Hitchhiking to the Grand Ole Opry

I don’t think change efforts have to be work. In particular, using metaphors to stimulate change can be a very playful process.

In a coaching session with a manager who was a bit of a perfectionist, he and I talked about problems his team described when his teaching mode slipped into preaching. While exploring together how to loosen that pattern playfully, I asked him to think of situations where he didn’t take the teacher role. 

"I used to hitchhike in the Sixties," he recalled, "and I learned a lot from conversations with people who gave me a ride." 

When he began to imagine himself in meetings as “hitching a ride,” conversing with people who work for him as if they’re traveling companions, it made a world of difference.

*     *     *

Asked to consider who her inner critic resembled, another client I'll call Elsa said, "She looks like me, but sounds like my mother."

When I asked “How is she dressed?” Elsa burst out laughing: “She’s dressed like Minnie Pearl from the Grand Ole Opry.” 

You know Elsa will never again respond to her inner judge in the same way. How could she? She’ll be picturing the words coming from a sassy comedian wearing a big straw hat with a $1.98 price tag hanging from the side!

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.

*     *     *

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.

...

Evocative Coaching

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For years I searched for an alternative to describing my work as "life coaching." There are countless people calling themselves life coaches, some apparent stars. Not that I don't admire success, or scads of money, but I do wonder if the "better" life some coaches promise belongs to the maya category (all is illusion). Efforts, in other words, to satisfy clients' egos.

Then I read about a Clinton Presidential staff retreat, with Jean Houston as one of the facilitators. Houston's self-description, also shared in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, struck me at first as hilariously theatrical:

"I would call myself an evocateur of the possible, and a midwife of souls." Dr. Jean Houston.

Sometimes my laughter and immediate rejection of an idea are defenses against taking a risk. Sure enough, I couldn't stop thinking about evocateur. Too grandiose, too foreign, too too . . . yet somehow edgy and intriguing. Out of curiosity I played around at the online Thesaurus and Dictionary. 

As expected, life coaches are described as "helping people to make changes in their lives, to learn new ways of coping, and to function at their maximum potential." Ho hum. 

Some synonyms: expert, consultant, guide, counselor, mentor, partner, confidant... and in a lighter mode, kibitzer. At the more directive end, I like buttinski. 

Evocateur doesn't appear in either source, but I found evocator and this is my synthesis:

"Through artistry and imagination, evocators call forth a vision of transformed reality, elicit passion, and summon others into action."

The synonyms for evocator tend to derive from prophet, including predictor, forecaster, oracle, reader, diviner, clairvoyant, seer, soothsayer, and witch. I admit to all, on occasion.

Following this thread, I googled evocateur. The first hit was Jean Houston's site, where this description expands on my synthesis above:

"The times of great change and remarkable opportunity are upon us... we can no longer go it alone, but must partner... to share innovative and creative ways in which to rethink and restructure our individual existence within the context of our expanding global communities. To do this requires a heightened awareness, an awakened sense of purpose, and a dedicated commitment to actively seek out the possible."

Evocateur went too far for me, but more and more I liked the intimations of evocator and coined (I thought) evocative coaching. I've  found only one use of the term in Evocative Coaching: Transforming Schools One Conversation at a Time, a "teacher-centered, no-fault, strengths-based approach to performance improvement."

Their principles for school transformation are the same as those I recommend for Enneagram coaching, based on consciousness (self-awareness), connection (high- trust relationships), competence (celebrate clients' abilities), contribution (honor client's input), and creativity (openness to change, in a flow state) as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyl: "During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life."

See also:

Evocative Enneagram Stories  &  Self-Coaching Tips 

My Books at Amazon.com

Right-Brain Rorschach

In a Rorschach Inkblot Test, people are asked to provide meaning for inkblot shapes, which demonstrate how we interpret ambiguous circumstances. Dr. Michael Yapko uses the Rorschach as a metaphor for how we project assumptions onto our life experiences: 

“Life is like an inkblot – an ‘experiential Rorschach,’ so to speak. Life doesn’t have an objective or assigned meaning. We give it meaning by our individual values, beliefs, relationships, careers, hobbies, and other life experiences.”

There’s a poetic form called “erasure” poetry, where you take a page from any book, article, newspaper, etc. and cover up all but the words that appeal to you. Those remaining words create a poem. Not only will any two people come up with different poems from the same text; when you come back later to the same page you may also “see” the text in a completely different way. 

The content on the right is from a page in Out of the Box Coaching with the Enneagram. Here’s my erasure: parallels expressing talents be playful, listen to your dog I suspect in my own metaphorical universe the “dog” refers to an instinctual part of me, and while I didn’t know it when I started this post, I’m realizing how uptight I’ve been about an upcoming project, getting into a head space instead of taking a deep breath and listening to my “dog.” Try it for yourself. Notice what words show up for you when you look at the page; then follow this “Rorschach” to see what your unconscious might be telling you. And remember, we all operate from a perspective that may or may not be held by others. It’s always good to open ourselves to the differences.

business failed. Mary asked if she could remember a situation where someone regained face. Linette then recalled a story of a young, unwed mother in her grandmother’s village. “She was urged by her family to leave the village in shame, but she refused to.” Mary inquired,  what happened to her?” The answer “She raised her child well and eventually earned an honorable reputation through her good works in the community.”      A useful story has a structure similar to the client’s sensation, including the underlying problem and an embedded resolution. These elements were present in the above story. The young woman losing face when she became pregnant was analogous to losing face by not being promoted. The woman in the story regained face by choosing to be self-defined. Mary pointed out these parallels. The lessons in Linette’s story helped her set her sights on expressing her own needs and talents. Creating Room to Play      The word “metaphor” is from the Greek pherin, “to carry,” and meta, “beyond or “over.” We are carried beyond our worldview by breakthrough experiences; metaphors illuminate the path. When clients shrink from a new perspective, that’s a clue that intellectual understanding has not freed them to move. This is your chance to be spontaneous, playful, inventive – anything that will reach them at a symbolic level. We’ve just written about the power of stories. You can also create openings through the symbolic use of humor, behavior, gifts, or even poetry.      Use your own imagination and creativity to develop metaphors for each style. Sometimes you can ask clients for a metaphor of how they see themselves and work with it. Don’t worry about getting it just right. The meaning of a metaphor is often individual. Listen to your clients. They’ll give you the metaphors that have meaning for them. An Eight told Clarence, “I’m a junkyard dog.” Clarence stayed within that metaphor: “Who is the dog loyal to? Who cares for him?” Whom does he let pet him? What is he protecting and from whom? In what way is he trapped by what he is protecting?”

 

Being Within Love

"...wisdom and compassion can join hands in finding a Spirit that both transcends and includes this world, a Spirit eternally prior to this world and yet embracing this world and all its beings with infinite love and compassion, and care and concern, and the tenderest of mercies..." Ken Wilber,A Brief History of Everything.

A colleague asked me about self-managing feelings of compassion, fondness, and attraction with clients. Therapists refer to these phenomena as transference and counter-transference. I prefer a less clinical explanation of what happens in a profoundly compassionate coaching relationship. We simply experience love--at its best, what Ken Wilber described as infinite love--an important component of transpersonal change.

Spontaneous change can happen in unconditionally loving personal relationships. In effective coaching relationships, as well, the emotional connection is one of unconditional, caring support. This is especially true when your clients have powerful insights, access a deep sense of their true worth, or realize how radically they've changed as a result of working with you.

My first experience of this felt a bit like falling in love with a client, but much more encompassing, more transcendent. I was grateful it happened when coaching a man to whom I couldn't possibly be attracted--so I wasn't confused about the source, only curious about how or why it was happening. At the moment this profoundly warm feeling swept over me, I'd been pondering how to frame the feedback from others in a way that he could hear without defensiveness. At the same moment, I found out in our meeting, he'd been praying I'd be shown the words that would help him.

It is, indeed, a kind of love we share at times like these, but it's bigger than everyday love. Instead of being "in" love, we're being "within" love, both coach and client lucky enough to have been present to a special kind of healing.

When your client's gender is not your romantic preference, this isn't confusing or threatening to either coach or client. For example, a female client sent me this email after a very powerful coaching session: "Dear Mary, Thank you, thank you, thank you. I think it might not be too soon to say, I love you." She typically expressed her emotions openly, and we both understood she was feeling deeply loved and loving.

But I have been within love with clients who weren't so openly expressive. A happily married, tough-nosed male CEO of a consulting firm, after several months of coaching, would respond to a particularly unexpected insight by saying, I love you!" It was clear he meant this not a romantic utterance, but a way to share his excitement, a feeling bigger than personal love.

Sometimes, though, social conditioning and role expectations can kick in and clients may define their feelings of shared compassion and gratitude as "infatuation" or "falling in love." When that happens, remember that you're in a special position as companion on a difficult and life-changing journey. Create appropriate boundaries so they feel safe enough to stay open and explore new territory, at the same time redefining this joy they're feeling as infinite love, not personal love.

See also:

Self-Coaching Tips 

My Books at Amazon.com

Coaching: An Inside Job

Take this to heart as a coach: change always occurs. You can influence and accelerate that process. Give yourself time and appreciation as you try out the practices below--and remember to have fun.

My approach to coaching is not always linear. I've used examples, stories, symbolic behaviors, and metaphors. The following three principles can inform your work no matter what coaching model you follow:

Acknowledge and Validate the Client's Worldview: Transpersonal change is more likely to occur in a coaching relationship where there's deep rapport--where clients feel known. Accessing their inner worlds gives you both insight and compassion. Paradoxically, they'll be more open to change when they feel accepted exactly as they are. Once they have that assurance, you can help them recognize and change patterns of behavior based on subconscious, outmoded beliefs.

Help Shift that Worldview: Most people will come to you having tried to avoid or overcome something they don't like about themselves. That approach tends to block positive energy. In contrast, your clients will release energy for change when they learn to observe their patterns of thought and behavior without judgment. Such compassionate self-awareness may be enough to support spontaneous changes. In addition, there are many inventive, even playful ways to help them alter the patterns they observe.

Focus on Solutions, Tapping Their Resources, Experience, and Ideas: Sometimes a solution focus means merely encouraging more of what works. It can also mean reframing--problem in the past and solution in the present or future. Change occurs when a problem is specific enough that it can be solved, when it's seen as a positive vision for the future.

As I mentored coaches over the years, I also found it helps to have a concrete how-to summary. The skills below will help you evoke transpersonal change:

1. Develop rapport: Acknowledge and validate client's worldview without judgment or prescription; share human to human responses.
2. Hold a vision of what's possible: Reflect second-order changes that occur in interaction with you.
3. Presuppose positive outcomes: Make statements that embed a positive expectation and assume a desired change. 
4. Teach Clients Self-Observation: Show them how to observe patterns without judgment; reinforce evidence of neutrality and change.
5. Use Possibility Language: Restate problems in the past, solutions in the present and/or future.
6. Focus on Solutions: Elicit brief problem description; ask how solution will look (videospeak); discover how they behaved in exceptions to the problem and encourage doing more of what works; if no exceptions, co-create achievable steps as fieldwork.
7. Help Shift from Either/Or to Both/And Thinking: Identify the "X" and "Y" that are apparently incompatible. Explore existing parameters. Ask "How can you do both X and Y?"
8. Honor Resistance as Energy for Change; Stay in Flow: Use everything that happens as grist for the mill, including all blocks, tasks not done, relapses, etc.
9. Use Evocative Tactics: Engage clients through stories, metaphors, humor, spontaneity, inventiveness, playfulness; bypass logic's censors.
10. Co-Invent Transformative Fieldwork: Co-create fieldwork that breaks old patterns with new responses; take them to their edge (doing anything different, however small, can promote significant change).
11. Make Process Observations: Comment on interactions with you as a source of learning about patterns.

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.

Using Metaphors in Change Work

For as long as humans have had speech, story-tellers have been respected for how their tales and poems taught and/or entertained. Harvard Business School guru John Kotter says, "Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves."

There's a time-honored tradition in change work to use stories for healing. A healing metaphor can help clients gain the personal resources and enhanced world model they need to handle their problems. Typically, though, as in the general history of storytelling, the coach decides what story or metaphor will have the greatest effect.

I've used a more client-centered approach, for example with a coach who said she always felt "like the new kid on the block" around her colleagues. I entered her metaphor by saying, "OK, I'm here with you. You've just moved in, and you're the new kid. What's that like? What are the other kids doing? How do they treat you? What are some ways you can get them to include you?" After she answered "They want to play with some of my cool toys!" she realized she had "cool toys" in her current repertoire that helped her feel comfortable with more experienced coaches.

I saw even more possibilities for metaphor work, and attended training in Symbolic Modeling with Gina Campbell. Here, instead of the coach determining the direction, open-ended questions preserve the terminology of clients' metaphors with "clean language," questions that follow the client's lead.

The next time one of your clients offers a metaphor, experiment with being completely spontaneous, playful, nonlinear. Forget about structure, forget about tools from your experience that will "help" or "coach" the person. Simply be present, and see where your client's metaphor leads both of you.

Listen to the Birds

In a powerful example of storytellng, psychologist George Burns met with a mother and her six-year-old daughter, Jessica, who'd been labeled by two psychologists as "an elective mute."

Jessica spoke freely and age-appropriately at home, but would not utter a sound to anyone outside her family. While Jessica sat on the floor drawing, Dr. Burns told her mother a story about a boy named Billy who was teased by the other children for his silence:

"That day the door of the cupboard at the back of the classroom was ajar and a feather duster protruded through the gap. As we filed into class, Billy's eyes fell on the protruding feathers and, without thinking, he exclaimed, 'Sir, there's a hen in the cupboard!' Everyone laughed, and after that Billy spoke." 

At this point Jessica handed Dr. Burns a drawing of a bird and told him it was "Tweetie."

"Who's Tweetie?" he asked.

"My canary."

Both Dr. Burns and Jessica's mother were stunned. He was the first adult Jessica had ever spoken to outside her family.

"The empowerment for her to change an established pattern of behavior," Dr. Burns concluded, "had come not just through a story, but through one told so indirectly that it was apparently being communicated to someone else."

Stories aren't just for children. A good teaching tale can reach your clients at both conscious and unconscious levels -- an "aha" accompanied by a subtle "zing."

Change Blindness

I recently tuned in to a discussion among coaches of assessment results for a client whose profile indicated he knew he was charming and likeable, but lacked depth of detail and follow-through. In spite of his self-awareness, I was concerned about his future in that company. His low ratings among peers and senior management suggested he's seen as  a "lightweight," a perception that can be very difficult to change, no matter how effective the coaching or how committed he is to balancing his influence style. I've seen change blindness on more than one occasion:

Change blindness – a phenomenon in visual perception where large changes are undetected by the viewer.

How many times have you made what felt like significant changes and no one noticed? How often, when working with clients, have co-workers or friends and family failed to observe, appreciate, and reinforce changes? This blindness occurs because others' ability to perceive something new is hampered by what they think they already know. This is often such an unconscious process they might not acknowledge their own change blindness (yep, denial of change blindness is called "change blindness blindness"). 

In a follow-up data-gathering session for a client who'd made significant changes in the previous six months, he and I pondered the fact that others I interviewed were highly focused on some problems from months earlier, even though I specifically asked them how this person is different in the present. 

A way around this phenomenon is to set clients up for success by coaching them to engage others in the process:  

“These are three specific behaviors you'll see that are different for me, and please, when you see me behaving in these new ways, tell me so I'll know I’m on the right track.” 

The Donald Duck Cure

The following is an example of a paradoxical intervention (encouraging clients to exaggerate a behavior):

Greg had been promoted to management as a reward for his technical know-how. Creative and bright, he was experienced at resolving problems by himself and had no models for how to encourage others. In particular, instead of coaching team members in private Greg criticized them openly in team meetings. They had recently been his peers and found this humiliating.

When I gave Greg this feedback, he understood why they felt embarrassed, but insisted he had no control over his behavior: "It just comes over me!"

Knowing how much he loved his young daughters, I asked if the same thing happened with them. "No," he replied, "they're really fun to be around and easy to teach. I love playing with them and showing how things work." He said their happiest times were spent watching Saturday morning cartoons together.

I asked Greg to look for a cartoon that depicted aggressive behavior, "putting someone down" and we'd talk about it in our next session. I expected coyote and roadrunner, but Greg described Donald Duck's nephews building a snowman at the bottom of a hill, only to have Donald zoom down on his sled and break up the snowman, laughing (quacking) and laughing (quacking). After several attempts, the nephews built a snowman around blocks of cement. This time when Donald ran into the snowman, he was flattened, and stars appeared over his head (in that fun way of cartoons).

"So, Greg," I suggested, "since you can't stop criticizing team members at meetings, just keep on doing what you're doing, but take a second as you deliver the message to imagine yourself as Donald Duck quacking to his nephews."

His problem behavior spontaneously disappeared.

Beyond Active Listening

We all want to coach our clients to be present enough to see how their habitual patterns operate, to respond out of free choice instead of reacting automatically. To do this well, we don't just instruct; we model by being fully present ourselves.

This goes way beyond active listening or even empathic listening. As described in Co-Active Coaching, "You listen at 360 degrees... as though you're surrounded by a force field that contains you, the client, and a space of knowing... and see what emerges."

Similarly, Otto Scharmer (Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges) describes a deep level of listening ("Listening 4") that requires full presence, frees us from habitual thinking, and opens new possibilities.

• Listening 1 (from habits): Habits of judgment that lead to reconfirming old opinions and judgments.
• Listening 2 (from outside): Factual listening and noticing differences that lead to new data.
• Listening 3 (from within): Empathic listening that leads to seeing through another's eyes and emotional connection.
• Listening 4 (from Source): Generative listening that connects us with an emerging future and shifts our identity/self. As a coach I hold the intention to be present at the deepest level of listening and to help clients notice how Listening 1, 2, and 3 operate as they move into Listening 4.

For example, Jane is in love with Bob. Both with busy lives, they've carved out a two-hour walk together, when Bob's phone rings with a desperate call from his sister Maggie that her heat is off and she's freezing. Although Jane agrees to go to Maggie's with Bob, she also notices her Listening 1 ("There's never enough time for me!"). Instead of reacting from that level, she probes for facts (Listening 2): Bob is the older brother of several sisters who relied on him before Jane came into the picture and she and Bob have talked about how to gradually balance that with his commitment to her. He's told Jane he wants to check in quickly and then continue their walk.

Still not reacting, simply being present, while at Maggie's house Jane engages Listening 3, putting herself in Bob's and Maggie's shoes ("Look how affectionate he is with his sister. That's the same fountain of compassion I love and respect in him"). She continues to stay present, now aware at Listening 4 ("What is there to know beyond my habitual understanding?"). In this place of full presence, she sees that her initial reaction came from a fundamental patterned belief, "There will never be enough for me." She shifts to a different sense of identify — "I am not my pattern" — and its hold on her is released. She is fully present.

The Nature of Change

The Sanskrit word Maya is often interpreted to mean "life is an illusion." More accurately Maya is the illusion that we and the world around us are stable and unchanging. In fact, everything is always changing. A good coach looks behind the illusion of immutability to discover the openings and opportunities for change.

 

Academics argue passionately about which comes first, a change in attitude or a change in behavior. Translated to coaching, do we help clients challenge their beliefs and thus bring about behavioral change; or do we encourage them to experiment with new behavior, hoping different results will reframe their thinking? The answer: both!!!  It's true that new behavior can create results that make old beliefs obsolete. And sometimes a "new view" leads clients to make behavioral changes consistent with that new perspective.

Moreover, change can occur even when clients don't believe it will work. They may be uncomfortable or even afraid to behave differently, but as long as they'll experiment with something and stay open to the possibility it will work, they're on the road to change. 

This is so because the act of doing something in a different way has already begun to act on their beliefs. In addition, responses from others will reinforce their new behavior. Over the years I've noticed about 40% of my clients have changed based only upon insights gained from clear and specific feedback. This surprisingly high percentage is based on three factors: 

1. Coaches are generally hired by reasonably self-aware people who are ready to change, who've experienced some degree of success in their lives, who are relatively optimistic, resourceful, and self-initiating.
2. Many clients haven't experienced truly effective feedback. It's hard to know what to change, for example, when a friend says "You're too bossy" or your boss says "We didn't promote you because we need someone with a broader perspective." The behavioral specificity of good coaching is usually a breath of fresh air
3. Presenting observations in the context of an Enneagram style often lowers peoples' defenses. The collective experience of Enneagram enthusiasts and teachers offers support for the "down-sides" and hopefulness about the potentialities of a particular style. And coaching specifically to an Enneagram style accelerates the process of change considerably.

Another 40% need to try out new behaviors and learn from them. For example, an Enneagram Eight was told she needed to be less positioned and more flexible in looking for collaborative resolutions to problems. She hadn't been aware of her toggle-switch (dualistic) way of thinking – only perceiving two alternatives: hers or "theirs." From that perspective there could only be one "winner" and she'd been determined to win. She also acknowledged how reluctant she'd been to show any vulnerability. It took time and practice for her to make this important shift.

The remaining 20% of coaching clients require a deeper level of intervention. No matter how motivated someone is to change, or how clear the feedback, or how well-rehearsed the skills, deeply embedded patterns affect the nature and degree of change for all Enneagram styles. My clients, like the rest of the population, come from a wide variety of family backgrounds. I've worked with people who were physically and/or emotionally abused as children, or who are recovering addicts and alcoholics, for example. But the negative impacts of previous experiences need not be so dramatic for people to have difficulty with change. Sometimes this means a longer course of coaching, with more support as well as more challenge, more experimentation, and much more patience.

All That Jazz

If you haven’t yet read Judith Searle’s The Literary Enneagram or Tom Condon’s The Enneagram Movie & Video Guide, you’re missing a world of pleasure. 

Those who’ve had the good fortune to be in workshops with panels of exemplars know the value of seeing and hearing from a wide variety of individuals. The evidence for Enneagram style is in the stories people create out of their lives: their language, their pace, how they view the world. And – when the stories are well told – you can distinguish among Enneagram styles in film and books as well as from a live panel. This is a pleasurable way to improve your observation skills.

I’ve been drawn to jazz from the first note I ever heard and was happy to discover Nat Hentoff's Listen to the Stories, a collection of his essays about jazz and country musicians. Because I’d read in Condon’s Enneagram Movie & Video Guide that Thelonious Monk is style Five, I looked for evidence in Hentoff’s essay, “Memories of Thelonious Monk:”

"…That day Monk, for a while, was more talkative than usual. At other times his silences could last an hour or two or longer. A brilliant young musician, Gigi Gryce, came rushing in during one of the silences and said to Monk with great delight, 'I got in! I got in! I’m going to Julliard!' After about ten minutes, Monk looked at the still radiant Gigi and said, 'Well, I hope you don’t lose it there.' 

"Although there's plenty of room for improvisation by Monk and his colleagues, each piece is precisely structured. Monk not only knew what he wanted from his musicians, he refused to accept anything less. Gigi Gryce once told me: 'I had a part Monk wrote for me that was impossible. I had to play melody while simultaneously playing harmony with him. In addition, the intervals were very wide. I told him I couldn’t do it. ‘You have an instrument, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Either play it or throw it away.’ And he walked away. Finally I was able to play it'…

"For a long time, Monk… was treated by many jazz critics as a semi-comic eccentric rather than as an original. And that diminished his chances to work… Eventually, he made many recordings and played a growing number of festivals and clubs. But Monk began to stay more and more within his own mind. The silences grew much longer… 

"Monk knew his own stature. At a recording session, when Coleman Hawkins asked Monk to explain some of his music to him and to John Coltrane, who was also on the date, Monk looked at the magisterial Hawkins: 'You’re the great Coleman Hawkins, right? You’re the guy who invented the tenor saxophone, right?' Monk turned to Coltrane: 'You’re the great John Coltrane, right? Well, the music is on the horn. Between the two of you, you should be able to find it.'"

In the above excerpt, note a Five-ish tendency to withdraw into silence, Monk's long pauses, his disdain for emotions, his minimalism, his certainty about his own carefully thought-out views and expertise, and his tendency to expect others to learn the way he did – to figure it out for themselves.  

 

How to Write a Personal Vision

Stanford Business School's Michael Ray believes the key to accessing deeper sources of creativity can be found in two questions: Who is my Self? (your higher self, your divinity, your highest future potential) and What is my Work? (the purpose of your existence, what you're meant to be) (From page 101 of Presence, by Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers.)

Who is your Self?     What is your Work?

Write your answer to each question as if it's already happening:

• VISION: What is your Work? What happens when you're giving your greatest gift to the world? How are people different as a consequence of having been in your presence? See this as an image. Use present tense. 
  
  
  Answer these questions from Bill O'Hanlon:
  • 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?
    
    
• MISSION: Who is your Self? What about you (attributes, experience, skills, knowledge, passion) makes your vision possible?  This will also inform your logo/image, marketing/funding, etc.
  
  
• STRATEGIES/GOALS/PARAMETERS: How do you carry out your mission and vision? 
  • What strategies will accomplish your vision? Identify 4-5 goals within each strategy.
  • What internal and external forces surround each goal--those that encourage and those that may discourage your vision?
  • What first steps can you take to accomplish your vision?
    • How can you increase encouraging forces, both internal and external?
    • How can you overcome internal/external discouraging forces?
  • When you're uncertain about priorities among strategies, hold them against your mission and vision, and you'll know which ones are most likely to ensure your contribution in the world.

As you ponder these questions and your intention becomes clear, your vision may appear to you spontaneously, possibly as a metaphor. When thinking about my true work, I suddenly saw my clients stepping out of a box. And I knew the box was each person's unique programming or conditioning.  

Conflict Resolution – A Win/Win Example

When coaching your clients to open up their perspective about conflict, this classic example can be helpful.

In a meeting to discuss possible prison reforms in Wisconsin, nine of the state's top prison officials met to design an ideal correctional institution. In the course of the discussion, one group member proposed eliminating uniforms traditionally worn by prison guards. There was a lengthy argument about whether or not uniforms should be worn.

One official suggested the issue be resolved democratically by vote. As a result, six voted against uniforms and three voted in favor of them. The winning members looked pleased while the losing members either became angry or withdrew from further discussion.

A third-party observer suggested they take another look at the situation, asking those in favor of uniforms what they hoped to accomplish. They said part of the rehabilitative process in correctional institutions is teaching people to deal constructively with authority, and they saw uniforms as a means for achieving that goal. Those against uniforms said there was such a stigma, guards had additional difficulty laying to rest the stereotypes held by inmates before they could deal with them on a one-to-one basis.

The observer then asked the group what ways they might meet the combined goals – teaching people to deal with authority while avoiding the difficulty of stereotypes held about traditional uniforms. The group generated ten possible solutions, including identifying prison personnel by name tags, by color-coded casual dress, or by uniforms for guard supervisors but not for guards in constant contact with prisoners. After discussing the various alternatives, all agreed on the third solution.

In their first discussion, the group engaged in clear-cut conflict, only partially resolved by vote. In the later discussion, the group turned to problem solving, eventually developing a win-win method acceptable to all parties.

Do More of What Works

A coach I mentored said a style Nine asked her for some coaching because he was stuck in indecision about a career move. He'd specifically asked her to "tell him what to do so he could get on with his life and live happily ever after." 

She'd suggested this was an opportunity for him to take initiative in discerning and acting on what he chose, to muster the courage to believe he was important enough to figure it out. She encouraged him to remember earlier times in his life when that clarity came for him and he did indeed act. She asked him to visualize getting in touch with his own knowing that came from valuing himself, to spend time considering exactly what his priorities were, and to list them. Then she asked for my comments on her approach, adding that she would be glad to learn from this.

I agreed her suggestions were logically on target, and asked if the client was able to respond to them. She said he seemed a bit confused.

There's a deep-seated belief in Enneagram Nines that they're not important, not visible. This becomes a life stance of not wanting to be visible — when they make a key decision, then they have to be responsible for it. This is scary.   

So realizing her client wasn't ready to respond to her logical suggestions, she and I discussed ways for him to observe other, easier opportunities in his life to choose (e.g., which of two Sunday services to attend) – choices that weren't as loaded as a career decision. After he was able to see where and how this showed up in his life in small ways, he then practiced choosing without any particular criteria, just to break the pattern of saying, “Whatever."

When style Nines practice making less monumental choices and getting a little more comfortable with it, they can then begin to look at their true priorities. It was a helpful suggestion that her client review a time when he'd made a choice. If he couldn’t quite bring back that personal power, the coach could give him a little more structure. 

We don't want to make decisions for our style Nine clients, but we can lead them through the process of how they've made previous choices by asking questions. For example,

“What was going on before that moment of clarity?”

“What were the pros and cons of the choice you eventually made?”

“What did you do to contribute to that moment of clarity?”

“How did you get yourself to act on it?”

The premise? Do more of what works. 

Meditation and The Trap of the Intellect

One of my clients had left two companies before we started coaching and was about to take a third job. All three positions were internal consulting roles for which she was well suited. Bright and innovative, she’d been hired in start-ups because she was comfortable with a new and/or ambiguous role if she was able to influence its parameters. But in the two organizations she'd left, she wasn't given the authority to define her role as she saw fit. She'd received positive feedback about her talents, but slipped pretty regularly into despair about her capability to make any real difference.

The job she was moving into appeared to be a better fit in terms of her potential influence, so she was more likely to stay there in spite of her historically predictable dissatisfaction. In addition, she began to shift her perspective with a mindfulness practice of gratitude.

All of us, no matter what our personality style or key emotions, can benefit from being mindful of gratitude. How do we do that? Phillip Moffitt suggests, "When you are contracted due to self-pity, fear, or anger, more than likely gratitude isn't present, so notice those things for which you are grateful."

This is not the same as positive thinking. Instead of denying the difficulties of life, the practice of gratitude is rather a way to turn the mind. Instead of moving too quickly to erase the reality of the moment, stay with the emotions you're experiencing: I'm despairing at this moment and grateful I can observe this and know I am not my emotions. 

In “Meditation, Happiness, and The Trap of the Intellect,” Eric Armstrong described the transient quality of grateful feelings:

“As powerful as the feelings were, however, on each occasion they dissipated. It was rather disheartening. I mean, there I was—enlightened! And now it was gone.”

The trap of the intellect is a focus on what’s missing, so the ego can kick in by criticizing our inability to maintain a meditative focus as yet another sign of incompetence and yet another reason to despair of ever finding happiness. 

We can learn to observe this pattern and move through it, to continue the practice of gratitude even though its effects come and go. 

Mind-Bending Metaphors

In What is Metaphor and How Can Metaphor Resolve Problems and Conflicts? Thomas H. Smith wrote,"Metaphor is a primary way we frame, categorize and conceptualize... drawing attention to unnoticed similarities and connections, offering new ways to perceive and understand."

One of my clients wanted coaching on how to approach her landlord about necessary repairs to the house she was renting. She knew how to ask for what she wanted without attacking. But that didn't relieve her concern.

"I don't like confrontation," she said. "It's not fear, it's anger. I don't want to go into a rage. In my last e-mail I gave him the facts and said, 'I'm sick of it.' Now I dread looking for his e-mail response."

Operating on intuition, I asked, "If your landlord were an animal, what animal would he be?"

She answered without hesitation, "A hyena! They're scavengers, annoying, bottom-feeders, goofy-looking."

"And what animal represents you?" I asked.

"I'm a tiger. I may purr and be all kitty-cat, but If you piss me off I'll bare my teeth."

When we talked the following week, after her meeting with the landlord, she said, "It was kind of matter-of-fact. When he started pointing the finger at me, I was angry, but then I visualized him as a hyena, realized that was his M.O. to throw people off. And I was fine."

Terrified of Being Typed

Do not be overly confident, and do not despair if you have mistaken one style for another. You will learn as you go that typing is an art, not a science. It is difficult, subtle, and in many ways foreign to our usual way of thinking. Typing is an inference, not a linear conclusion. Be aware of these common traps: looking for one or two traits, typing too quickly, noticing behavior instead of motives, basing your notion on one or two examples, not getting enough information, having too narrow a definition. Mary Bast and Clarence Thomson, Out of the Box Coaching with the Enneagram.  

Many of the coaches I mentor want a tried and true way to help clients determine their Enneagram style. But different coaches have their own ways of knowing. Some rely on tests, others have a checklist of behaviors. Clarence Thomson has people answer twelve symbolic questions and then talks with them, confident of a conclusion within one call. He has more years of experience than most of us and that approach works well for him.

I don't trust any of the tests completely, and it works for me to listen closely to the content, pace, and tone of their language. From my 30+ years of experience, I may hear more in the first call than coaches new to the Enneagram, but my approach works if you trust your intuition and listen deeply. Even so, I always stay open to possibilities over several sessions, waiting for clients to know what's right for them.

Here's an example of a client who talked nervously and fairly rapidly about a variety of things on our first call. He had identified his ‘type’ years ago while working with an Enneagram therapist but found the books he'd read to be so focused on the negative that knowing his style “terrified him.” If he was that awful, he said, how could he possibly change? He couldn't even remember the specific number identified as his. Already I had a hint, from the height of his emotion, he’s probably not an Eight (wouldn’t so readily admit terror), or Seven (possibly, but only if said with humor), or Five (would have used more intellectual language), or Four (usually curious about self-discovery), or Nine (typically quieter, slower style of speech and not so dramatic), or Three (not so in touch with feelings), or One (he’s not at all rigid, doesn’t use right/wrong, black/white language).  

So within minutes I was guessing Two or Six. Then he told me of a dream about “talking too much” and said “I don’t know why I talk so much; I don’t have that much to say.” As we explored the over-talking, he continued, “Sometimes I think it’s a territorial position, an alertness, like this feral dog I have that paces and paces like a dingo or a coyote.” You’ll read in Enneagram books that Sixes sometimes talk nervously, in almost a manic way. Tom Condon writes about Nicholas Cage's role as Charlie in the film Adaptation: 

"Charlie's Sixness is communicated through tormented voice-over monologues... 'Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what wrong with me. Bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I'll still be ugly though. Nothing's gonna change that...'" 

Charlie goes on and on with his anxieties and interpretations, to the degree that one of my Six clients says she can only watch five minutes of the movie at a time.

So isn’t it fascinating to hear my new client describe this nervous chatter as “a territorial position”? I think it could represent another way for the Six’s scanners to be in operation, a kind of verbal “pacing and pacing.” And it now seems more likely to me that he’s an Enneagram Six. I’m still open to other possibilities, but confident we’ve left the not-types behind, and after another session or two I’ll be more certain we're on target. 

By the way, I’m not pushing the Enneagram, but am emphasizing the positives so he might be more ready to consider it as a guide at some future point. For example, when we talked about his abusive father, we found a little boy who was in grave danger. I connected this with his comment “If I see someone being mean to an animal I’m The Avenger,” and I said, with truly felt emotion in my voice, “I LOVE that little boy! He’s like a guerrilla fighter; he had to be to protect himself.” Then I casually mentioned this was an example of what Enneagram theory refers to as Sixes identifying with and fighting for underdog causes. 

Most important, I’m never expressly searching for Enneagram style, just getting to know new clients, diving deep into their issues and patterns, looking for areas where coaching might help, and coincidentally listening for Enneagram clues.