Coaching as a Confidence Trick

One of my more unhelpful stories about myself (read the excellent Shifting Stories  for more on this concept) is that I am really a bit of a fraud and my coaching is all smoke and mirrors. I don't really believe that, but if I want to depress myself, I can wallow around in it for a while, with some skill.

So I was surprised to hear myself say to another coach: 'Of course in a way, coaching is a confidence trick,' and more surprised to hear myself justify the assertion. 

I was struck by the explanation of the short con in David Mamet's House of Games: it's a confidence trick because the con artist gives his confidence to the mark, not the other way around.  (Though I still maintain that The Sting is the best con movie - I remember the first time I saw it when everyone in the cinema sat in silence for a minute or so at the end, catching up with what had just been played out...)

Anyway, the point I was making, albeit in a provocative and playful way, is that as coaches we often lend our confidence to our clients. In the Thinking Environment approach to coaching, for example, when we give our client that quality of attention that is at the heart of that approach, we are implicitly asking the Incisive Question 'If you knew that you had more great thinking available to you, what would you think?' By embodying our belief in the client's capability, we often help him or her to find it. Other coaching approaches also have the coach as an implicit cheer-leader for the client.

That, of course, raises a second-level issue for the coach. We can't lend people our confidence if we don't have any to lend; yet most coaches I know are rightly wary of being too confident. Big egos get in the way of building an effective learning alliance with the client - but the same is true of excessive self-doubt of course. 

As so often, we need to navigate a tension - on this occasion between arrogance and self-doubt. For me, this is about practicing humility (in the way C S Lewis described it: not thinking less of oneself, but rather thinking about oneself less often...) and simultaneously holding fast to my belief in the process: the value and efficacy of coaching. This enables me to talk with conviction about the probable success of the work that we are going to undertake together, whilst keeping my ego in its place. And that is a position from which I can lend the client a well-grounded confidence, along with that sense of hope that is one of the key aspirations I have for my clients.

What we can articulate...

I am continuing to listen to the excellent podcasts by Bishop Erik Varden that I have mentioned previously, on the Desert Fathers (and Mothers, in case you were wondering). And once more, it was a piece of his wisdom that was almost an aside that caught my attention the other day. 

He was talking about the importance of precision in language, and how words that the Fathers had used with a very particular meaning, such as compunction, have been watered down and sanitised, so that modern dictionary definitions are both anodyne and misleading if one wants to know what the Fathers were talking about. And this matters, he explained, because 'what we can articulate, we can learn to deal with. 

It seems to me that there is a lot of wisdom in that comment. And it is not new wisdom of course (the Fathers were in the early centuries of the Church); and it is evident in folk and popular culture: the idea of a nameless dread is particularly potent; as is the Thingy in the moat (in the Ahlberg's wonderful 'It was a dark and stormy night'); and this is precisely why Dumbledore encourages Harry to use Voldemort's name, rather than the euphemism (He who must not be named) that only increases his power.

It also helps me to articulate part of what I help my clients to do, that they find valuable. For example, in my Shifting Stories work, I get them to articulate and name the unhelpful stories that are holding them back. and also the more helpful stories that are available to them. This articulation and naming gives them more agency and helps them to choose the more helpful over the unhelpful in times of need.  

Likewise, the Thinking Environment work is precisely about giving people the time and attention to articulate their thinking in much more depth and breadth than they are normally allowed to do before they are interrupted (by someone else, life, or themselves...); and again, they find that very valuable.

It is not a panacea. Bishop Varden does not say, What we can articulate, we can deal with, but rather, we can learn to deal with. Which also explains something about the value of Gestalt approaches, which again focus on increasing the individual's awareness - including somatic and emotional awareness - of current reality as a necessary, and often sufficient, approach to change and growth. Heightened awareness enables us to articulate, whether through reason or metaphor, image or intuition, what really is; and then - I hope - we can learn to deal with it.

A Refreshing Approach to Conference Workshops

Every now and then, I get invited to do sessions at conferences (not keynotes - I am not a thought-leader, apparently - but breakout workshops). I always find this an entertaining process, from the initial request from the organisers to have my slide deck well in advance - and their bafflement when I tell them I won't be using slides - to the look of shock on participants'

faces when they turn up for my session to find that they will be sitting in a circle without a table to hide behind.

And then I get asked back; probably because the organisers get feedback like this: 

“Andrew Scott's session was a wonderful antidote to the information-heavy sessions through the rest of the conference. It slowed folks down and created space for deep, meaningful conversations. I'd suggest handing over some time in the programme for all delegates to have that 'Time to Think' together, deeply and meaningfully.”

So what do I do that is so different? The short answer is that I run my workshops as Thinking Environments (qv).

The longer answer follows, in case you are interested (if not, leave now: I won't be offended - my ego-needs are met in other ways - which might also be a clue about why people like my sessions...)

I always start with welcoming the participants, appreciating them for choosing to come to my workshop, and reminding them of the purpose of the session (which is always along the lines of 'to give you the time and opportunity to think with colleagues, about...')

We then do an opening round (at least one, sometimes more) so that everyone has the opportunity to be heard early in the session, and also to practice listening with complete attention, to everyone else in the room. I give the briefest of explanations about the why and the how of this, and we dive in. It always lands well, and signals that this is going to be different...

I then give them a brief overview, framework or perspective on whatever the session is about (the most recent one I did was on William Bridges' model of change and transition, which is excellent). My intention here is to give them something valuable that they will easily be able to recall, and also enough stimulation to have an engaged conversation with other participants about the topic.

Then I explain a little about how we will work throughout the session. This is a lightning introduction to the Thinking Environment and some of the key components: Attention, Equality, Ease and Appreciation. I try to get through all of that in less than 50% of the time available for my session; the rest is dedicated to their thinking together in small groups (using rounds and then open discussion, but always with exquisite attention and a complete ban on interrupting!). We conclude with a couple of rounds: one on their freshest thinking about the topic, and the final one on what they have appreciated about working together in this session.

And the feedback at that stage is often very similar to the comment quoted above. I was particularly amused recently when someone said how great it had been to have no input from the speaker, but rather the chance to think for themselves.  They certainly had that (and I was gratified that it was appreciated) but I had also given them a 15' mini-input on Bridges' model to seed that conversation. But what I was hearing, of course, was the impact of the session being run in such an unorthodox way. 

If you are interested in learning more about working with groups in ways that inspire great thinking together, I still have a couple of places left on my Thinking Environment Foundation Programme, here in the Lake District (19/20 June).  We've a really interesting group of people booked on so far, from a range of different organisational contexts - and we've room for just a couple more.  Full details are here.