Nine ethical guidelines for narrative coaches

As part of our due diligence as professionals, it is incumbent upon coaches to be aware of our own unconscious biases and preferences that shape what we see and do with people and the stories they share with us. What are the acceptable shapes of a life we find ourselves promoting based on our training, professional/business pressures and aesthetic preferences? What our preferred formulation patterns and how do they keep us from more courageously and cleanly meeting others and their stories? In closing, I would offer the following nine ethical considerations in working with peoples’ stories; they serve as the bedrock of a narrative approach to coaching:

1. Coachees expect their coach to create a safe container for their storytelling.
2. Coachees expect their stories to be heard in a nonjudgmental, non-assumptive manner.
3. Coachees expect to have their community and cultural stories taken seriously.
4. Coachees have the right to tell their own story in their own way.
5. Coachees tell and understand their story as best as they can at the time.
6. Coachees have the right to change their stories, lives and selves as they choose.
7. Coachees are accountable for the impact of their stories on themselves and others.
8. Coachees expect their coach to manage their own stories, agendas and participation.
9. Coachees expect their coach to be exemplary stewards of the stories that are told.

I hope you have found these posts helpful in giving you some practical strategies for taking a more narrative approach to your work. We are scheduling master classes in various parts of the world for the latter half of 2010 and in 2011. It looks like Zurich and London will be next. Let us know if you’d like to host one in your area. You can reach us an director [at] narrativecoaching.com

Listening narratively

Narrative coaches stay in the lived experience of the conversation as much as possible. Some of the practices they use in doing so:

1. Create a rich narrative field, notice what appears, remain connected even in silence, and actively engage with the coachee’s narration as it emerges. Invite coachees to stay in their stories as they unfold across a series of present moments. As they do so, the characters, context, and conclusions will become more apparent and available for renegotiation.
2. Help people come to their stories with less judgment in order to loosen their group on their identity and lives and provide an opening for greater awareness, more trust in themselves, more conscious choices and better results.
3. Put more emphasis on generating experiences and less on rushing to interpretation, meaning, or action. Doing so, will more likely and fully engage the whole person and create conditions more similar to what they will encounter after the session.
4. Trust that people will begin at the level at which they are ready and the critical themes will be forthcoming regardless of which stories they share first. Any story or set of stories can be a portal into the larger issues at play for people and the path to reaching their resolution or aspiration.
5. Build rapport through hemispheric resonance by starting with coachee’s preference but then invite them onto the path of change by drawing on the other hemisphere to bring in elements that were not part of the original story (Siegel, 2007).  Draw on the factual, sequential, and verbal parts of the story, largely a product of the left hemisphere and the more personal, contextual, nonverbal parts of the story, largely a product of the right hemisphere, as needed to elicit the whole story.
6. Help coachees identify narrative data from their lives that support an alternate view of who they are and how they want to be in the world—what White and Epston (1990) called “unique outcomes,” Hewson (1991) called “exceptions” and the Heaths (Heath & Heath, 2010) called “bright spots.” At the same time, realize that in order for new stories or new relations between stories to take hold in coachees’ lives, they must build on elements of familiar stories in order to ‘scaffold’ their ascendance.

Therefore: (1) help people to become more aware of the contours of their available narratives and either reframe them or their relationship to them; (2) guide them in discovering and developing new options (often hidden as gems in their own stories) and a more evolved repertoire; and (3) help them to successfully launch their new story as the basis for fulfilling their aspirations. Any story told in a coaching session, even if it has served as a transformational vehicle in that setting, must survive the ‘retellings’ if coachees are to sustain the changes they have begun.

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.

photo credit: liz_com1981
I’m often asked, “This is great stuff…but how will it help me grow my business?” While there is not a straight line between A and B as some might wish, I observe that people who develop a narrative approach to their practice seem to become more compelling to clients. What narrative coaching brings, in part, is a way of being with clients that is quite distinctive. As such, I see this approach helping your business in at least three ways:

1. Increased signal to noise ratio: Working at the narrative level gives clients the opportunity to step outside the relentless pace of modern work life in order to experience time and space in new ways. Clients appreciate the chance to both slow down and get to the heart of the matter more quickly. Narratively-trained coaches bring a certain calm and presence to their work that many clients find invaluable.
2. Increased transfer from sessions: As my colleague Amiel Handelsman attests, the true value of coaching is in what clients do after they leave their conversation with us. Clients pay us because they are able to see, think, feel and act differently as a result of coaching. A narrative approach is powerful here because the language and learning are based in the clients’ own stories. Rather than having to take on the coach’s frame, clients have ready-made anchors for their ongoing learning and new behaviors. I have found this grounded approach to be quite appealing to clients.
3. Increased connection to a bigger Story: I increasingly see a hunger in my clients to connect their life and their work to something bigger than themselves. They want connections to people who know their stories—and therefore share a common referent point. It shows up in my organizational clients who want better alignment between individual coaching goals and organizational objectives. It shows up in my private clients who want to feel like their work matters. Being able to help make these connections through their stories is great for business.

What would you like to know about stories and your business? Post a question in the Comments box and I will gladly share my thoughts.

I close with a great quote I was reminded of again the other day in pondering the proverbial 37 days. It speaks well to the value of a narrative approach to coaching in helping clients see clearly the gaps between their vows and their life.
The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. James Barrie

photo credit: WTL photos
I learned this morning that Michael White has passed away. Known to many of us in the story community as a co-founder of narrative therapy, he was a pioneer who paved the way for many of us who do this work. He brought a deep critical and social consciousness to our understanding of stories; he liberated both stories and storytelling so practitioners could work in creative and powerful ways with clients. His death seems particularly poignant for me right now as I launch my new narrative coaching programs and think more deeply about where and how I most want to invest my life energy. Perhaps his death will inspire me to play a bigger game.

Michael’s work was an important bridge for me in connecting three domains of my narrative study and practice that had long been separate: Jungian psychology/spirituality, cognitive development and learning, and social justice. On a personal level, I felt inspired by his work to be more courageous and confident in bringing together these domains in my narrative coaching work. I experienced him as a deep thinker, a complicated writer, a consummate practitioner, and a gifted teacher. He has left a legacy that will live on in the thousands of professionals who have been shaped by his work and the many contributions of narrative therapy to our language, perspectives and practices. Thank you, Michael.

“The evolution of the lives and relationships of persons is akin to the process of reauthoring, the process of persons entering into stories with their experience and their imagination, of taking these stories over and making them their own.” (1992)

photo credit: woodleywonderworks
As we launch our new narrative coaching workshop series in Perth, Australia on May 26th/27th, I was curious to know what was on your mind about clients and their stories these days. What do you wish you knew about narrative/coaching that would help you be more present and powerful with your clients?

The Foundations Workshop, “The Power of Coaching at the Narrative Level,” provides the essentials of how stories work, the links between stories and identity/behavior, and how to work with the narrative material in sessions to accelerate the client’s awareness, development and movement. Three more foundational workshops are scheduled for Australia in 2008 and we anticipate being able to offer one in New Zealand and one in Canada this year. If all goes well, we will offer a five-day advanced program in late 2008 and start our one-year certification/mastermind program in early 2009.

I offer this space on our site for you to tell us what you’d most like to know or be able to do as a result of learning about narrative coaching. What would you most want from our workshop if you came? Even if we can’t address it in the workshop, I would be happy to dialog with you about your interest and point you in directions where you can find the resources you seek.

Click on the “Share Your Comment” link at the bottom of this post and let us know what you think.