photo credit: valentin.d

I’ve been away on holiday as the new year has begun. Even with the gift of a new American president, I find it hard not to wonder how we will fare in the coming year. One of the approaches I have been taking with clients is to return to some  classic mythological motifs as a way of understanding the broader narrative patterns at play in organizations and in the lives of its people. In doing so, I am increasingly drawn to my work on liminality and the role of ‘in-between’ spaces in development. In the Western world, the Grail legends provide a powerful set of stories about these spaces as part of the human quest for knowledge and growth. It is important to remember here that the Grail is about who we become not an object we obtain.

In her magnificent book on the centrality of language in understanding the Grail stories, Linda Sussman writes, ”The person seeking initiation at the end of the twentieth century is called not just to connect with the tribe(s) of the past but also to prepare the way for the ‘tribe’ of the future. Obviously, this tribe will be very different from the ones our ancestors knew. . . .  We are the tribe of the ‘in-between.’ ” It seems to me that history is marked by certain periods in which humanity’s choices become even more pronounced. I believe we are in one of those periods.

We can no longer take for granted that the technologies of the future will save us from the unintended consequences of our present lives, but must instead be more accountable to previous generations in terms of what it means to be ’sustainable.’ We can no longer take for granted the historical notions of continuous progress, but must instead factor in the future generations in terms of what it means to ’succeed.’ For many of my clients, it is about recognizing that we are moving into new territories in which new approaches to leadership are required. We are leaving behind one era but are only beginning to discern the contours of a new one. As Sussman writes, ”In the process, one has quite often to give up a favorite storyline to gain access to a larger context.”

Three tips on living an in-between life

1. Recognize that there is no ‘normal’ to which to return. Much of what has enabled us to get this far may have to be set aside to make more room for what has yet to be imagined. What you are being asked to leave behind in order to take your next steps? In my own professional life, it has involved letting go of the need to “fit in’ in order to make more room for my own vision and leadership.
2. Recognize that we each must enter the ‘forest’ where it is darkest for us (as it was for those who sought the Grail). This darkness is about aspects of ourselves that remain hidden within and/or from us, but that hold the key to the next stages in our development. Only when we move out from the safety of what we know and who we once were can we see what else is possible. I saw this in a recent workshop in which a new leader came to face her fears around claiming her Voice in relating to her boss (by moving beyond waiting for him to grant it to her). 
3. Recognize that the greatest opportunities for growth are found in-between what was and what is not yet. It is in these spaces that we can most clearly see what is being asked of us now. To be successful, seek out new allies, draw on new resources within yourself, lead with strong resolve and true humility. I saw this in a coaching client who was willing to forego the comforts of a familiar place in one leadership team in order to discover a new role (in a new organization) that challenged him to grow in some profound ways.

Those who have gone before us and those who will come after us—in our families, our communities and our organizations—are calling on us to rise to the occasion as part of the ‘tribe of the in-between’. What is your Grail?

photo credit: drumrick

As Tina Turner asks in her marvelous ballad, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” Along with Faith and Hope, Love serves as a third pillar for sustaining us through difficult times. As organizations and individuals contend with both the deep unknown and the daunting certainties around us, there is a strong need to return to the basics of what it means to be fully human. To do so, coaching needs to move beyond its early days when money flowed and ‘abundance’ was all the rage. Now comes the harder work of rebuilding institutions and preparing people for a future that is approaching rapidly—often with less time and less resources at hand. As with the other two pillars, Love is not a panacea but rather a fierce commitment to candor, compassion, and connection.

In teaching coaching skills to thousands of leaders, managers and professionals around the world, I am repeatedly reminding them and rediscovering for myself how the simple act of holding the other person in a non-judgmental, curious and fully attentive way is often a large part of the catalyst for change. As the Tibetan teacher Govinda observed, “It is not the audible word through which people are converted and transformed in their innermost being, but through that which goes beyond words and flows directly from [our] presence: the inaudible mantric sound that emanates from his (sic) heart.” As part of being present in this way, I see myself as a steward for the stories of others. Even though we are awash in information, options and methods, both research and ancient wisdom point to the healing value of the relationship itself.

Three ways to bring more Love into your work

If Faith is remembering why you are doing what you are doing and Hope is the foundation we need to stay the course, Love is how we make the journey. As such, here are three tips for you this week:

1. As Peter Drucker noted, “Your first task as a leader is to take charge of your own energy and then to orchestrate the energy of those around you.” You can only serve others through your work if you practice sufficient care for yourself. Give yourself an act of kindness today, random or not.
2. Recognize that every conversation is an opportunity to use your coaching skills to engage the other person in a transformative manner. Ask yourself, “How can I expand my mind and my heart in order to be more present (and open up more possibilities) right now?” 
3. Beyond our personal expressions, we can also embed Love in how we do business. One client crafted a vision for their coaching culture to include commitments that (1) anyone who is laid off will leave feeling good about themselves (to the best of our abilities) and (2) we will use such occasions to learn about ourselves and be willing to change as a result. 

Where can you bring more Love into your work? To whom do you need to be more present (including yourself)?

photo credit: a hundred visions and revisions

I wrote yesterday about the importance of Faith right now. Today I want to turn my attention to Hope.

It is understandable in these times to look for the easy wins, the reshuffling of the proverbial ‘deck’ that will help us find a new winning hand. However, in doing so, we may be avoiding asking ourselves what ‘game” we want to actually be playing. Now is not the time for soft questions or banal answers. Now is the time to dig deep, to find that bedrock of hope that are the foundation for the work that is ours to do. Sometimes the most important step is to first one: to stand still, re-member ourselves, and pay attention. While at the check-out stand yesterday, I glanced over and saw this comment from champion surfer Kelly Slater, “Motivation is temporary. Inspiration is permanent.”

I have found across my life that an essential element in navigating difficult choices and difficult times is to to ensure that I have a strong personal foundation in terms of my mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. I find in working with clients that they struggle most when they gauge their level of hope by what transpires in the external world around them. Most all of us have known despair at one time or another in our life. Hope does not dispense with despair, but rather enables us to stand in whatever is present but guided by a fundamental inspiration that is not attached to the vagaries of circumstance. Hope is about deepening our roots so we can draw the sustenance that the branches—our life—need in order to reach to the sky.

Unfortunately, some clients have become root-bound, unable to change with the times, while others are restless and unrooted, unable to ever quite fulfill their mission. As I thought about my work with them, I was reminded of an ancient African proverb that if people walk too far or too fast, their story will not catch up. Narrative coaching is about helping people ‘catch up’ with their stories so they have the foundation for the life or the organization they desire. We embody hope when we can stand in our stories, individually and collectively, and draw power from the powerful myths of the earth and tell the healing stories of the sky. Cut off for either of these, we are far less sustainable. Now is the time to rekindle our sense and sources of intrinsic hope so we can step consciously and courageously into the challenges of our time.

Where do you need to put down deeper roots? What sustenance do you need to dwell in Hope more often?

photo credit: wadem

As I travel to work my clients or research a subject for my next book, I am increasingly convinced that these three aspirations have a lot to say about what people hunger for in organizations and communities. This seems particularly true as we head deeper into a brave new economic world in which many of our assumptions and plans are being dashed. What will breakthrough from this time of breakdown? It remains to be seen how and when the proverbial phoenixes will rise from the ashes that are unfolding around us. However, the ancient practice of using stories to help people frame adversity as part of a larger Narrative are helpful here as a means to retain a sense of faith, hope, and love.

I begin here with Faith. Hope and Love will follow . . .

Faith

While known for his sage insights on marketing, Seth Godin offered this distinction in his book, Tribes: “Religion is the way things have always been done, whereas faith is the underlying commitment to ‘the big idea.’” Religion is about resurrecting the old General Motors; faith is about the commitment to rethinking transportation, communities and lifestyles. My work is about helping clients find the ‘big idea’, the core ’story” at the heart of their work—and finding new ways to bring it to life. As institutions and certainties wobble, faith is the commitment to the big ideas that truly matter.

Faith is the balancing force to the fear that has crept into many our consciousness (and into our checkbooks) to varying degrees. Faith is not the same as blind trust; it is the return to what is essential and what needs to be done. Faith is not about a naive idealism or a narrow fundamentalism; it is an opportunity to ask the hard questions and make the hard choices in service to the ‘big ideas.’ Faith enables us to build bridges from the ‘religions’ of the old world to a new world based on a deeper understanding and courageous embodiment of our commitments to the human story.

Narrative work and coaching are powerful tools to help people and organizations to create and cross these bridges. As I recently shared with the top leaders in a large professional services firm, “there is no ‘normal’ to which to return.” They can either settle for sifting through the ashes or they can get to work on building the phoenix. My role is to coach them to fully rise to this occasion. All they need is a little faith. . .

What would you be doing if you had more faith?

photo credit: gregloby

In working with my organizational clients, I am often struck by the sense that the past recedes and the future arrives ever more quickly. The net result is that people are increasingly working in a compressed sense of the present, not always the best state for decision-making or coaching. This trend is exacerbated by continuous ‘discontinuous change’ and easy access to seemingly unlimited knowledge at our fingertips in the present moment. What seems lost is the ability to place ourselves in the broader expanse of time. What can we offer our clients in such times?

Three ways a narrative approach can help

1. Becoming more knowledgeable about the connections between narrative structure and our identities and behaviors (see “The art of thinking narratively“). In many ways we are hard-wired for stories; inviting people to share their stories enables them to contextualize their experience and find greater meaning. They are no longer prone to feeling like temporal orphans, but can instead place themselves in the broader flow of time.

2. Becoming more conscious about our state and our actions in the present moment through increased mindfulness of our narrative patter. If we expect clients to be able to be able to integrate more from the past and the future into their present decisions, we need to help them develop greater awareness (of self and others) in order to do so. An expansive mind and heart enables them to engage more fully in the now.

3. Becoming more diligent in reducing the background ‘noise’ so as to more readily hear the signals from the past and future that are most likely to be relevant in the present. I did this recently with an organization in which the ever-rising ‘bar’ kept them from appreciating how far they had come on their culture change journey. We developed a visioning process they are using to define what a coaching culture would look like for them (markers for a desired future) and we built an internal discussion forum they are using to share stories of what they are doing differently now in their coaching conversations (markers from a less-desired past).

If we are to move well through this challenging time, we need to restore a sense of the flow of time even as we get better at being in the present moments in which we find ourselves. It is time for a new story of Now.

photo credit: Martin Kingsley

I was one of the first to join a wonderful gathering of narrative professionals at Worldwide Story Network.

I will be hosting a teleconference on December 10th at 3:00pm EST (U.S.) on “SEEING CLEARLY: HOW DO WE INFLUENCE OUR CLIENT’S STORIES.” For more information, have a peek here. The framework for narrative formulation that I am using as the basis for our conversation can be found here.

I will kick things off by telling a client story using a formulation framework I’ve developed. I will use this story as the catalyst for a conversation about how to increase our awareness of the ways we influence the stories clients tell us—often without recognizing that we are doing so! I see our ability to be mindful in this way as critical in our development as narrative professionals and in fostering more open dialogue with our clients.

Objectivity is subjective

It is easy to separate ourselves from clients by striving to be ‘objective’ and ‘neutral’ and, while a mature professional distance is essential, we influence the story formation process in more ways than we may realize. The professional frames and discourse that is part of the contracting process, the dance of transference, the pressures of commerce, the assumptions based on our values, the blind spots inherent in our own developmental edges, the differences in social status and constructs are but some of the sources of our impact on the stories our clients can and do tell.

In this time of great uncertainty, it seems more important than ever to be conscious of our participation in the co-narration processes we engage in with others throughout our day. We are all in this together.

I invite you to join in our global community and join us for the call on December 10th.

Have you ever noticed that certain stories or story lines keep returning in your life? Sometimes these returns are developmental, e.g., as with the notion of karma and the integration of shadow elements we’ve discarded along the way. Sometimes these returns are intentional, e.g., the final stage of the heroic journey as we return ‘home’ with the gains from our passage. I see this all the time with clients who keep circling back through a series of stories—all revolving around a similar theme that slowly crystallizes and the heart of it becomes clear. It is from this clarity that the deepest sense of their calling becomes apparent . . . and they now know what must be done.

Finding our way

The goal as narrative-based coaches is to be patient and present enough to let clients’ stories flow, gently guiding them along the path as it emerges.

Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
(Lao-Tzu)

In the busyness of our lives, it is so easy to overlook these often subtle rhythms and patterns. As part of my own discernment process these past few weeks, I’ve been slowing down to think about the purpose of money in my life. One outcome of this process led me to Frederick Marx, a documentary film maker most well-known for his role in Hoop Dreams. In doing so, I realized that I had lost touch with the importance of place, of home, of sanctuary to me. Is not that in some ways what the innate drive for “return” all about?

Making new choices

As a result, I’ve decided to make a serious donation to help him finish his next film about Zanskar, the last remaining Tibetan Buddhist society with a continuous lineage (dating back thousands of years). The story is about two monks who are instructed by the Dalai Lama to do everything in their power to insure that Zanskar’s culture, language, and religion survive. This is a movie about their journey back to Zanskar. You can read about the 17 paths here.

What stories are cycling back into your life these days, carrying with them messages for you? What “mud” needs to settle in your life settle so you can more clearly see the next right action on your journey?

photo credit: freeparking

Thanks to Jo Carson for reminding me of Gregg Braden’s story about the true nature of intentions: While traveling with a Native American rainmaker in a drought-stricken part of the desert of the American Southwest, he witnessed the rainmaker at work. Once he was done, Gregg asked the man if he had prayed for rain. To which the man said “No.” When asked why, the main responded, “You pray for rain, you don’t get anything. You have to feel the rain, and smell it, see what it does for the land. You have to be the rain. You have to pray rain.

Where is my faith?

It seems like a timely story as we wrestle in the U.S.—and now globally—with significant economic challenges. Why, you might ask?! Because in some ways it is a crisis of faith. Not just faith in our money and our banks and our leaders, but ultimately  faith in ourselves. While many of us have seen this coming, it has been unnerving to say the least as it has spiraled down so quickly. We doubt ourselves and worry for our future. Many people have been left gasping on the cusp of a momentous election, wondering when the rain will come to quench the fires of our anxieties. Enter the story . . .

The “bail-out” merely postpones the inevitable hard choices in front of us regarding reconstructing our lives and our identity to be more sustainable and equitable. As the man said, if you pray for rain—by standing outside the system and hoping to be rescued—you get nothing. It is like clients who want their lives to be different but they don’t want to change.

What is mine to do?

One thing I am taking from this time is to look at my own willingness to pray rain. I can’t wish it all away. How do I need to change my habits, my attachments, my willingness to sacrifice for my daughter and those who will come after me in order to create a healthier life? It is a time for courage, compassion and imagination in seizing this moment instead of being seized by fear.

The old stories about consumption as salvation, celebrities as heroes, greed as virtue, and war as a solution have run dry. It is time we create and live new stories with our lives. It is time to be the rain! And so, I will add my drops to help bring about that new story. . .

photo credit: Aidan M. Grey

I was away last weekend in the mountains of New Mexico for a New Warriors Weekend sponsored by the ManKind Project. It truly was a transformative experience for me both personally and professionally. I would highly recommend it to any man who wants to honestly engage his deeper masculinity and his submerged shadows in order to take both his life and his service to a higher level. The world needs us to be more awake and alive. I was privileged to be a man among men who are committed to that journey.

Where are you holding on?

The thought for today’s post came while I was holding a pine cone while out on a brief walk as part of the experience. I flashed back to a time when I was holding a similar pine cone. I was standing on the western coast of Italy in 1999 overlooking the ocean near the town of Portofino. I had received news the night before that my father had died back in California. I had been led by Spirit to find this spot in order to say good-bye to my dear father since I would not make it back there for a few days. I arrived there just as the sun was setting and in a place that reminded me of the coast of northern California where we had grown up. I’ve held on to that pine cone, both literally and figuratively, as a link to my dad and a memory of that place ever since then.

Where can you now let go?

While I’ve always held the pine cone as a symbol of new life, its meaning shifted for me in the context of the recent weekend. Standing in the high desert mountains, I came to realize that the pine cone’s true purpose is to “die” and fall to the ground so that new trees can be born. It was no longer of service to my father or myself to act as a guardian of the sacred cone. Rather, my choice now is to release it so that its mission can be accomplished. As part of this process, I released another huge layer of my own illusions of immortality in order to turn more of my attention to the “trees” I want to leave behind.

Pine cones need to fall to the ground. In honoring this truth, I was able to leave the weekend much lighter and committed to doing the work that needs to be done. I invite you to identify the “pine cones” you carry for others — and the stories you keep telling yourself in order to keep them in place. Let me fall to the ground so they can fulfill their purpose in the world and you can more passionately and completely fulfill yours. Nothing grows from seeds you hold.

David

photo credit: sbblackley

The title for today’s post honors the recent death of Richard Wright, founding member of the legendary rock band Pink Floyd. In my work with clients, we often focus on creating the ‘container’ in which they can feel safe enough to openly and honestly engage in the stories they’ve long told themselves. It is from this place that they can be courageous enough to explore what else is possible. It is as if they are asked to make new choices about whether they want to add the next ‘brick’ (a story about an experience) to an existing wall or to a new path (the larger narratives we tell and live).

Are you a security guard or a seeker?

One is about security and one is about seeking. While both are important at the right time in coaching and in life, the former is often informed by our fears while the latter is generally informed by our hopes. As Ira Chernus recently wrote, “Whenever people shelter behind walls for protection, they reinforce the fears that sent them behind those walls in the first place.” While the recent economic events in the U.S. have caused many people, myself included, to pay a new kind of attention to issues of real security, I can’t help but see a need to retain our commitment to seek new paths from this place we are in.

Which story are you going to reinforce?

Narrative coaches help their clients to increase their ability to notice the “brick” in their hand and be mindful and courageous about the chocies they make in the moment as to which story they are going to reinforce. This image fits well with what we know neurologically in terms of how habits are formed through the reinforcement of certain neural constellations.

There are certainly times when we all need a healthy and reassuring dose of stability and security, particularly in times of duress and change. However, there is a great need in these times of extraordinary flux to equip clients to fully step onto the pathes in front of them—even those that are not fully formed yet.

Where are you putting your “bricks” today as you think about your most significant experiences and contacts? Are you adding to the walls around yourself and/or others — or are you using them to extend the paths toward what is possible?