Our Story of Ourself

A couple of coaching meetings recently have reminded me how valuable it can be to reflect on our stories about ourself. Often we have several versions: perhaps one (a) that is subtle and sophisticated, one (b) that is more of a shorthand version and maybe one (c) that is either more optimistic or more pessimistic than (a) and (b) - depending whether those incline to optimism
or pessimism, and in contrast to them.

When we are very busy, tired or stressed, it is easy to rely on (b) as an heuristic (see box) to save cognitive load.  However there are risks of over-reliance on (b), not least because it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

For example, part of my (b) story is that I am shy and not good at casual social interaction. That is true to some extent, though an (a) version would be more sophisticated and recognise that when I make an effort, I can get by just fine in unstructured social encounters.  

But over-reliance on (b) tempts me to avoid such situations, which over time erodes my (already limited) skills in that context. Furthermore, that can be reinforced by a number of factors.  

One is Confirmation Bias: that tendency to notice and attribute meaning to things that confirm what we already think. That will incline me to notice as significant every occasion on which I don’t engage well socially, and to treat as abnormal (or even not to notice at all) those occasions on which I engage well.

Moreover, when I am acting out of my (b) story, by being a bit more withdrawn, that may well make others less inclined to engage with me, creating an elegant self-fulfilling prophecy.

To counter those risks, it is useful to raise our awareness, by reflection, and possibly by disclosure to others and inviting their feedback. 

If we wish to weaken our (b) story and strengthen our (a) story (or even an optimistic (c) story), one useful strategy is to collect and mentally curate exceptions: those times when things didn’t go the way the (b) story might have predicted. 

We can then choose to attend to our more positive story more of the time and try to live out of it, thus recruiting confirmation bias that the likelihood of a self-fulfilling prophecy to support who we are trying to become, rather than who we worry that we might be seen as.

Intentionality versus automaticity

Aristotle being corrected by a teenager...

I'm always interested in tensions and apparent paradoxes. At present I am thinking about the tension between Intentionality and automaticity.

A lot of my work involves helping people to clarify their intentions, and develop options or strategies in pursuit of those intentions; and to use their time and other resources in a mindful way, to accomplish those goods to which they aspire.

Further, I remember as a teenager, thinking that Aristotle had got it wrong (ok, so I was precocious...) when he talked about virtues as habits. Surely for an act to be virtuous, one has to have a good intention, not merely be acting out of habit.

However, as I understand a little more about how the brain works, I am increasingly clear about the value of automaticity. We cannot attend to everything intentionally, as we simply don't have the cognitive capacity. So building good habits - automating a number of activities - is clearly an important strategy; and of course that is something else that I have long sought to help my clients to do. As well, of course, as my children. This is about building strong neural pathways, that fire automatically: hence automaticity.

So habits reduce cognitive load, leaving our brains free to be intentional about non-recurrent choices. Additionally, habits make good choices more reliable. My strong habit (which took a long time to build) of getting out of bed early and going up the hill on my bike is now sufficiently robust that even if the weather is challenging (the feels-like temperature here was -9 this morning) I don't faff about or bottle out. Though, to be strictly honest, I did go for a shorter than usual ride this morning.  And I realise that was what Aristotle was getting at, so maybe he wasn't such a fool as my teenage self had imagined. 

Viktor Frankl

Yet I remain convinced of the importance of intentionality; not least because of Viktor Frankl's great wisdom and insight: 'Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.' 

One way to address this tension, of course, is to be very intentional about the creation of habits that support us in becoming the person we aspire to be: habits of thought (thinking well of others, for example) as well as habits of behaviour.

But habits can erode over time, and we may grow over time, so I think that is insufficient. So I think another thing to think about is the conscious competence model. We can develop a discipline (or even a habit) of bringing our habits out of unconscious competence into conscious competence to examine them, polish them, re-establish them at the highest level (all highly intentional activities) and then return them to unconscious competence in a better state, where we can rely on them, and allow that automaticity to free up cognitive capacity for other challenges we may face.

Attribution Theory

One of the interesting things that Marie Stopforth taught us on our Psychology for Coaches programme was Attribution Theory.  This is a favourite of hers (the subject of her PhD, if I remember rightly) so I probably won't do it justice (at least in her eyes) but I found it interesting and have already mentioned it to some supervisors I was supervising, and they found it interesting and useful too.

Attribution theory looks at the meaning we attribute to our successes or failures, and analyses them according to a few key variables. One is the locus of control: internal (dispositional) or external (situational); a second is the likelihood of reoccurrence: stable or unstable; a third is whether it is under our control or not.

Initially, we may have a number of thoughts about a failure, for example. What matters is which one we settle on.

If we experience a failure, and we attribute it to internal factors (our preparedness) that we see as unstable and controllable (I could prepare better next time), that helps us both practically and psychologically: we are more likely to try again, and to increase the likelihood of future success. Though there is a risk that we beat ourselves up, so we need to guard against that.

However, if we attribute a failure to external factors (task difficulty) that we see as stable and uncontrollable (that will always be an impossible ask!), then both our motivation to try again and our readiness to learn and improve are diminished. As this exonerates us from responsibility, it is a satisfying take, in the short term; so we need to guard against that, too!

Likewise with success: if we attribute a success to external factors (luck) that are unstable and uncontrollable (who knows if I’ll be so lucky again?...) both learning and motivation to re-engage are reduced. Whereas, if we attribute our success to internal factors (the level of skill I have acquired) that are stable and controllable (as long as I stay in practice, I’ll maintain my skill level) motivation and an agenda for continual improvement are both enhanced.

These can all be supported and reinforced by various biases (the self-serving bias and confirmation bias, particularly). Note also the fundamental attribution error. When someone cuts you up at the junction, you attribute it to disposition: they’re such a jerk! Whereas when you have to cut in in front of someone, it is clearly situational: I’ve got a train to catch!

Of course, in reality, there are many factors that contribute to success or failure. What is valuable, then, is to understand the impact of the attributions we make, and work intelligently with that understanding

I like the story of the soccer team that was beaten 1-0 in the 90th minute, because the referee awarded a very dodgy penalty against them. In the dressing room, the story was rapidly developing that it was external and beyond their control (dodgy ref) and unstable (who knows if it would happen again). That left them as helpless victims.

Their coach picked up on this and pointed out that they had had three opportunities to score in the first half that they had failed to convert: had they done so, the last minute goal against them would not have altered the result. She helped them see the degree to which their failure to convert was within their control, internal, and unstable - it could be changed by more skill and tactical awareness.  That gave them something to work on, on the training ground - and some hope that better results were possible in the future.

It is particularly valuable to identify any habits of attribution that are unhelpful to us, and work consciously on these, building new habits as necessary. Likewise, if we are coaching others, noticing, and helping them to notice, such patterns is extremely valuable.

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All images: AI

Thinking?... or just talking?

I continue to enjoy - and get great value from - the Psychology for Coaches programme run by Marie Stopforth. One of the many moments that made me think this week was a brief conversation about coachees who talk so much the coach has no opportunity to contribute much. 

On the one hand, some coaches may feel that they have not added any value in such a situation. Marie pointed out that Nancy Kline, for one, would question that.  Her Thinking Environment is predicated on the assumption that people thinking out loud about their own challenges are likely to come up with better solutions than coaches.

However, we also discussed the possibility that it was a defensive strategy, to prevent the coach from asking questions that might make the coachee have to think... Some people turn up and jus talk about anything and everything, to fill the time. 

My view is that that falls well outside what Nancy is getting at. Her (and my) interest is in people thinking in live time - not repeating what they have already thought. 

Moreover, in my experience, one can quickly tell if a client is genuinely thinking out loud in live time, or simply rehearsing an often articulated train of thought, which again might be a (possibly subconscious) defensive strategy.

So I would challenge such a client, and possibly have a renewed contracting conversation about our mutual expectations of the coaching, in terms of both process and expected outcomes.

Which brings me to another passing comment that really stuck with me: Marie mentioned that in her supervision of coaches, more often than not it comes down to one of two things: either better contracting (or re-contracting), or calling out breaches of the contracted expectations.  I'm not quite happy with 'calling out' but certainly think that we should call attention to any breaches, and have a conversation about them.  

And I agree with Marie, these two things do seem to address a large proportion of the issues that coaches bring to supervision. 

I will doubtless write more about some of the other insights I gained from the Psychology in Coaching programme, but don't want to go on too long now, lest you think it is some kind of defensive strategy...