The Promise That Changes Everything: I Won’t Interrupt You. By Nancy Kline

The latest of Nancy Kline’s 3 to 4 books and undoubtedly her best. This is in my top 10 best books for leaders.

I consider myself very fortunate that I have had Nancy as my Mentor and guide and friend for over 15 years.
She even generously came to the speech day of my eldest daughter Harriet when she was Head girl of the Mount school York and I will always remember her kindness support and friendship.

Leigh and I have been fortunate to have been trained by her as coaches and facilitators.

When you read this you also need to go back and read her earlier book “more time to think” which gives you excellent grounding.

The key 9 points that I drew from this:

1. Understanding independent thinking and how generative attention really helps innovative thinking.
2. The 10 components of what makes a thinking environment: attention, equality, ease, appreciation, feelings, encouragement, information, difference, incisive questions and place.
3. Why it helps to make the positive philosophical choice that people come to work intending to do the best job.
4. The multiple sources of interruption: that we find we are in a world that conforms that we get distracted by digital devices that we have master persuaders like Donald Trump trying to influence us and that our society is now highly polarised.
5. Understanding the promise that I won’t interrupt you and how it liberates people to think for themselves in ways they have rarely experienced in life.
6. Advice on thinking pairs which is a key building block of the thinking environment.
7. Using the thinking environment for your coaching. It’s profoundly improved my style of coaching.
8. Using the thinking environment for leading others and it really liberates people.
9. How the human mind tends to think in waves and then pauses.

In conclusion this is an excellent book and my preference being dyslexic is to go for the audio version on audible.co.uk or audible.com because listening to Nancy Kline’s reading of her own book is incredibly powerful and you get such additional insight which is not always available in the book.