I’ve just finished listening to the audiobook The Promise That Changes Everything by Nancy Kline. One of the facility team recommended it to me during my time at Henley Business school in July 2022. The subtitle, ‘I won’t interrupt you. As Kline frames it:
‘Change where your attention is, and you change where another person’s mind is. … the bursting-into-life effect of attention is why the promise of no interruption changes everything.’
I found this book to offer a fresh, new perspective on how to create a thinking environment. As a coach and mentor, I focus on how best to support individuals to change their behaviour through self-awareness and emotional intelligence through the art of contemplation and changing their thinking process—exploring Kline’s work, which covers decades of creating a thinking environment. I felt like I had come home, home to a deep sense that my work was and is on the right track; we all have doubts which keep us grounded.
The Promise That Changes Everything will challenge you to review your work as a coach, mentor or leader and move you into creating a thinking environment by understanding the importance of not being interrupted. The book is rhythmically spoken with a breath-taking overview of its challengingly yet impressively therapeutic values. I appreciated Nancy Kline’s writing, and I became engrossed by her remarkable voice, which seemed to move like flowing water gracefully throughout the sentences.
Outtake from Nancy Kline’s website The Promise That Changes Everything, I Won’t Interrupt You by Nancy Kline https://www.timetothink.com/books/the-promise/
How often do you interrupt? How often do people interrupt you? Can you remember the last time someone listened to you all the way through your thinking?
In her new book, Nancy Kline, bestselling author of Time To Think, makes this radical proposal: ‘I won’t Interrupt you is a promise that changes everything. It deepens relationships, spawns dignity, raises the intelligence of groups, and enriches every conversation. It may, in fact, be the most important promise we ever make. And the hardest to keep.
This promise matters because when we interrupt each other, we interrupt our thinking, and that interrupts the quality of everything we do. Nancy has spent the last three decades researching independent thinking and the barriers that prevent us from thinking for ourselves. In The Promise That Changes Everything, Nancy shares insights into the nature of interruption, case studies and stories from her work with clients, as well as simple ways to change how we behave with each other so that this promise can change our lives.
‘As living and working become more complex, the lessons and practices here will shift a sense of chaos to one of clarity and a mindset of fear to one of hope. It could not have come at a better moment’ Margaret Heffernan, bestselling author of Wilful Blindness.
‘This timely and persuasive book shows us that the foundation for independent thinking is the promise to actually listen, without interruption, to what others have to say’ Cal Newport, bestselling author of Digital Minimalism.
— Until next time, x
Eileen Hutchinson
Eileen Hutchinson, Executive Coach & Owner of EH Coaching Academy, with centre status from ILM. Eileen specialises in helping clients with inspired learning and leadership development by supporting and equipping talent management with various training or coaching packages. Eileen works with senior management teams, individuals, independents, & other coaches on executive, interpersonal or business coaching.