Coaching Bots, Heuristics and Schemata

I attended (or logged into, to be more strictly accurate) a fascinating talk hosted by the EMCC, and presented by a research team who had compared the effectiveness of three coaching bots. 

They had build prompts to get ChatGPT to simulate three different coaching approaches, and had a fairly large sample size of coachees to interact with them.

The results were fascinating.  The team were Jonathan Reitz, Rebecca Rutschmann and Nicky Terblanche, and the three approaches they were comparing were GROW, Solutions Focussed and Cognitive Behavioural Coaching. 

Their initial hypotheses included that the GROWBot would perform best in terms of goal attainment and the goal aspect of the working alliance and would be perceived as easiest to use; and that the Solutions Focussed Bot would be most highly rated for the bond and task aspects of the working alliance, and for the working alliance overall, and would also be perceived as more effective in improving performance, more enjoyable to use, and leave users with a more favourable attitude overall and a higher likelihood of using it again.

None of these hypotheses were supported.

Instead, the analysis showed that all three bots scored similarly for goal attainment, and for every other measure the CBCBot outperformed the other two, and by statistically significant amounts in all but one case (the bond aspect of the working alliance). 

I was less surprised than the researchers (and indeed wondered how they had developed their initial hypotheses). CBT is very well researched and its efficacy is well-known (though not, of course universal) so I would have expected its coaching cousin to do well. 

And it lined nicely to the most recent module of the Psychology of Coaching Programme that I am studying, which was on Cognitive Psychology.

This was fascinating as ever, albeit rather familiar territory to me. My book Shifting Stories is a simple (though of course powerful and sophisticated!) application of cognitive psychology. And what this module did was to provide some depth and some fancy language (heuristics and schemata for example) for concepts I work with quite frequently.  But it is always good to refresh one's understanding and re-visit the assumptions and biases that underpin one's approach. And of course the future modules will probably take me into new territory, so it is quite reassuring to start from a feeling of moderate competence, before launching into the unknown.

It is also interesting that it is in the field of cognitive psychology that the coaching Bots seem to be effective (at least in terms of the aspects measured by the researchers on this project). But my hope is that I will learn more about the relational and other aspects of coaching to understand whether my hope that I am irreplaceable as a coach is well-founded or self-deluding.

My initial hypothesis, for what it's worth, is that the human aspects of coaching that Bots will not be able to simulate generative attention, nor the intuition that is born, perhaps of parallel process, nor compassion.  But how we measure the impact of these is a problem for the researchers...

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.

The Importance of Closure

Closure has been on my mind a lot recently, for various reasons. One is that I have just finished the final Futures programme with Colin Riordan, who conceived the programme back in 2006, and with whom I have run it every year (bar Covid) since - in three different universities. As Colin retires from his role as VC at Cardiff this year, we will not be running it again.

Closure has also arisen in the context of supervision: one of the coaches I supervise works in an environment which means that people she coaches may be re-located at short notice; so sometimes the coaching is left hanging, with no possibility of closure.

And I was in an interesting conversation about coaching the other day with other coaches, discussing the merits of a fixed number of sessions versus open-ended coaching. I suggested that an agreed end-point was often useful, even if at that point it was agreed to carry on - precisely because I think that closure is important. 

So what do I mean by closure, and why is it important?

There are many ways of coming at this, and I will pick two of my favourite. One is to consider the Gestalt Cycle of Awareness (about which I have blogged previously, here in relation to Kline's Thinking Environment, and here as  a structure for coaching).

I think that the expression 'unfinished business' derives from this understanding: that if the cycle of awareness is not completed satisfactorily, (that is if resolution and closure are not accomplished, followed by withdrawal of attention from the issue under consideration) then it remains a drain on emotional energy. Too much unfinished business, and we risk being seriously depleted. 

So, considering the issues that made closure salient for me, I would observe that the Futures work was satisfactorily closed: indeed we had a celebratory event, and reflections and learnings were shared. But the coaching client who is re-located at short notice will lack closure, as will the coach. I can't do much about the client, but part of the job of supervision is to help coaches to reach closure in precisely such circumstances.  And the risk of the open-ended coaching approach is precisely that there is no closure: it just runs on, with accompanying risks of loss of purpose and possible client dependency.

Which raises the question again: what is closure and why is it important? Another way of thinking about this is to consider our need to make meaning out of our experience (my excellent book Shifting Stories is crucial reading here, of course!). A story has a beginning, a middle and an end; and it is at the end that we are best able to discern what meaning we can make. So a key aspect of closure, in my understanding, is to reflect, so as to derive the meaning from our experience. In an urgency-addicted culture, that may be difficult, leading again to lots of unfinished business and depleted people.

In coaching, for example, both coach and client benefit from reflecting on the work done together, the learning that has arisen, how that has translated into behavioural change, how it has been and will be sustained, and so on. That is why I think it is good to create end-points in long-term coaching relationships, where these are the focus of the conversation; even if then it is agreed that there is more work to be done together; in which case, re-contracting is appropriate. That minimises the risk of both drifting into general chat or developing a dependency between the coach and the client. 

In a sense, closure is artificial: at the end of a coaching relationship, the client (rightly) withdraws: and therefore may well never know what happens next for the client. Occasionally I meet someone whom I coached years ago, and they tell me about the enduring impact of the work; but that is the exception rather than the rule; normally I simply don't know.  But the very fact of its artificiality means that it can be constructed in unlikely circumstances: such as when a client is re-located without any chance of a final session. The point is for the coach to be supported, first in constructing what meaning she or he can from the situation and secondly in finding peace. So there is an emotional, as well as a rational, component to closure.  

And maybe that's as good a definition as any of effective closure: finding peace; so that the issue, relationship, conflict or whatever, can be laid to rest.

The ultimate closure, of course, is death. Which is why an unprepared death, though it may seem a mercy in some ways, is often very traumatising. Given that understanding, it is important to talk about death, and break our current taboo. But on that topic, I point you to a wisdom much better informed than mine, in Kathryn Mannix's book With the End in Mind (about which I have previously written on the Shifting Stories blog).

Which leaves me with one final problem: how do I close a blog post about closure? Perhaps with these questions:

What meaning are you making about Closure and its importance in your work and your life as you read this post?

And given that, how will you find a place of peace with the topic?

I remember... (or do I?)

As I was cycling up the fell this morning, I was passed by a Land Rover.  There's not much traffic up there in the early morning, and I know most of the regulars and their vehicles, so registered this as a stranger. When I got to the top, the open fell, I glanced around, wondering whether it was parked up somewhere, for the driver to go for a walk, or whether it had, perhaps, gone on to the farm where the road ends.  I couldn't see it, so assumed it was either ahead of me in a dip, or at the farm.

And I cycled on, up the fell and  back.  And as I was coming back towards the road, I met one of our neighbours, Charles, who lives half way up the hill, on his quad bike, leading the Land Rover, off-road, over the fell.  Doubtless there was some farming related activity they were engaged in.

So I thought 'Ah, the Land Rover must have been looking for Charles, gone past his house, and had to turn back to find him.' And then I realised: the Land Rover had passed me before I had passed Charles' house.  There was no reason to think that it had not gone straight there. I had only assumed that, because I had previously assumed that it was ahead of me on the road, when I got to the top of the fell. 

And this interested me, because I could see that I had nearly laid down a false memory. Had I not recalled that the Land Rover could have gone straight to Charles', and retained the idea that it must have been ahead of me and therefore had to turn round to go to find Charles, that would have been the truth as I remembered it. 

Why this interested me in particular is because I have recently been involved in a couple of situations where people's account of what transpired were very different, and serious allegations of bad behaviour ensued. 

In one case, the person on receiving end of allegations commented that she was the victim of someone putting words into her mouth that were never even contemplated let alone uttered.

In another, someone was accused of standing by when someone else was being bullied, when what he had observed was an awkward conversation between a socially unskilled manager and a team member. 

It is very easy to assume in such cases either that a complainant is exaggerating, or even vexatious; or that we should believe the victim. But I wonder if in at least some cases, the problems with memory that I mentioned above, may apply.

I can readily see that if I have felt upset, discriminated against or bullied (on the one hand) or if I have had a difficult conversation with someone who visibly got upset (on the other) my memory of the incident may not be 100% accurate. I might even remember as verbalised what I actually thought the other was (clearly, obviously...) thinking. And so I might, with no bad faith at all, give an account that was both subjectively honest and objectively incorrect; and further be very indignant when anyone challenged my account. 

At a personal level, that clearly suggests proceeding with a degree of humility and a somewhat tentative approach to making truth-claims about the past based on my recollection. And if engaging with others about such incidents, I think that an approach that explores the differing stories that people have about the incident is valuable. Which reminds me, Shifting Stories was recently re-printed: so consider this a plug! (as well, I hope, as a thought provoking post).

--

With thanks to  Jordan McGee  and  jean wimmerlin for sharing their photos on Unsplash

How does that help?

 How does that help? I was asked.  And it's a good question.  The that under discussion was being supported to think out loud - all that Nancy Kline stuff I keep going on about. And the challenge implicit in the question (which I elicited by listening...) was that if you simply say out loud what you are already thinking, that doesn't take your thinking any further forward.

David Rock, in his book The Brain at Work, which I have already blogged about, highlights our intuition that saying difficult stuff out loud is more likely to be unhelpful: solidifying the difficult stuff as something real (our intuition often tells us the same about writing it down, come to that - and we'll return to journalling in another post, another time). Yet, he says, the research suggests that the reverse is true; or at least, that it can be very helpful.

And that is my experience, too, both with regards to sharing my own difficult stuff, and hearing other peoples'. Why might that be?

I think that there are several reasons. Jordan Peterson, in 12 Rules for Life, talks about how helpful it is for the brain to be required to order and select, from the myriad bits of detail and noise surrounding an experience, those which we regard as important; and telling our story out loud makes us do that. That has a clarifying effect: rather than all the undifferentiated noise, we now have a narrative that we can examine.

And I am reminded, too, of Dumbledore's pensieve: a device into which he could place his thoughts and memories, to be examined, but also (presumably) to free up cognitive processing capacity in his brain. 

In my experience, there are a few other things that go on.  When one is listened to really well, one takes one's thinking further: it is not uncommon both for me and for those I am coaching, to surprise ourselves with what we say; and then to pause and wonder Do I really think that? Sometimes we expose our own inner hyperbole, our love of drama, our need to be the hero - or the victim. And once it is said out loud, that is easier to recognise and address.

Also, thinking out loud is often a good way to address rumination - that rather less helpful process of going over and over worries without progress or resolution. Somehow, the presence of a listener makes rumination seem too self-indulgent, and we tend to move forwards, rather than just round and round, in our thinking. 

There are also benefits in the very process of assigning words to our thoughts. Worries can be vague and all-encompassing; but naming them both makes them more specific, and therefore more limited.  Moreover, the very act of naming something gives us a feeling of power over it.  Children learning to deal with disruptive emotions are often told Name it to tame it! and that is very good advice. That, of course, relates to the naming of stories that is part of my Shifting Stories methodology.

I realise that I have written here particularly about the value of thinking about difficult stuff in this way; but I think this also applies to thinking about positive stuff.  Indeed, I would argue that there is a particular value in doing so. We often pass over the positive too quickly, for many reasons. One is that thinking about it with someone else may feel boastful or arrogant; another is that it doesn't need our attention in the same way - there is no problem to solve; and so on.  However, there are real benefits to reflecting on what has gone well, both for our mental well-being, and for our learning. 

So I will end with that challenge to you: find someone who is prepared to listen to you with exquisite attention, and then spend a few minutes (10?... 20?...  30, even?...) really unpacking some success that you have had to see what learning, and affirmation, there is for you in it.  And then, of course, do the same for the person who has been listening to you: and you will realise that neither role is a waste of time, nor dull, nor any of those other excuses our mind presents to us when we consider such an activity.

Sticking to the Process

I am reflecting this week on a very difficult project that is just coming towards a successful conclusion: helping a team address a long-running and toxic conflict.  For a brief description of how we used an implicit ManyStory approach, see my post on the Shifting Stories blog.

In this post I want to reflect on something else: how having good frameworks or maps of the process, and then sticking to them, has been instrumental in addressing this complex issue.  

The first problem was that the client (the senior manager who called us in) seemed to want a magic solution. ‘Just get them together and sort it out.’ That rang alarm bells, because this conflict had been running for over a year, and if it had been that simple, I am sure that the client could have done this for himself.

So I picked up my copy of Flawless Consulting, and reminded myself of some of Peter Block’s wise advice.  And having the confidence that engenders (and not just because it makes sense, but because whenever I’ve used his approach in the past, it has always delivered) and also the confidence of being at a stage in my business life when I am quite happy to say no to a client who refuses to allow me work in a way that will get the best result, I was fairly robust. That is, I insisted on proper diagnostic work before proceeding. 

The client was not happy: his (understandable) concern was that by asking people about the issue, we would be bringing it to their attention, when they might not have been aware of it. However, my instinct was that if it had been running for as long as he told us, and with the toxicity he’d also mentioned, then there was nobody in contact with the team who would be unaware of it.  And so it proved.

 

Then we had the report-writing to do. Again, I was very mindful of Peter Block, and we wrote a report designed to tell the truth (as we had understood it from the diagnostic interviews and meetings) and present a clear and simple picture of what was happening.

Again, the client was surprised, and was concerned that our truth-telling would serve only to exacerbate the problem, by inflaming the passions of some of those involved. To some extent he was right: some of the protagonists were upset and angered by what we reported. But we spoke with them – and equally importantly listened to them. And what we gained through this was that all involved recognised that we were being honest: right or wrong, we were telling it how we saw it, and were neither blaming nor excusing; and above all not concealing or denying anything.  I believe that was critical in winning their trust, which was essential for the next stage.

Me with Nancy
on the occasion of my qualifying as a
Time to Think Coach

For the meetings, I had two frameworks in mind. One was Nancy Kline's Thinking Environment, and in particular her ten components: 

• Attention
• Equality
• Ease
• Appreciation
• Encouragement
• Feelings
• Information
• Diversity
• Incisive Questions
• Place

--> (See here for a fuller explanation of these). We used these as the ground rules for our meetings/workshops with the protagonists in the conflict. Our clear presentation of these, and the reason we thought that they were important, and then our consistency in running the workshops in accordance with them, using structures (rounds, paired thinking etc) that supported them, and holding all participants to them, helped create the safety needed for some honest conversations and reflections. And of course, it was the honesty of the conversations, and the fact that all were committed to listening with full attention to everybody else's contributions, that really started to shift things.

The other framework I had in mind was the ManyStory approach, as described in my book Shifting Stories. I have written how that implicitly shaped the whole process on the Shifting Stories blog. Here I will simply note that having the framework in mind provided me with an overall route map to follow, whilst still allowing the conversations during the workshops to flow where they needed to.

So the conclusion I am drawing (and as so often with blogging, it is really about writing a memo to myself) is the value and importance of (well-chosen, appropriate) frameworks to help us to navigate complexity, deal with challenges, and deliver results, whilst maintaining a high level of openness and responsiveness, which is a sine qua non of this type of work.

Inside Out: Emotions in Hollywood and Science

On Monday I went to an excellent event run by the School of Psychology at Cardiff University, as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science.

The event involved a screening of Inside Out, followed by presentations by Profs Tony Manstead, Stephanie van Goozen and Andrew Lawrence, with Dr Job van der Schalk as ringmaster.

Inside Out was excellent. If you have not seen it, here is one of the scenes I like, which really demonstrates emotional contagion in action:

Following the film, the talks covered a wide range of areas. A number of points struck me.

I was interested in Tony Manstead's points about the functions of emotions, and the distinction between the intrapersonal and the interpersonal functions. At the intrapersonal level, emotions are often a signal that we need to act, often preparing us for an emergency response: fight or flight. At the interpersonal level, they enable learning, links to other people and communication. A particularly interesting example was the 'is it safe to cross?' experiment with toddlers. The toddler is on a surface that appears to disappear, and is invited to crawl towards his or her mother. When the mother's face communicated fear, none of the toddlers ventured to cross. When the mother's face communicated joy, 74% of them did so.

Stephanie van Goozen talked about the development of emotional problems in children. These can range from being rejected by peers to aggressive behaviour. She pointed out that these may arise from difficulty in recognising emotions in others, and difficulty in controlling one's own emotions. This, of course, resonates with some of the underpinning ideas of the Emotional Intelligence movement (as does the idea of emotional contagion, already mentioned). She highlighted two phases in the developing child's life when problems may develop: early childhood and puberty/adolescence.

Andrew Lawrence introduced us to some of the neuroscience that sits behind all this, including explaining how to parse fear in a human being (fmri scans and tarantulas are involved...). In particular he highlighted the key role of the amygdala, which is central in the processing of emotions, and how well connected it is to many other areas of the brain, which are related to many other important processes. So emotional responses to stimuli have wide ranging effects on perception, memory, interpretation, and so on.  All of that, of course, resonates particularly with the issues I look at in Shifting Stories.

So a very rich afternoon - much richer than this brief summary suggests - with plenty of food for thought, as well as a lot of confirmation of the underpinnings of various aspects of my work.

Shifting Stories

After a long gestation,  Shifting Stories (by Andrew Scott, ISBN 9781785893551) is now available to order from your local bookshop, on Amazon (also as an ebook, but without the wonderful graphics), and directly from me (If you would like a signed copy) via the website (see below)

I would ask that you consider buying from your local bookshop, rather than Amazon, for a few reasons: bookshops struggle for business, but we would miss them if they disappeared - and they pay a much better margin to authors than Amazon does (so this is also a self-interested request!)  

If you want to know more about the book, there are a few Youtube videos (between 4 and 6 minutes long), and a lot more detail on the  website.

The Youtube videos are 

• a (mock)TV interview, here: 

• a (mock) radio interview here: 

• and a presentation including a case study here (this was produced as a reminder video for people who have been on my workshop):

The website is at www.shiftingstories.uk  

If you like the book, please tell everyone, and write a glowing review on Amazon.

If you dislike the book, please tell me, and tell me why.

If you want to discuss anything in the book, please go to the website (www.shiftingstories.uk)  where I hope lively discussion will take place, to develop my own understanding, and other peoples’ too.

I hope you buy the book, enjoy it, and find it useful; but above all I hope that you engage in the discussion. I think this is a fascinating approach, and am keen to learn more - and hope that you will be part of that process.

I would like to record particular thanks to the many people interviewed for the book, all those years ago (you should have received your complimentary copy a while back: if it did not reach you, please let me know.) And especial thanks to Andrew Derrington, who coached me into writing a readable book, Mike P-S who did the cover and all the graphic work, and Jane P-S who did all the practical editorial work, and built the website.

Enriching the Plot - through film

This week, our first year of the Vice Chancellor's Leadership programme at Winchester came to an end. We concluded with a day of reflection, planning and celebration. As part of that, we invited participants to work in groups to make a film, summarising their learning from the year.

It is a challenge I often set groups, and I am almost always impressed by the creativity they bring to the task. This year at Winchester, we were treated to a Lego movie, a silent movie, an animated alphabet of learning, and a trip along a wonderful model/map of their learning journey.

But I was reflecting on another aspect of this task, this year, in the light of my recently completed book (did I mention I'd written a book?...)  At the end of a programme like this, people will naturally have many stories about it available to them; some parts were better than others, some days less useful than the very best, and so on. Likewise, different members of the group will have different stories about it too. In an academic context, and one in which we have run a pilot programme and are seeking feedback to improve it, there is a risk that the critical comments may come to the fore.

Yet in terms of sustained learning from the programme, and in particular in terms of a continuing sense of agency, which I see as a significant benefit from this particular programme, such a story is not the most helpful one for people to leave with.

So one of the benefits of the film-making (as well as being a lot of fun, which helps to meet the 'celebratory' part of the brief for the day) is that it focuses on the positive learning, and by the process of developing a storyboard, builds a narrative structure for that learning - a story. Then, by translating that narrative structure into an entertaining piece of film, participants strengthen that story in their own minds: enriching the plot, as I term it in my model.

So my hope is that participants will take away that positive story, as encapsulated both in the film and in the enjoyable and energising process of making the film; and that will the their dominant story about the programme: a story that will help them to retain and apply the positive learning from the programme with an enhanced sense of agency.

Shifting Stories

This week I have sent the final proofs of the book to the publisher. That follows several weeks of proofreading, amending, re-proofing, catching a few more errors or infelicities and amending, re-proofing. And then a catastrophic computer failure (the screen dying) on the part of Jane’s Mac, on which the book was. Fortunately we had an up-to-date backup, so were able  to buy a new machine and rescue it. 

In celebration of finally sending it to the publisher, and also because I was running a workshop on Shifting Stories for leaders at Sunderland University, I launched a Twitter account for the book: @ShiftingStories.

The idea is to start the process of engaging people in conversation about the ideas in the book, signpost the new website (to follow) where I hope more extensive conversation will take place, and, of course, prompt people to buy the book when it is published.

So if anyone has any expertise on growing a Twitter account, I'd be most interested!

I also had the good fortune, this week, to learn from Mark Reed how he has been successfully marketing his excellent book: The Research Impact Handbook . This is selling extremely well, and he kindly shared his marketing strategy with me. The first thing to say is that Mark’s book looks excellent: I have only had time to dip into a borrowed copy so far, but that was enough to convince me to buy it.  But there is no doubt that one of the other reasons it is selling well, is that Mark has given serious thought to his marketing strategy, and I look forward to learning more from him.

I also announced the other week that I had seen Mike’s latest design for the cover of Shifting Stories, and this seems like a good time to post that to this blog: so here it is.

I am also toying with writing a short book on one particular story and how it may be shifted. I imagine calling this one: One Day They'll Find Out: Imposter Syndrome and Other Stories.  I would be very interested to know if anyone would find that a good topic. One option would be to make it available as a free .pdf book, as a trailer or taster for Shifting Stories. But as I say, that is still at the 'toying with the idea' phase.