U A R E L I K E W H AT ?
!13

14. T H E C U R I O S I T Y E D G E
My stuff
Their stuff
Detecting
Attending
to
Distinguishing between
YOUR
PATTERNS
THEIR
PATTERNS
WHAT IS
HAPPENING
WHAT YOU
INFER
BUILDING USEFUL
MODELS
WHAT IS
PRESENTED
Caitlin Walker’s
Flower Model

15. C A I T L I N WA L K E R
!15
Learn more about her work here:
www.cleanagilecoaching.com/recordings
www.trainingattention.co.uk
“Clean Questions should be thought of less as
questions and more as pointers that train attention to
particular aspects of the other person’s mental model.
Asking these kinds of questions stimulates curiosity
and forces us out of the drama triangle, because they
stop us from putting in our own beliefs and
interpretations… acting as filters so we actually find out
what the other person means.”

16. W H AT I S C L E A N F O R T E A M S ?
• It is a way of creating shared models of any kind within a
team and organization - it is formally called Systemic
Modeling - and promoting curiosity ubiquitously.
• Created by Caitlin Walker over 20 years of practice and
usage of Clean Language in groups
• Training is based mostly in England - some in Sweden and
Russia, and now the USA,
• It is a rich set of tools to help a team become self-
facilitating, more aware, more curious, and more engaged
!16

17. C L E A N F O R T E A M S T O O L S
!17

18. Inventor of Clean Language,
Psychotherapist
Success with PTSD patients
Maori, from New Zealand, rich with a
tradition of listening
!18
D AV I D G R O V E 1 9 5 1 - 2 0 0 8
“Find out what’s not there, that
needs to be there, for what is there,
to make sense”
David Grove

19. • SENSORY INFORMATION
what is seen, heard, felt, tasted, smelled
• CONCEPTS
such as ideas, family, democracy, honesty, trust, joy
• METAPHORS
• Explicit: encapsulate how we structure our experience
describing one thing in terms of another (usually from the
physical world)
• Implicit: so embedded in our language we don’t even notice
T H R E E T Y P E S O F E X P R E S S I O N
!19

20. • You can recognize an implicit metaphor by asking yourself, is that ‘literally true’? If
it isn’t, then it’s a metaphorical.
• Metaphors have their basis in the physical world.
Examples: I have very high expectations.
There are barriers to entry for women in Tech
I’m like a firehose. I’m stuck.
The stock market is tumbling.
Hint: Later when you listen, ask clean questions about the metaphorical bits when you
notice them. That can be very effective.
Amphora - object to carry something precious from one place to another…from
Greek word ‘metapherin’ - transfer.
R E C O G N I Z I N G M E TA P H O R S
!20

21. I M P L I C I T M E TA P H O R S
IDEAS AS FOOD
IDEAS AS PEOPLE
IDEAS AS PLANTS
IDEAS AS PRODUCTS
IDEAS AS COMMODITIES
IDEAS AS RESOURCES
IDEAS AS MONEY
IDEAS AS CUTTING TOOLS
Raw data, half-baked ideas, devour the book, jell, simmer
Brainchild, died off, resurrected, breathe new life into
Come to fruition, offshoot, seeds, branches, fertile
Turning/cranking out, smooth, hone, refine
Won’t buy that, market for, worthless, valuable
Ran out of ideas, used up, useless, go a long way
My two cents, treasure trove, wealth of
Incisive, cuts to heart, sharp, keen
Metaphors We Live By - George Lakoff
!21

22. U S E S I N I T
• Retrospectives
• Standups
• Planning
• Modeling a product, a
design
• Outcome-focussed
facilitation and project
management
• Project kick-offs / project
team alignment
• Maintaining a balance/
working with stressful
situations)
• Leadership skills/development
• Communication training:
building trust, finding out more
in less time
• Interviewing / research
• Building commitment and
ownership
• Project evaluation
• Conflict resolution
• Facilitating learning for trainers
!22

23. Business
Hiring
Coaching
Sales
In IT
Helping teach young kids
math, spelling, and music
Elementary School
Doctors
Geriatric care
Facilitating change in
organizations, schools, training
departments, police
departments
In therapy
W H E R E I S C L E A N B E I N G A P P L I E D
!23

24. S P E C I F I C I T E X A M P L E S
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Business Case Studies
Outcome Facilitation*
Story Elaboration
Hiring Interviews
Sales
Culture Change
http://bit.ly/BusinessCaseStudies
http://bit.ly/15FOTO
http://bit.ly/CleanStories
http://bit.ly/Listen4meta4
http://bit.ly/CleanSales
http://bit.ly/acleancultureshift
*Ubiquitous use of Clean Language in the Agendashift
TM
community of Mike Burrows in lean/agile strategy facilitation
workshops.

25. W H AT C A N Y O U D O N O W ?
Notice when you are wondering about what someone means. Imagine how
you could use the clean questions to get clarification.
Use one or two questions casually here and there. For more than casual use:
Practice with someone who knows you are doing it intentionally. Anything
more than one or two casual questions in a row in every day conversation,
best to ask permission and be ok with a ‘No’. Its ok if people don’t want to
answer a question. This applies to work and non-work settings.
We’ve covered a small number of the Clean Language tools, its underlying
values and methods for teams and coaches. There are options for learning
more, including training, both on-line and in person, as well as self-study.
!25

26. R E S O U R C E S
!26
Connections-At-Work, LLC
andrea@connections-at-work.com
@andreachiou
andrea@connections-at-work.com
adaptivecollaboration.com/books-i-recommend/Books and blog posts:
#cleanlanguage #cleanforteamsTwitter:
Clean Language Open Discussion
Systemic Modeling/Clean for
Teams Open Discussion
Facebook Groups:
leanpub.com/whoisusingcleanBook:
www.cleanagilecoaching.comClean for Teams:
Connect with me :
I do offer in person and on-line training.

27. !27
C L E A N F E E D B A C K E X E R C I S E

28. C L O S I N G
!28
What difference does all of this make?

29. T H A N K Y O U F O R
PA RT I C I PAT I N G !
@andreachiou
andrea@connections-at-work.com