A Mistaken Attribution

It happened again, the other day. Someone was drawing the threads together at the end of a coaching conversation, and said that one of the things she was taking away, was my contribution X.

Which was interesting, in that I had not said X. Neither had she.  Indeed, it was clear to me that X was an insight that had arisen for her, in conversation with me, that was both important and useful; but that she had not actually articulated it at the time.

And yet now, reflecting on the session, she recognised it as one of the key take-aways that she was going to act on and think further about.  And possibly because she knew that she had not said it, she assumed that I had.

And as I indicated at the start of this post, that is not the first time that this has happened. It is quite frequent for me to listen to someone work through a difficult issue, with my offering a Thinking Environment (qv) to help the person take their thinking further than before; and for that person to reach some insight or revelation, or develop a plan of action; and then to close the session by thanking me for my advice, which is always so valuable - even though I have given none.

When that happens, I sometimes accept the thanks, assuming that what they really mean is thank you for creating the space in which I gave myself such good advice; and sometimes I laugh and point out that I haven't given them any, but I am glad that they have found the session useful.

But this case was a little different, in that she attributed directly to me a very specific insight. And partly because she did this in the middle of a paragraph, as it were, and went on to list other important ideas and actions that had arisen, I did not comment. I strive not to interrupt people, and sometimes that means that the moment passes. However, I suspect there were other reasons for my silence, not least of which was surprise, and not being sure what to do. 

An interesting pattern...

On the one hand, I didn't want to distract her from the useful activity she was engaged with - planning her actions and continuing learning - by reopening the session, discussing who had said what. But on the other hand, I was uncomfortable with the attribution to me of a thought that wasn't mine - and that applies whether it proves valuable or disastrous!

Reflecting on all that, I think what I will do is watch out to see if it happens in a future session, and if it does, draw her attention to it as an interesting pattern.  And if it does not - well the moment has passed now; I'll just have to hope that it isn't, in fact, a disaster.

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With thanks to Lesli Whitecotton for sharing this photo on Unsplash

Don't worry...

Don't worry is another of those useful pieces of advice: easier to say than to implement. 

But what struck me this week is the very different approaches to this suggested by Mindfulness, on the one hand, and Gestalt, on the other.

When practicing mindful meditation, as I understand it, one notices if a worry presents itself to one's mind, but then one simply releases it and allows it to float away.

Whereas in Gestalt, if a worry emerges as significant - a figure emerging from the ground, in Gestalt terms - then one holds it in attention, and engages with full contact and awareness of it, in order to reach some resolution. 

Yet, as opposed as these two approaches may appear, it seems to me that there is an underlying unity: that is, each is based on a conscious decision about how to use the mind.  And that, I think, is the opposite of worrying, which is often an involuntary process, that leaves us feeling devoid of agency.

So next time you find yourself worrying about something, instead of that somewhat sterile process of rumination that we sometimes indulge in, make a conscious choice: do I wish to engage with this seriously at this time or not?

If you do, then full attention is the way to go. If you do not, then deliberately releasing it (if necessary with a promise to your brain about when you will address it), might be the way forward.  At the very least, such a deliberate mental action is an exercise of agency, and therefore of power, and may mitigate any risk of feeling over-powered or disempowered by the worry.

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With thanks to  Molnár Bálint for sharing this photo on Unsplashorry.html

Unhelpful advice?

Time and again, when people are talking about the importance of listening (a proposition I have a lot of time for) they say that we should also listen for what is not being said.

I have always found that to be very unhelpful advice: because the answer is practically infinite. I stored it with other unhelpful injunctions, such as 'Never point a gun' (how will you ever hit a target?) and 'keep a straight bat' (as if you could bend a cricket bat...). 

On reflection, I realise that my misunderstanding of each of these bits of wisdom is of a slightly different order. 'Never point a gun' is simply a contraction of the very good advice never to point a gun at a person (unless you intend to shoot him); whereas 'keep a straight bat' is a slightly inaccurate way of saying 'keep your bat vertical' - also good advice in its own place.

But where was I going wrong with 'listen for what is not being said'? I think it was again being over-literal in my treatment of the actual words, and insufficiently curious about what people meant by them. What I suspect people are getting at is a few different things, all of which may be worthy of attention.

One is 'what category of thing is not being discussed (that one might reasonably expect to be discussed in this context)?' For example, is someone only talking about facts, and logic, in a context where one might expect emotions to be mentioned? Is someone only talking about problems, and the past, when it might be appropriate to think about solutions, and the future? Is someone only talking about other people's responsibility for an issue, when it might be reasonable to consider their own?

A second aspect of this, is what is being communicated but not said out loud. That is, what messages are being transmitted by body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, levels of energy and so on, over and above the words that the person is saying. (Don't get me started on that more that 90% of communication is non-verbal rubbish, though!...). 

And a third thing to consider is what an individual's behaviour says, over time. Consider someone who assumes a cynical stance in dialogue, but in practice is very caring and compassionate; or conversely, someone who declares their commitment, but consistently turns up late and under-delivers.

So yes, it is important to attend to what is not being said, but is being communicated; and in the context of coaching, for example, it can be valuable to raise that as a topic for consideration.  We do need to be careful, however, that we are not projecting our stuff onto the person we are coaching: so owning it as ours is important. 

In a Gestalt-style of session we might mention what we are noticing in ourself in response to what they are saying (self-as-tool); or in a Thinking Environment session, we might offer a reflection under the general heading of Information (once people have thought as far as they can by themselves, of course).

But in all cases, we should explore these as issues to be curious (and open-minded) about, rather than assume that we have seen the truth that the other is (deliberately or inadvertently) not discussing.  As ever, humility is a very good starting point!

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With thanks to Joel Moysuh and Yogendra Singh  for sharing their photos on Unsplash

Wilful Blindness

At a recent Time to Think Collegiate meeting, we were joined by Margaret Heffernan, the academic, coach and author who wrote Wilful Blindness ( a book I'd already found fascinating and enlightening). She gave a fascinating insight into her work, with particular reference to how it relates to the Thinking Environment. Needless to say, my summary notes here do not reflect the richness (and in particular the research and the examples) or Margaret's talk. But the price of Wilful Blindness is very high: just ask BP...

The first point she made is that we are naturally attracted to people like us. So we are likely to recruit people like us, not just formally to positions, but also informally into project teams, or simply the people we turn to for advice and ideas. The risk being, of course, that people like us will not only share our particular view of the world, but also our blindspots. This is one of the reasons why Difference is one of the ten Components of the Thinking Environment.

Secondly, we can only focus on one thing at a time. We (and in particular some of our senior clients) may believe we can multi-task, but that is largely an illusion. For serious thinking tasks, we need to stay focused: and interruptions kill focus. Which is why Attention, with its attendant veto on interrupting, is another of the Components. 

Thirdly, we all operate with mental models: our understanding of how the world works.  These are valuable, as they save us form having to start from scratch each time we think about anything. But they are also risky, as they may rely on embedded assumptions, which may be inaccurate; and also because we are so prone to confirmation bias: noticing and attaching meaning to what conforms to our mental models, and ignoring, discounting, or even failing to notice, anything that contradicts them. That is why Incisive Questions that seek out and replace untrue assumptions are another Component.

Fourthly, our behaviour changes when we are in an organisational context. In particular, there is an interesting phenomenon of organisational silence. We might imagine that if someone sees that something is going wrong, he or she will speak out. But research and experience demonstrate that is simply not the case; and is, in fact, a very dangerous operating premise.  In fact, Margaret quoted research that suggests that 85% of executives have issues or concerns that they don't raise (which is a stunning, and frightening, figure!)  The reasons for that being both fear of retribution, and concerns about utility (ie it won't actually make a difference). Which is why Equality is so important in a Thinking Environment.

Margaret went on to explain how her attention had shifted from how do we eliminate Wilful Blindness, to at least understanding the contexts and cultures in which it is most likely to flourish.  Some of the key characteristics are:

•     Steep hierarchies (which inhibit dialogue between people who know what's going on at the sharp end, and people who make decisions)

•     Bureaucracies (particularly because they define what is important [eg via KPIs] therefore causing lots of other things to be overlooked)

•     Scale - not least because large organisations are more likely to have steep hierarchies and bureaucracy; (unless they work hard to prevent it, for example by organising into small operating groups).

There was lots more, and all of it good; not least her client examples, some of which resonated uncannily with issues that are live for some of my clients.  But that's enough for now!  Maybe I will write further on this another day.

The Gestalt Cycle as a structure for coaching.

I have been continuing to read and think about Gestalt, and in Nevis' Organisational Consulting, A Gestalt Approach I found him suggesting The Gestalt Cycle as a map of the consultancy process. Which prompted me to think of it as a possible structure for a coaching session.  

So here are my first thoughts:

Sensation: one might start by inviting clients to attend to their physical sensations in the here and now, as a way of arriving fully at the session; such an invitation also does something to establish the coach’s presence.

Awareness: one might then invite them to consider what comes to mind as the issue(s) to explore at the session.  It may be that many figures emerge from the ground; the coach will then encourage the client to increase awareness and contact with these figures to see which become salient. This can take time as the client processes the possibilities, and also as the client gains the confidence to talk about the serious stuff  Again, the coach’s presence may be key here.

Mobilisation: when the client decides what the most salient figure is, there is likely to be an increase of energy in both client and coach. It may be helpful to comment on this (self as mirror), to help the client to channel energy towards the salient figure. 

Action: at this stage, the coach and the client work together to address the issue, which may take many forms.  In Gestalt, the aim is always to help the client to increase awareness and maintain contact, in the here and now, with both the issue and the coach. This may involve heightening the client’s awareness of ways in which contact is being blocked (by retroflection, introjection etc).

Contact: this is the moment at which learning occurs: the moment when what is desired and what is possible are brought together. Bothe Perls and Nevis suggest that there is the need for an ‘aggressive’ contact with the figure of interest: it needs to be chewed before digestion, as it were, rather than simply swallowed whole. Thus the coach might want to ensure that a client doesn’t  reach to quick or simplistic a sense of resolution, but has really engaged with the figure with sustained attention.

Resolution and Closure: the learning from the moment of Contact is interpreted; and the figure is no longer salient: it has, in some way, been resolved. Again, the presence of the coach, including an acknowledgement of what has occurred and reflections on what has been observed and experienced by the coach may be valuable here. 

Withdrawal: attention is then withdrawn from the figure, the learning is assimilated into the ground, where it is available for future use.

 I should stress that this is purely theoretical at this stage.  I have not (or not consciously) sought to structure a session in this way; but as I wrote it out, it seemed strangely familiar...

More Thoughts on Gestalt and the Thinking Environment

 I blogged recently on Gestalt and the Thinking Environment. That post attracted quite a lot of interest and comments on Linked In, and I have been thinking further about the subject.

One of my lines of thought is that the concepts of contact in Gestalt, and Attention, in the Thinking Environment, are clearly closely related. 

In Gestalt, the practitioner both encourages individuals to stay in contact with themselves, and with the figure which they are addressing; and also strives to establish and maintain contact between the practitioner and the individual.

In the Thinking Environment, it is axiomatic that the practitioner gives complete and unqualified attention to the thinker.

Which led me to reflect that the classic blocks to contact, in Gestalt, may also be at least some of the things that a Thinking Partner needs to avoid, in order to sustain that extraordinary quality of attention that is the core of this approach.

Those blocks are:

Desensitisation: blocks sensation - often a result of trauma.

Deflection:  eg rather than acknowledging one's true sensation, one makes a little joke…

Introjection: all the shoulds and shouldn'ts one has swallowed over the years.

Projection:  where one guesses what others might be thinking or feeling based on one's own thoughts or feelings.

Retroflection: where one avoids taking action for fear of (eg) failure  - and suffers worse consequences.

Confluence: acting on someone else's needs or desires rather than one's own. 

Egotism: (self-explanatory).

William Coulson

And even as I type them out, I am aware (in a very Gestalty way) of a sensation of unease around Introjection. I think that we have to be very careful here. According to William Coulson, who was Carl Rogers' right-hand man for many years, one of the problems Carl had when training others in his work, was that many of them bathed in the heady warmth of unconditional positive regard so luxuriously, and treated all moral injunctions as introjections, with the result that many ended up having casual sexual relationships with multiple clients.

In conversation with a colleague recently, I noticed an aversion in her to any sense of 'rules' about this work. Yet when I mentioned the need for 'boundaries' she was in whole-hearted agreement.

And of course, most professional coaches consider themselves bound by the global code of ethics drawn up by the EMCC  and AC (or a similar professional code). 

So whether you consider them boundaries, ethics, or rules, don't be misled by the idea of Introjection to consider yourself free of them.  Introjection really applies to the kinds of rules that we may have learned as children and be bound by out of our conscious awareness. In Gestalt terms, the key issue is to become aware of them, and then to evaluate them and their applicability (or not) to the issue at hand - not simply to discard them!

Gestalt and the Thinking Environment

 I have long been interested in Gestalt, especially as it applies to learning and development, and coaching. This interest was initiated by two of the colleagues whose work I have most admired, and with whom I have particularly enjoyed working. Both work with Gestalt a lot, though in very different ways.

More recently, I have re-engaged with the theoretical base of Gestalt, as i was running a development day on the use of Gestalt in coaching supervision for my friends and colleagues in the Coaching Supervision Partnership.

One of the key concepts in Gestalt is the Gestalt Cycle of Contact. This suggests a cycle of Sensation: Awareness: Mobilisation: Action: Contact: Resolution and Closure: Withdrawal; in which we are all engaged all the time that we are conscious. Different practitioners use slightly different labels for the different stages of the cycle.  The idea is that when something becomes salient for us (emerges as a 'figure' from the 'ground' of all the things we could attend to), we engage in this cycle, and if we reach resolution, closure and withdrawal, that is a healthy, completed cycle. The figure then returns to the ground, and something else may emerge as salient, as a new figure. However, if the cycle is not completed, we are left with that unsatisfied sensation of unfinished business.

Some of the blocks, which impede 'contact' and completion of the cycle, are:

• Desensitisation: (blocks sensation - often a result of trauma)
• Deflection: eg rather than acknowledging your true sensation, you make a little joke...
• Introjection: all the shoulds and shouldn'ts we have swallowed over the years.
• Projection: where we guess what others might be thinking or feeling based on our own thoughts or feelings
• Retroflection: where we avoid taking action for fear of (eg) failure and suffer worse consequences.
• Confluence: acting on someone else's needs or desires rather than one's own
• Egotism.

Another interesting observation is the paradoxical theory of change: Change occurs in the process of becoming more fully what is rather than in trying to become other. This is an aspect of awareness - full attention and contact with how things are has the result that change naturally arises.  Along with this is the paradox of resistance: if we support resistance, we encounter less of it.

Also, the presence of the practitioner (therapist, coach, supervisor) is an essential aspect of this work; and the practitioner's awareness of, and naming of, what is going on for him or herself is very valuable: 'self as tool.'   Likewise, there is an emphasis on working with the here and now: if a coach wants to think about a particular coaching incident, for instance, a Gestalt perspective is to focus on what the coach is feeling about that incident right now, rather than at the time it took place.  Exploring that is often very rich and provocative of insight. Gestalt questions are generally about the present, not the past or the future.

And because I continue to be a keen advocate, and practitioner, of Nancy Kline's Thinking Environment, I have been thinking about the points of commonality, and the differences, with Gestalt.

Some of the commonalities are the focus on the present moment, including a recognition of the importance of sensations and feelings; the importance of the presence of the practitioner, and an assumption that change will arise from increased understanding or awareness. Both approaches are marked by a very high level of listening, and giving a very large proportion of the time to the individual to explore his or her thoughts and feelings.

However, there are also marked differences: Gestalt practitioners are likely to have much more content in their interventions (compared to the largely content-free approach that characterises a Thinking Environment).  For example, they may draw attention to anything that they notice that is blocking contact. Likewise, they are likely to give feedback about their own feelings here-and-now as a key part of the process. 

Having said which, I find that in practice the two approaches are very consonant, and it is relatively easy for me - and sometimes seems helpful for my client - to move between the two.

I'll be particularly interested in any comments from other practitioners who are engaged in both approaches: as ever, this post is very much my thinking aloud about something that has become salient for me (a figure that has emerged from the ground), and is my early musings: I am sure there is much more for me to learn here.

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With thanks to LinkedIn Sales Solutions for sharing their photo on Unsplash