No More of the Same

The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions. Paul Watzlawick.

One of the coaches I mentored asked for the sources of my distinction between first-order change and second-order change. My earliest influences were Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind and Watzlawick et al's Change; later, Senge's The Fifth Discipline and Hargrove's Masterful Coaching.

While the terminology of these authors and I may differ, we share some common principles:

First-order change is a temporary "fix" to a problem without examining the underlying patterns that caused the problem; the typical result is "more of the same." Senge, for example, identifies archetypes arising from attempts at organizational change that feed the original dynamic.

Second-order change is a radical shift in worldview and consequent actions; it requires systems thinking, the ability to step back and intervene in the dynamics that have reinforced "more of the same."

Political satire, "more of the same"

 

First-order change in coaching similarly refers to learning new skills or capabilities that involve doing something better without examining or challenging underlying beliefs and assumptions. Second-order change occurs when clients step outside their current perspective, examine their frame of reference, and do something different. As a coach, you help them (a) observe the assumptions and behavioral patterns that have kept the same problems cropping up over and over, and (b) fundamentally reframe their worldview. As a consequence, they become less habit-driven, more open, and increasingly self-aware.

For example, Bill Danvers was  VP of Sales, in line to be president of his company. The CEO had annointed him because of spectacular sales results, not realizing Bill had taken all the credit in spite of behind-the-scenes support from VPs of other functions. After agreeing with his peers on negotiation parameters, he would override those agreements to make deals with customers that other functions didn't have the resources to support in the expected time frame. So if customers became dissatisfied, Bill still looked like the golden boy and his peers took all the blame.

His underlying drive was to succeed at any cost. Consequently, the other VPs didn't trust him and wouldn't support his bid to be their boss. Because he wanted their approval, Bill agreed to tell customers his offers were tentative and to confirm with his peers before closing the deal. This first-order change might have temporarily satisfied others in the organization, but if his fundamental drive continued to serve his own achievements at the cost of theirs, nothing fundamental would have changed and he would again have lost their trust.

With a systemic view of his behavioral patterns, Bill Danvers began to acknowledge evidence of his competitiveness and his high need to be recognized for his successes. He became aware of childhood messages that his worth depended on his individual accomplishment. With the goal of second-order change, I helped raise Bill's awareness when feelings of competitiveness and approval-seeking behavior began to grip him. He was gradually able to intervene with new responses and authentically collaborate with his peers.

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For a personality-based explanation, see the discussion beginning at the bottom of page 4 in my book with Clarence Thomson, Out of the Box Coaching with the Enneagram. For more about first- and second-order change, see Tompkins and Lawley's  When the Remedy is the Problem.

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A "Clean" Sweep

Over a period of years David Grove identified questions that would least influence clients in their metaphorical journey, hence the term "Clean Language." Carol Wilson, "Metaphor and Symbolic Modelling for Coaches."

Even though metaphors are commonplace in everyday language, we sometimes miss their potential to open doors that logic and its accompanying censors keep firmly locked. Think about it. If logic ruled the day, you could simply say, "I'm going to stop feeling defensive when someone criticizes me" or "I want to lose 15 pounds," and voila! It's done. 

Just as our unconscious patterns and resistances defy logic, they can be accessed and transformed with metaphor. It's really fun to follow a client's metaphor and see where it leads. And I've found they'll accept suggestions that might otherwise seem strange or silly, if presented with confidence. 

So, for example, when I asked a client about her loneliness, she said it was like being stranded on a desert island. Dropping assumptions about my role as helper, I followed her into her own metaphor, trusting that her internal resources would lead us somewhere healing. 

(It's a long story, but a key player was a talking bird, a guide neither of us could have anticipated.)

If coaches comes into metaphor play with their own worldview, make assumptions about what clients see in their own metaphors, and take them where the coach thinks they should go, this negates clients' experience and dismisses the potential for their own solutions. Psychologist David Grove suggested that metaphors are not only symbolic of a problem but also contain clues to solutions. He developed questions he called clean, meaning they don't engage a cognitive process but rather keep clients in relationship with their own metaphors.

Angela Dunbar's article "Using Metaphors with Coaching" will give you a good start with Clean Language. The first question is always, "What would you like to have happen?" and clients are typically in a logical, left-brain mode, as my client was when she said she wanted to feel connection instead of lonely. So it may take a while for a metaphor to arise, but soon, as you follow the client's lead, a whole metaphorical landscape begins to appear.

Here are a few examples of clean questions and content taken from a session of about 30 minutes. I'll use the word bird to represent my client's metaphor (one of many before she became aware of a voice, which then became a talking bird):

1. To develop awareness: "What kind of voice is that voice? or "Whereabouts is that voice?" or "Is there anything else about that voice?" (She sees a bird landing next to her.)
2. To understand the bigger picture: "Then what happens?" or "What happens just before?" or "Where could that bird have come from?" (She says it's a talking bird that comes from a ship she sees in the distance."
3. To explore relationships and connections: "And is there a relationship between that talking bird and feeling connected?" or "And when the bird talks to you, what happens to feeling connected?" (She says when she reaches the ship she'll be connected, and the bird is telling her how to reach the ship.)
4. To find out how the goal can be reached: "What needs to happen for you to feel connected?" or "And can that connection happen?" (The client at first says she has no way to get to the ship, she can't swim that far, but eventually the bird tells her how to build a raft and she is able to do that.)

A complete session is very much in flow and may move between questions, as new metaphors and even new goals appear.

It's important to hold a playful attitude as a coach. Even if you've never done this kind of work before, you'll be surprised how freeing the process can be for both you and your clients.

Draw Outside the Lines

Remember the problem where you're asked to connect nine dots with only four straight lines?

This riddle can serve as a metaphor for you as a coach. There is no box in the diagram, but each client's worldview is a box. The only way to solve the nine-dot problem is to go outside the box, in this case by creating four lines that extend past the numbers:

You, too, want to go outside the lines -- to step outside the box of the coaching relationship -- and ask yourself, "Are my responses to clients reinforcing their key personality patterns or helping them break free of those patterns?"

Success-oriented clients, for example, tend to look outside themselves for approval, seeking the metaphorical "trophy" for achieving their goals. In follow-up meetings they will typically report how well they've carried out their assignments, enacting their key underlying pattern by trying to be the best coaching client. Will you reinforce that behavior by applauding what they've done, or will you help them see this habitual pattern, without judgment, as it occurs in the coaching session?

Clients whose key pattern is perfectionism will come to you wanting to "fix" themselves. Will you jump with them to solutions, or will you help them break the superstructure of their perfectionism by teaching them to observe how their perfectionism plays out without trying to change anything? 

This is sophisticated coaching; you are always looking deeper than the obvious, always taking the systemic view, acknowledging that your presence invites the lifelong patterns that now keep your clients stuck. The easy approach is to give them what they ask for. The smarter approach is to give them what they don't know how to ask for, a transpersonal shift in how they view the world.