On a recent flight back to the U.S. from Sydney, I took the occasion to watch a documentary on “The Apology”. On February 13, 2008, the prime minister (Kevin Rudd) and other leaders from the Australian government offered a written and oral apology to the indigenous populations of that land. While the issues involved are rife with complexities, I was moved by the simple, public statement of “We’re Sorry.” It seemed like an important step for that country in moving forward as a true multicultural society. It reminded me how far we have to go here in the U.S. Perhaps a victory by Obama in the upcoming elections will signal a change here.

As I reflected on the movie, I thought about the nature and power of stories to affect change. Upon returning home, I happened to glance at an alter of sacred objects in my office—upon which sat a jar of lavender oil from France. It was a gift from a colleague who attended a workshop on narrative coaching I did for an international coaching conference in Melbourne last year. Feeling a bit fatigued in the midst of a long work trip in Australia, she offered me this precious gift as a source of renewal. I was moved by the gesture, this gift of comfort and grace.

Sometimes, we are called to begin a new Story of great significance. Mostly, however, we are asked to mindfully contribute in small ways to the smaller stories we encounter in each moment. In giving me the small bottle of lavender I gained solace that another person cared enough to part with this special gift and from the deeply relaxing fragrance of the lavender itself. So much of narrative coaching is about showing up fully to another person and opening up the possibilities of a new story.

Take a chance today—plant a seed for a new Story through an act of forgiveness, compassion, or insight.

We are launching our new website and new workshops! I’ve had the opportunity to speak on my work to over 1,000 poeple in the last couple of years. Now it is time to finally offer my work to my fellow coaches and other professionals (Human Resources/Capital, Organizational Development, Leadership Development, etc.).

If you’d like to know more about David and his work, sign up on our website for an upcoming telecall. It will be your chance to ask questions about narrative coaching and about the workshops.

The first two are scheduled for Tuesday, April 1st at 2:00pm PDT (California) and Tuesday May 6th at 4:00om PDT.

While you are there, check out the flyer for our first workshop in Perth and more information about our new series leading to certification next year. Drop us a comment on one of our early blog posts to let me know what you think.

We are also seeking firms to work with us in hosting our workshops. Use the contact form to let us know of your interest or point us to someone who would be a good candidate. Thanks.

photo credit: Miss Claeson
Today’s story is about my mother. Some years ago she was walking in the woods with her brother and sister who had come to visit. Knowing that my mother had a knack for finding coins—and being jazzed when she did—the two of them quietly walked ahead of her and began randomly and discretely dropping coins on the trail. “I found a quarter” came the first holler. “Here’s a dime!” came the next. After a couple more times, my mother grew suspicious and her siblings could barely contain their giggles. Finally, they fessed up.

This could be a story about gullibility, but it is really about joy. They had found something that delighted my mom. They used the occasion to recount family stories about other legendary pranks and sources of delight they’d known as children. Other stories, past and present, sprang from them. What delights your clients?

Moral of the story: Don’t worry about where your clients start in narrating their experience. Follow their trail of coins to the sacred spot where you can talk about what matters to them and would bring them joy.

photo credit: JasonRogers
It is the call the parent of a teenager dreads. The policeman phoned at 2:30 in the morning to tell a single mother that her daughter was at the police station. She had been picked up in the wake of a wild party. Relieved that her daughter was not hurt, the mother’s attention quickly turned to her disappointment and anger. The two of them had been fighting for weeks and now the daughter had broken both the agreement with her mom and the curfew of the town.

The mother hurriedly gathered her things, stormed out of the house, cursing her daughter for the embarrassment this would cause the family when the news appeared in their small-town paper the next day. As she drove to the station, silently praying that none of her neighbors would see her, she vented loudly about what she planned to tell her daughter for “screwing up yet again.”

And then . . . she remembered a phrase from a coaching workshop series she was attending as a leader at work: Breakdowns can lead to breakthroughs… She stopped ranting long enough to pause. And hear herself talk . . . and wonder what had gone wrong. And pull over to the side of the road for a minute to settle her breathing. And shed tears as she recognized in that moment the pain she felt in her sense of separation from her daughter. And vow to herself to find a path to a breakthrough starting that night.

And so . . . after she signed the papers at the police station, she began the “long” drive home — with her daughter sitting sullenly in the back seat refusing to engage. In the awkward silence that ensued, the mother finally opened her mouth to speak. The daughter instantly geared up to protest, anticipating yet another big fight, but was stunned to hear her mother say, “It must be hard to be 16 these days. I would like to hear what it is like for you when you’re ready.” And from that pause, the deep listening began . . .

The mother went on to be one of the best coaches in our program for her federal agency, sparked in large part by her own experience that night. She learned that listening is not half of a transaction but rather the whole of an incubation. Rather than perpetuating the same old story with her daughter, she paused long enough to create the space for a different story to become possible. Somewhere within any breakdown are the seeds of a breakthrough waiting to be born. Is that not what coaching is all about?

I am curious about the gaps between our intentions and our actions that are present at times in our lives. It is as if we are trying to wear high heels to cross the Alps. I recall a saying from Don Americo Yabar, a shamanic teacher with whom I studied in Peru in 2004, “Intent is. Intention tries. Intent is a pure, light energy having a distilled, laser-like quality.” I was also reminded of blogger Steve Pavlina’s distinction between “being” and “doing”. He wrote, “When your identity is out of sync with your goal, action is very difficult — it is doing. When your identify comes into sync with your goal, action is inspired and effortless — it is being.”

If we want people to adopt new behaviors and attain new results through coaching, we must help them build an identity from which to do so. It is about helping them to align the stories they tell about themselves (intent) with the stories they live with their lives (intention). When there is alignment, clients are more powerful and more successful. When there is alignment, goals are more likely to be fulfilled because the results are a natural byproduct of a new way of being rather than remaining dependent on continuous efforts at doing.

For example, a client who ran a large intergovernmental project was frustrated in her inability to move her leadership team in some new directions. Through our work, she uncovered both autobiographical stories and cognitive narrative patterns that reinforced a sense of herself as one who was destined to battle difficult odds to make things happen. It would be slow going if we were to attempt to make changes in her leadership approach from this starting point. Instead, our work revolved around helping her to imagine herself as one who could be at the center as opposed to the margins and as one who was worthy of ease and grace. Once she was made this shift, she moved rather quickly to change the structure of her leadership team and the project in order to optimize her leadership preferences and achieve better results.

Clients find greater power when they come from a place of grounded and authentic intent rather than crafting intentions in their mind about how things should or could be. So, if you are feeling stuck in some aspect of your work or life, look for the places where this a disconnect, a lack of alignment, between the stories you tell yourself and the results you want. It is in this fertile ground that the seeds of one’s true intent are born.