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: 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. . .

I began this blog to bring together two communities doing great work in the world: narrative practitioners and coaches. I am writing from Melbourne, Australia where I presented a workshop on narrative coaching at the International Coach Federation Australasia Conference. It has been an excellent event focused on how the coaching community can step up more fully to engage the extraordinary challenges and opportunities facing the world in this tumultuous time. We were provoked by many inconvenient truths and inspired by stories of leaders who are “giving it a go,” as they would say here, in terms of creating a world that works for all.

A big takeaway for me was the importance of the choices we make in each moment, the stories we create about another person or situation — and to reflect in the moment whether my choices add to a greater consciousness and contribution — and to choose accordingly. As Rollo May once said, “real human freedom is our willingness to pause between the events in our lives and the response we choose.” It is the disciplined art of not being swept up in the habitual stories we are told and tell ourselves, but developing the capacity to continually reframe and reconnect to a larger view. Individually and collectively, we become the stories we tell.

I will use this space to share my reflections and foster connections to help professionals and organizations work with their stories and their place in the larger narratives in which we live in order to grow into the changes that have already happened. Thanks, Christopher, for that last insight.

If you’d like to know more about our introductory or advanced narrative coaching workshops for 2008, sign up for our list under Narrative Workshops. You can be assured that your information will not be given out to others. You can also use the RSS button at the top right to add the feed from this blog.

Welcome.

David