The Play Within the Play

(from Out of the Box Coaching with the Enneagram)

The coaching relationship is a mini-laboratory for breakthroughs. Whatever inner dynamics brought your clients to coaching will most assuredly be acted out with you. And don't forget you have your own habits of attention. Always ask yourself if you're behaving in ways that help or hinder your clients' growth. Be aware that how you interact with them makes a big difference in their progress.

For example:

• Clients with Enneagram style Three seek approval from outside themselves. They typically list their accomplishments during each coaching meeting. Will you reinforce that in-the-box behavior by approving or will you help them see this habitual behavior as it occurs with you?
• Clients with Enneagram style Six seek authority and then challenge it. Will you be caught in this pattern? Will you let them turn you into an authority or will you comment if you see the pattern?
• Clients with Enneagram style Nine rely on others to provide structure. If you ask a probing question and find these clients somewhat confused, will you jump in with a suggestion or will you be patient and encourage them to start anywhere--an arbitrary choice, a set of alternatives, or even a list of what they do not want to do?

Those you coach will approach potential breakthroughs either as frightening ventures into the unknown or as potent explorations. How they move forward rests in the quality of your coaching. Transformational coaching requires you to:

1. be receptive, provide a safe harbor, listen deeply and with empathy, 
2. take a stand for your shared vision and challenge their self-limitations [this is especially important when they (or you) are most discouraged].

This quality of coaching requires devotion to your own transformation. As you learn about your Enneagram style, you can use your gifts more consciously and observe how your own patterns limit both of you. Then you can allow whatever occurs in the coaching relationship to be data for discussion.

While coaching Jean (Enneagram style Two), for example, I pointed out her retreat from discussing what she felt as a criticism from me, even though she was clearly upset. Tied to her pattern of focusing on my needs and feelings, she diverted attention away from her own.

After that call Jean wrote me an e-mail saying she felt I'd betrayed her needs (a recurring theme for style Two). She wanted to stop coaching after the next session. My first reaction was defensive. As an Enneagram style Nine I worried I might have been too blunt, not kind enough to Jean. But I managed to stay centered, to not take her attack personally.

In her next coaching session, we were able to discuss the dynamic we'd created and explore how this same pattern showed up in Jean's other relationships. During this discussion I helped her express her needs openly (difficult for style Two). When she tried to move the conversation back to me, I gently pulled her back to her own feelings. Jean subsequently decided to continue with me as her coach.

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.” 

Three Motivational Styles

According to the theories of David C. McClelland, we all draw to some degree from each of three motives, but one will be predominant and may reinforce our habitual way of operating. We initially respond best to the approach that fits most closely with our dominant motive. However, if you're in a managerial or coaching relationship, you could unwittingly strengthen a motive that's not in the person's best interest. For example, if someone constantly looks to you for approval and you give it, that person will be satisfied but continue to rely on you for approval, and won't develop independent standards. 

AFFILIATION MOTIVE – Being with others, expressing feelings and ideas, and getting others' approval. People primarily motivated by affiliation are often friendly and work best when they feel appreciated and their work environment gives them the opportunity to interact with others. This motivation is reinforced and maintained by providing work where cooperation with co-workers is required, time for personal interaction is encouraged, and team building efforts are valued. Positive feedback that's not specific will satisfy and/or develop peoples' affiliation motive because it lets them know they're liked and accepted, but will not develop their achievement or power motive. 

ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVE – Standards of excellence are clear, with opportunity to set goals and perform successfully against those standards (includes problem-solving about how to overcome obstacles to performance). People primarily motivated by achievement are usually competitive and work well independently. This motivation is reinforced and maintained by providing challenging work that stretches capabilities, along with concrete standards for success and clear, unambiguous feedback. Specific and descriptive feedback will provide people with a tool to satisfy and/or develop their achievement motive because it allows them to set their own goals and give themselves feedback about the degree to which the goals were accomplished. 

POWER MOTIVE – Impact the surrounding environment; persuade and/or influence others.  People primarily motivated by power usually have an interest in moving up in an organization and are often fluent in their communication style. This motivation is reinforced and maintained by allowing personal control over work pace and methods, as well as opportunities to influence – especially if they can deal directly with people higher in the organization. Encouraging peoples' involvement in problem solving and decision making will satisfy and/or develop their power motive because it gives them influence over their work and other people.   

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.