Episode 21: Integrating Clean Language into Kanban, Coaching, and Life with Helen Meek

Welcome to Episode 21 of Clean At Work! In this episode, we feature Helen Meek, also known as the "Kanban Queen," who is a coach, trainer, and the fiancée of one of the hosts, John. Helen shares her journey of incorporating Clean Language into her professional life over the past six years, despite initial skepticism. She describes how Clean Language, which involves asking non-judgmental, neutral questions to elicit deeper understanding, has become an integral part of her coaching and training practices. Helen discusses the challenges and benefits of using Clean Language in various settings, including one-on-one coaching, group training sessions, and even in personal life with her stepdaughter. She emphasizes the importance of practice, perseverance, and creating a safe environment to master Clean Language techniques. Helen also highlights the value of using Clean Language to maintain curiosity, create psychological safety, and avoid judgment, especially in contexts like data analysis and team dynamics. Towards the end of the episode, Helen shares advice for those new to Clean Language, encouraging them to embrace discomfort as a sign of learning and to seek support from the Clean community. She also mentions her interest in further exploring areas like Clean interviewing and running more coaching dojos. The episode wraps up with an invitation for listeners to connect with Helen on LinkedIn and to continue learning about Clean Language. About the Speaker Helen is an outgoing and driven coach and trainer who is passionate about working with Individuals, teams and organisations on their road to agility. Helen has working with many varied organisations and teams in many different industries and brings this vast wealth of experience and knowledge to her training and coaching. Helen has a holistic approach to coaching operating with individual team members, whole teams, leaders, managers and executives across technical and non-technical departments. You will often find her working with clients on rolling out enterprise level Kanban or Scrum. Helen is proud to be an Accredited Kanban Trainer with the Kanban University (KU) and runs regular classes publicly and privately.  Helen is also one of the few people to hold the Train the Trainer title for the KU. Not forgetting her roots Helen is a regular trainer for Agile and Scrum. Helen is a great believer in sharing her knowledge and encouraging other to do the same and enjoys growing the Agile and Kanban communities through her public speaking and 2 meet up groups. Helen is an authentic coach with many years of real, practical experience and war wounds from her own Agile journey. This is what makes Helen the ideal coach, trainer and leader. Helen holds Kanban Coaching Professional and Certified Team Coach credentials. Helen is also a certified personal and business coach through the ICF. Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenjmeek/ Twitter: @Helen_J_Meek Email: [email protected] Website: https://ripple-rock.com/   About the Hosts John Barratt (https://www.agileaffinity.com/) is passionate about empowering individuals, teams, and organisations to reach their full potential. Utilising a blend of agile techniques infused with the agile mindset, he is dedicated to helping organisations streamline, self-organise, and adapt to today's dynamic business environment. John's approach is deeply influenced by the systemic modelling skills he acquired from Caitlin Walker, which he continuously refines through ongoing training. His work primarily focuses on guiding organisations through the process of descaling and fostering a culture of self-organisation. Learn more about John's work at Agile Affinity. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbarratt1/ Sarah Baca (http://www.nerdyknights.com/) is a coach, therapist, facilitator, and teacher who has a passion for using clean language to help others discover what makes them feel vibrantly alive. She has been working with organisations as an agile coach for over a decade, specialising in enterprise and leadership coaching.  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahjbaca/