photo credit: Andreas Øverland

What does this simple photo evoke in you?

Among other things, it reminds me of how much of our daily life is a screen onto which we project our narrative frames. Does the photo stir excitement in imagining what you might find if you climbed the stairs? Does it stir a sense of foreboding as you imagine what might come down the stairs? Or something else altogether? I’ve been vividly reminded in recent weeks of the impact of our choices in how we construct our views of people, places and events. Even though we know that this story-making is central to how our individual and collective minds work, it is not always an easy task.

I’ve come to believe, however, that the art and discipline of noticing our stories as they emerge in the moment is at the core of narrative coaching and of being more fully human. This is particularly important when we feel ensnared in events that are challenging for us. With a tip of the hat to Irving Yalom and Byron Katie, in these times I ask myself questions like, “What is the ‘story’ I am telling myself? How is that ‘story’ serving me? What do I need to release so that I can see the situation with a bigger heart and a bigger mind? What would I gain if I did so?

Waking up in a New Year

As I look out across a new year, I am reminded of a quote from the famous photographer, the late Henri Cartier-Bresson. While in Vienna recently for some holiday and lining up two projects there for later this year, I had the unexpected pleasure of seeing a major exhibit of his work as well as another of my favorites, René Magritte. Each of these artists was gifted in helping us to question how we see the world. As Cartier-Bresson wrote in 1994, “My passion has never been for photography in itself, but for the possibility—through forgetting myself—of recording in a fraction of a second the emotion of the subject and the beauty of the form, the geometry awakened by what is offered.” He describes it as a ‘decisive moment’ when the head, heart and eye are aligned along the same line of sight.

Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. As you make your way into a new year, spend five minutes right now reflecting on a story you’ve recently told yourself (and perhaps others) that now feels limiting to you.

1. Where is there an opening to release your ‘narrative grip’ to make room for new possibilities?
2. What part of the story needs to be released, like a drop back into the ocean?
3. What other part of the story wants to be told?
4. What space would open up in your heart, mind and life if you shifted your frame?

Resolutions in the new year are less about grand promises and more about the daily practices of increasing our awareness and our courage in the stories we choose to tell. Every moment can be a decisive one. Peace to each of us on our journey…

photo credit: xoque

Do you ever get to the place in your work where you feel like there is too much to do, to remember, to track? I used to pride myself in being able to hold a lot at once — in my mind, for my clients, and about my work. As the complexity of our world increases almost geometrically and I find myself affected by the simple arithmetic progression of aging, I find that harder and harder to do.

I thought about this the other day in the context of launching a narrative coaching center with a team in Toronto and the first narrative design lab in Sydney. Add that to my full-time practice, research and writing projects, and a personal life — and it started to feel a bit much.  I had the chance to talk with my  friend and colleague Andrea J. Lee about my plans. In the course of doing so, she suggested that I might need to release my need to understand it all — and just do the next thing that needs doing. It was a wonderful insight that really hit home for me.

Enjoy the vista, but watch your feet

As I put this approach into practice the next day on a planning call with Toronto, there was a much greater sense of ease and grace in our conversation. What had become long lists of tasks quickly distilled into some immediate actions to take. It felt liberating. This is not about ticking lots of ‘to do’ boxes like a mouse running in a wheel; it’s about building toward something meaningful one step at a time. The era of seeing the whole picture, knowing everything about something, and planning the entire journey is over. Now, it is about doing what needs to be done next — and from there seeing what the world looks like and acting accordingly.

It’s like a good story. The magic is in the suspense of wondering what will happen next, and long arc of the plot often only becomes apparent in the end. I think our work is more and more like that. How about you? We take the steps we need to take in order to respond to and create what is emerging . . . and soon marvel at how far we have come and where we have arrived! Like stories, understanding is in retrospect, not a requirement for getting started.

If you feel stuck or daunted by all that needs to be done, ask yourself right now, “What’s the next thing that needs doing?”

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: Eddi 07

I often get asked, ” So, what is narrative coaching, anyway?” I had occasion recently to put the essence of it on one slide for a client. I found this process very helpful, particularly because so much of what I have done and taught since I midwifed narrative coaching is so experiential. In putting this together, I realised that narrative coaching is as much a philosophy as it is a set of practices, and it is as much about spiritual development as it is about practical change. In some important ways, it is a way of Being more than acts of Doing. I offer these to you, not as the definitive scripture, but rather as an invitation to a conversation.

Narrative coaching is:

1. A sacramental approach to holding space and working with the relational field as it emerges

2. A non-directive, real-time attention to the experience and narration, focused largely on the other person

3. A dynamic use of narrative material as the primary source and narrative pattern recognition as the primary skill

4. An appreciation of identity as situated in communities and embodied in discourse in supporting sustainable shifts in behaviors

5. A commitment to deep, generative listening based in understanding narrative structure, neuroscience, psychology and practice

6. A  process of raising awareness, focusing attention, taking new actions and increasing accountability in yourself and others

7. A methodology for helping people, individually or in groups, to make shifts in their lives one story at a time and with increased agency

I look forward to you comments and your views on what you think narrative coaching is all about!

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: 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: 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?

photo credit: mufan96

It has been a number of weeks since I last posted to this site. It is time to hit the ‘play’ button again…

I have been recuperating from surgery for thyroid cancer and attending to some needs away from the worlds as they exist on my computer. While the prognosis on the health front is excellent, it was quite the experience being on the the ‘big C’ roller coaster. One lesson learned was the limits of statistics (especially compared to the power of stories). I was told there was only a 3% chance that my growth was cancerous. However, when I was informed post-surgery that I was a part of the unlucky few, I realized that the emotional gap between 0 and 3 was much larger than the numerical one would suggest.

The mountain is still just the mountain

The power in that moment was in the story I choose to construct about my outcome—even to move beyond the need to frame my experience as either lucky or unlucky. It just WAS. I was reminded of the famous parable about the beginner for whom the mountain was just a mountain (fusion), the trainee for whom the mountain was not the mountain (separation), and the master for whom the mountain was just the mountain again, albeit with a higher level of consciousness (enlightenment). I came to realize the ways in which the labels we give to our experiences do not change the essential nature of the mountain, but are designed more to comfort our individual and collective egos.

Given that they were able to save half of my thyroid and the incidence of recurrence is rare, this brush with cancer is likely not to have any implications going forward. However, the narrative suggests differently in that I have accelerated a process that was already underway to examine the trajectories for my work and my life. It has been a time of getting down to the “roots” of who I am and what I feel called to do with my one life.

Look for changes to come soon

I am back to work full-time now and committed to re-engaging with you via this blog. Look for some changes to appear in the weeks ahead to help us all deepen our abilities to coach others and bring their stories to life. The world is waiting…

David

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