skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Today's CPD event at Cumbria Coaching Network was a session on Clean Coaching by Sioe Lan Tjao. I had come across clean questions many years ago when I did some NLP training, but either they weren't well explained, or I failed to understand the underpinning ideas.
And in my subsequent disillusionment with NLP, I approached today's session with some scepticism. It all seemed very interesting, and at one level, quite sensible: if as a coach one avoids introducing one's own stuff into the conversation, one is likely to be able to help the client to pursue his or her thinking further, without distractions.
However, the particular questions suggested (there is a bank of twelve of them) didn't seem to me to be the only way to do this, and indeed I found it hard to understand why they had been chosen. I suspect it was limitations of time, and the challenge of trying to cover a lot, and include some experiential work, that meant we didn't cover as much as Sioe Lan had hoped.
However, in getting home and following some of the links that she pointed to, I realised that the background to Clean Questions was an assumption, founded on the work of David Grove, about clients' use of metaphor, and the value of exploring that.
And as I read this explanation by Lawley and Tompkins, pursuing my curiosity about metaphor, I found something very interesting. The final example given, From Bombs to Batons, was remarkably similar, in effect, to the work on Story that I have been developing. That is, where I would see myself as helping a client to discover and strengthen a more helpful story, Lawley and Tompkins would see themselves as helping their client to change his or her metaphor.
That may sound like a very slim distinction; and indeed it is. But what I find fascinating is that although we are seeking to do essentially the same thing, the way in which we reached that point is very different; and so is the process we use to help the client. Which is just as well, or the book I've just finished writing would have been a complete waste of time.
Part of me is sorry that I had not come across their work before finishing mine; but part of me is very grateful indeed! It has already taken quite long enough, and there is plenty of scope for taking my thinking further, beyond the book.
I first came across David Kolb's learning cycle many years ago, and it seemed to me (and still seems) a useful way to think about how people learn.
In the first place it has quite high face validity: I can think of specific occasions when I have learned like this. But immediately, that introduces the risk of confirmation bias:if I look for such occasions and find them, I start to believe the model. A better test is to look for counter-examples: times when I have learned which do not fit the model - and I can identify some of them, too.
So it may have some validity in some contexts, but is not, perhaps, a complete or universal model. And that is fine.
In fact, why I like it, as a trainer, is that it reminds me to design learning in ways that include both theoretical and practical aspects: that seems to lead to a richer learning experience, and one that people with different preferences can enjoy.
That word, 'preferences' is key here, I think. There is no doubt that some people prefer theory and observation to practice, and some prefer experience and experimentation to theory. But my take on that is that these preferences should not limit how we learn.
We can shortcut this learning cycle unhelpfully in two ways. On the one hand, I could cycle between reflective observation and abstract conceptualisation, without ever actually engaging in trying things out in practice. One might label that, somewhat unkindly, the 'ivory tower' syndrome. On the other hand, I could cycle between active experimentation and concrete experience, without ever pausing to reflect. An unkind label for that would be the 'headless chicken' syndrome.
Insofar as the model alerts people to those risks, and to a consideration of including both theory and practice in their learning and teaching, I think it is helpful.
However, when people start to label themselves theorists, pragmatists and so on, I think the problems start. Both Kolb, and later (and with huge commercial success) Honey and Mumford developed Learning Style Inventories or Questionnaires to help people to determine their preferred learning style. And my question is, to what end?
In the introduction to Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles Questionnaire, they make a leap from the claim that some people prefer one way of learning, to some people learn more from one way of learning.
The evidence does not seem to support that hypothesis, any more than it supports it with regard to other learning style preferences (such as the Visual, Auditory, and Kinaesthetic model, so beloved of NLP).
In fact, proper research experiments to test these hypotheses are remarkably thin on the ground, given how widely the theories are promoted; and the majority of the experiments that have been conducted that properly test them demonstrate no correlation between learning style preference and better learning outcomes.
Where it gets really unhelpful, though, is when people are taught that they learn best in one way, and cannot learn in another. I came across someone recently who refused to try to learn from a practical exercise (not on a programme I was running, as it happens) on the basis that 'I'm a theorist. I can't learn from things like that unless the learning goal is explained first.' The worst thing was, the individual concerned is also a trainer and coach.
The problem is that such a belief risks being a self-fulfilling prophecy: and that in such cases, the Learning Styles movement, far from helping people to teach and learn better, is teaching people that they can only learn in particular ways, and thus disabling them from a huge range of potential learning.
In fairness to Honey and Mumford, they also say that the learning cycle should be completed in all cases, and that the preference indicates where someone should enter the cycle. But the earlier statement seems to stick fast and is profoundly unhelpful.
At an event recently, I made a disparaging remark about NLP. An academic who was present agreed, suggesting that all the claims of NLP, when subjected to proper research, were proved to be spurious, or at best unproven or unprovable.
I thought he was over-stating it, and mentioned the eye access cues: something I have found interesting and have frequently observed.
A quick search on Google brings up many versions of this chart: interestingly, if you add the filter 'free for re-use' they all disappear (something I will come back to) so I drew my own.
The academic who had queried all NLP said he thought this was bogus too, something I was slow to believe, because I had observed it. I even asked a 'visual' question of the group and noticed the eyes of the chap nearest me going up and to the side as expected.
Subsequently, my academic nemesis pointed me at research that calls this into question. And there is much, much more. It seems that while some peoples' eyes move when they are asked a question, it is by no means universal, and there is no consistent pattern. IE there are enough examples to make the gullible (such as me) believe the chart, not least due to confirmation bias, but the hypothesis does not stand up to serious scrutiny.
The same seems to be true of most other tenets of NLP. Wikipedia carries a long, and well-referenced, article describing the various aspects that have been unsupported when subjected to scientific scrutiny. Wikipedia also notes that there is nothing to stop anyone branding him- or herself as an NLP Master Practitioner (though you will gather that I will not be doing so.)
Which raises some interesting questions: given that NLP is, to say the least, an unproven technique, why are so many trainers so keen to be initiated into it? And given that my outlook on it is sceptical, why was I still so quick to believe the 'eye access cues' claims? Are trainers, in general, particularly gullible?
And it is not just NLP. I have blogged before about the much repeated (by trainers) 'research' that 'proves' that verbal communication is responsible for only 7% of the meaning we receive (the rest being voice (38%) and body language (55%). Clearly bunkum, but passed on from trainer to trainer with all the authority of the Verbal Tradition…
And then there are all the various pseudo-psychometric instruments of varying validity; with even those that benefit from some statistical evidence base (such as MBTI) being wildly mis-represented and over-sold.
I thing there are a few considerations that might lead trainers, as an occupational group, to be more prone to such fads than the average person.
One is the need to have something to offer. Of course, there are things that we can learn from research which may be of help to those we are seeking to serve: the Harvard work on Principled Negotiation would be a good example. But very often the best work I do in the realm of interpersonal skills training is to help people with issues like self-awareness, reflection and experimentation: that is, people construct their own highly personal learning, rather than my teaching them anything.
A second consideration might be the fact that trainers, by and large, are optimistic by temperament. Clearly that is likely to be valuable in a profession that seeks to bring the best out of everyone; but it may incline us more to credulity.
A third is the need to feel professionally qualified and up-to-date. Certification in various methodologies is reassuring, and may help convince clients or potential clients that one really does have something to offer.
Related to that is the fear of being left behind: if everyone else is getting qualified in {whatever it may be} then I probably should too.
I think there is something else going on, too. There is something very appealing about being one of the initiated: I think NLP really trades on this - indeed someone recently described it to me as a giant pyramid selling scam, and I think there is some accuracy in that description. I particularly dislike the labelling Master Practitioner etc. and the amazing amount of money demanded by many of the big NLP organisations to train and qualify people in such an unverified (to be kind) approach. I do not think it a coincidence that every version of the eye access cue chart that Google threw up was copyright.
But I remain embarrassed at my own gullibility, having thought I was above such credulity.
Today's CPD event at Cumbria Coaching Network was a session on Clean Coaching by Sioe Lan Tjao. I had come across clean questions many years ago when I did some NLP training, but either they weren't well explained, or I failed to understand the underpinning ideas.
