Consider the Possibilities

After more than thirty years and an ever-growing file of theories, models, and techniques, I've come to believe that being fully present and helping clients become fully present are key to being a good coach. In the process, of course, you'll be informed intuitively by all you've learned and practiced.

Below is the dialogue from a coaching session with a client who wanted to stay present in uncomfortable situations and not withdraw physically or mentally or emotionally:

Client: All my life I've had the tendency to bolt when I started feeling uncomfortable.

Coach: When you haven't bolted, when you're able to stay with being uncomfortable, how do you do that? 

Client: I tell myself to hold it in place until my sense of resistance isn't so strong. But talking to myself about it is a real struggle. 

Coach: We have three channels to communicate with our resistance: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. You seem to use an auditory process.  

Client: Yes, I think in words and paragraphs. I don't see pictures. 

Coach: That is good to know, because it means when you shift to a kinesthetic channel you'll reach your right brain processes in a way you can't with words. So hold the awareness that you want to move away from something. Where in your body do you experience that sensation? 

Client: In my gut. 

Coach: Expand that sensation and tell me what it's like. 

Client: It's kind of a frenetic energy. "Butterflies" is too gentle a word. It's wobbly, frenetic. 

Coach: Now try that on. Does that feel exactly right, that sense that it's wobbly, frenetic? 

Client: Not quite. An image comes to me from a college program in special education when I worked with autistic children. One of the things an autistic child will do when feeling overwhelmed is what's called "flapping." 

Coach: Is that a fit? 

Client: That's exactly it. 

Coach: Ah. So there's a child in you who hasn't been able to communicate except through "flapping."

We then agreed whenever she felt the presence of that child, she would listen for what the child was trying to communicate.

Notice I didn't accept the client's belief that she never thought in pictures. Instead I embedded a possibility in my response and she came almost immediately to an experience that countered her view of herself--suddenly she was seeing images.

Possibility language is also illustrated in the above interaction with the comment, "That is good to know, because it means when you shift to a kinesthetic channel you'll reach your right brain processses in ways you can't with words." 

Another aspect of possibility language was the presupposition that the autistic child would be trying to communicate in a different way.

In short order this client moved from an internal verbal struggle--trying to force herself to continue doing something uncomfortable (and reinforcing her worldview)--into a playful, imaginary interaction with a child-like part of herself who'd been "autistic," unable to communicate except through frenetic physical movement.

When you coach this way, the possibilities are endless.

What You See May Not be What You Get

One of my clients is building his company and has specific requirements for rounding out his current team. While coaching him on interviewing, I realized much of what's on the Internet about "behavioral interviewing" unwittingly invites candidates to say what they think the interviewer wants to hear, instead of showing themselves authentically. 

There's a problem with questions such as "Give me an example of an occasion when you used logic to solve a problem." This signals that the company wants someone with logical thinking, and candidates will do their best to impress the interviewer with their sound logic. Another problematic question: "Have you handled a difficult situation with a co-worker? How?" For someone who wants the job, the only possible answer to the first question is "Yes," and now the candidate's thinking, Hmmm... they want someone who's willing to admit difficulties, and someone who's able to manage difficult situations. Better be on my toes with this one. They're now psyching out the INTERVIEWER instead of vice versa. 

So, when you're coaching clients about behavioral interviewing, here's an approach I learned from a company that helps corporations choose candidates for key executive positions. Their reputation depends on getting it right. And your clients' satisfaction with people they hire also depends on that new employee's continued demonstration of characteristics apparent during interviews. NOT examples of past behavior, but what's right in front of the interviewer's nose. Here's how to elicit authentic behavior.

Before the interview, define the key characteristics being sought:

• What will fulfill the job requirements?
• What will serve the company's mission?
• What will match customer and industry needs? 
• What will complement the current team composition?

During the interview:

• Create a climate for relaxed conversation (up to 1-1/2 hours if possible). You want to elicit authentic behavior, instead of "best foot forward" that might only show you what the candidate wants you to see. And you want them to do 90% of the talking.
• These questions will keep them talking and give you more data (as opposed to short answers that don't tell you much):  Broad, general questions ("Tell me more about..."), Value-judgment questions ("What was your favorite part of that? What made it your favorite?"), Probes ("How so...?" "Because...?"), Reflection ("So that interested you..." then be silent to give them time to continue).
• Observe behavior during the interview that matches or doesn't match the key characteristics you've identified: (1) Compare what they say with what they do in the interview (if their resume emphasizes creativity and you ask about their creative work, you have no guarantee it was actually their idea/work; instead, invite them to do creative problem-solving with you and observe for yourself how they think). (2) Listen to their language for underlying characteristics. For example, someone who asks, "Am I going into too much detail?" may not be highly confident or a great risk-taker. IMPORTANT: This is only one data point; check it out by listening for more evidence. (3) You can also listen to language to make an educated guess about their personality style (voice loud or soft, focus of attention, etc.); it's unethical and even silly to look for a certain personality -- you want to find someone who's emotionally mature -- but it can give some ideas for building a diverse and complementary team.
• Be aware of your nonverbal behavior; be pleasant without encouraging any particular line of conversation (they would take apparent encouragement as a sign of what you want and try to give you more what you want).
• Write down your observations immediately after the meeting. If you take notes during the interview, do so in an easygoing, non-obtrusive way (you might have a checklist of the key qualities you're looking for, and put a check mark when you see one). But note-taking is nonverbal behavior and may detract from the safe atmosphere that makes candidates comfortable enough to show their real selves.

A Moment's Insight

While in graduate school, I awakened every morning to a large poster on my bedroom wall with the quote on the left. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was not the well-known poet of "Old Ironsides" and "The Chambered Nautilus" -- that was his father. Holmes Junior was an associate Supreme Court Justice and one of the most cited 20th century American legal scholars. 

True to what may have been his intended meaning, the poster mainly symbolized my many intellectual aha's as a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology.

But there's is a deeper and equally meaningful interpretation of the poster. 

The butterfly, of course, represents an obvious and compelling transformation in its metamorphosis from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to gorgeous flight. And the word "insight" means grasping the inward or hidden nature of things.

If I were limited to recommending only one skill to coaches, it would be to develop a finely honed intuition. There are many traditional approaches to intuition training, but my path has been a bit unconventional. I've written elsewhere about my insights using Silva methods. Later, inspired by Carl Jung, I began using the I Ching when feeling stuck on how to approach a client situation or consulting project.

For example, because of my work with a toy company's plant manager and his team, his boss (the parent company's VP) invited me to his annual retreat for all plant managers, to review the MBTI from their previous year's retreat and teach them the Enneagram. It is a BIG company. This was a MAJOR opportunity for me. Except for my client and his boss they were all STRANGERS to me. I only had ONE day to cover two complicated systems. Can you put yourself in my place, and feel the pressure to my ego, the anxiety rising?

I couldn't seem to focus on how to design the retreat, and was actually considering backing out. So I got out my I Ching workbook and threw the coins. I do not remember which hexagram resulted; it might have been #13. I was barely aware of it even then, because shifting my focus to invite my intuition freed me from logical attempts to understand, and I "heard" the clear message to quit worrying what they might think of me, and focus on their needs (yes, duh!).

I called the VP and asked for a thumbnail sketch of all the participants, made some educated guesses about their range of Enneagram styles, bought amusing t-shirts as prizes for "best in type" (on the perfectionist's t-shirt two buzzards sit on a branch, one telling the other "Patience my ass, I'm gonna kill somebody!") and created a client-centered design they appreciated and enjoyed.

You could argue that I might have designed an effective workshop using pure logic. Sure. But I was blocked and needed to get out of my head. Since then I've learned to tune in without props. Whenever I hear myself thinking "Yikes, not sure where to go with this..." I take a deep breath, imagine myself completely in tune and connected with my client(s), and picture (da dum) a butterfly.

Untying the Knots

My client, Walter Frazier, was an innovative, idealistic leader. He held high standards for himself, his employees, and the company, but he was losing people's respect because of the angry tirades he unleashed whenever he was disappointed with the quality of someone's work. Walter came to me only for help in managing his anger. It would have been easy enough to coach him on how to use anger-management techniques. But my questions ran deeper: Why did he feel so much anger? How could I coach him to break out of the worldview that kept reinforcing his perfectionism? When I led him to this deeper level, he learned how to interrupt the inner patterns of processing information that made him angry. He became less harshly judgmental and his underlying anger began to dissipate. I was able to help him accomplish this shift because of the Enneagram’s power as a coaching tool.  

Most people acknowledge how important it is to act in accord with their internal needs and values. But they're often out of touch with their deepest motivations, behaving instead according to who they think they are, playing familiar roles and piling up trophies from their worldly successes. Often, the very characteristics that propelled them to reach personally important goals now get in their way. People like Walter who are idealistic and quality-minded standard-setters, for example, may find their perfectionism and inability to delegate effectively prevent them from achieving their real goals.  

When we started working together, Walter held a filtered view of how the world should work. Your clients may want to shore up the crumbling mortar of their personality styles when their usual coping strategies fail them, seeking help on how to make more money, quit feeling anxious, change to a more enjoyable job, or find a new boss/lover/spouse. As with Walter, coaching can take clients beyond their immediate requests to what they really want and often urgently need—a way to break “out of the box” of their habitual perspectives and reactions to the world. 

The Enneagram is a brilliant diagnostic tool to identify nine different ways of viewing the world, each of which has a common set of patterns. When your clients know these patterns and how to interrupt them, they'll consistently experience long-term, profound changes. If you do not yet know the Enneagram, click here for brief descriptions and follow the links that attract you.

(From Chapter 1 of Out of the Box Coaching with the Enneagram)

Don't Drink the Poison

Holding onto anger is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die.

We all know anger is an unhealthy emotion to dwell upon, and yet it's not easy to let go of strong, negative feelings toward someone who has harmed us, perhaps in dreadful ways. 

If you have clients who have set appropriate boundaries, held the person accountable, moved on with their lives, and still the anger persists, an imaging technique can be very effective.

Steve Andreas describes one approach in "Resolving Hate," the Case Report on page 6 of the Spring 2013 Milton Erickson Foundation Newsletter. His client "Sally" harbored hatred toward a once-admired man who'd criticized her unmercifully and with whom she no longer felt safe. Andreas asked her to picture someone she'd once hated and still didn't care for or trust, but had been able to let go of her anger, to describe everything she could about that image.

This person was... about 15 feet away from her, faded, foggy, and in muted color... straight ahead of her, down about 30 degrees from the horizon. When I asked her to move the image of the man she hated into this position, and allow it to become faded, foggy, and in muted color, she immediately felt the tension in her chest release, she could breathe easily, and her anger drained away completely.

He then asked her to imagine several scenarios in different locations where she might encounter the man who'd been a problem, and notice her reactions.

These rehearsals both tested her new response, and also programmed it in, so it would be automatic when she encountered him in the real world... About three weeks later, Sally emailed me: "Today I glanced up, saw him, had the thought, 'Ugh, I don't even want to talk to him,' so I looked in the other direction and kept walking. There was a tiny blip of irritation and then I was over it in about four seconds."

Metaphors Can Die!

A colleague asked me how I use metaphors in change work. As I described how I elicit and mirror metaphors, I rather casually gave him an example: 

You’ve said you want to be able to distinguish between falling into excitement--which carries passion and commitment, or falling into yearning--where you’re stuck in envy and unable to move forward.

Let's say I asked you what falling into excitement is like and you said, "It’s like flying, like a bird in migration that knows, that follows its instincts."

Then I might ask, "Tell me more about that bird, and where you are in the picture."

And you might respond, "I'm flying, following the bird, and it’s an eagle."

I then explained if he were my client, of course, his metaphor might be very different and it would be important to honor that, because a metaphor is only potent if it’s alive for the person wanting the change. 

“But as soon as you mentioned eliciting a metaphor,” he said, “I thought of flying!”

In his next email he wrote, “Thanks for an enlightening conversation. There is a subtle excitement in me... like the feeling I feel just before flying in a dream... a warm light that tries to burst from my chest... pulling me forward... a child's spirit... a wisdom unmistakably ancient... an eagle turning its smiling eye back at me... knowingly flapping its wings.. leaving a soothing breeze in its wake... I will follow it.”   

Unwittingly, I’d used a metaphor that was alive for him. But metaphors can be dead if they have no figurative value. Someone who sails might say, for example, “It’s like being on a sailboat in a heavy wind,” but continue the discussion in everyday language because the sailing image is literal and therefore dead as a metaphor. If the same person says “It’s like I’m balancing on top of a huge ice skate going very fast” this is probably a live metaphor. 

Listen for combinations of words that don’t fit known patterns of meaning – these are more likely to engage right-brain processes, and live on, as the eagle did for my friend. 

For What Are You Willing to Die?

When I was a girl I was struck by Patrick Henry's speech imploring Virginians to join the American Revolution, ending with the famous phrase, "...as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" Was there anything I believed in strongly enough that I would face death to preserve? The answer then was no, a response dictated by my as-yet-unexamined Enneagram personality style. Committed to avoiding conflict at all costs, I had NO opinions, much less a passionate opinion. 

My answer now is YES, I would be willing to die to preserve the rights of women and a society that honors women as well as men. I realize that's a tall order, and I'm renewing last year's resolution to mentor coaches who still have the youth and vitality to be working in the world toward true equality.

Today is a good day to set goals based on passionate principles. Stanford's Michael Ray suggests we ask two powerful questions: "Who is my Self?" ("your divinity, your highest future potential") and "What is my Work?"  ("the purpose of your existence, what you are meant to be").

Answering these questions from Bill O'Hanlon will begin to stir your passion:

• What gives you a sense of aliveness, that feels "just right"?
• What do you dream about; what holds you spellbound?
• What are blessings you could give back to the world?
• Whose work or life inspires you?
• What would you talk about if given an hour of prime time TV to influence the nation or the world?
• What makes you angry enough to correct in the world?
• What contribution of yours will be more profound than others doing something similar?

To these I add:

• What do you believe in so strongly that you'd be willing to die to preserve?