The (not true or right, but useful) model of coaching

Dianne is away and so I volunteered to take notes. Of course, as always, these are my impressions. I have done my best to represent our time together as best I could. Please feel free to add comments to enhance all of our understanding.

"Checkin" had a bit of a theme to it today. Many talked about the tension between the way things are and the way we aspire them to be. Roger talked about this tension and the ways we cope with this. He mentioned a client of his who oscillates back and forth between exhilaration in the possibilities of the aspirational state and the depression and heartache of the reality of the current condition. He suggested this oscillation is amplified by our clinging to the aspirational state (and I suppose clinging to the current state also). He suggested it isn't really about holding on to either, but it is about the quality of our being in relation to the oscillation cycle. Do we say "It's good -therefore I'm good, It's bad - therefore I'm bad," or do we just notice the movement in our attention and observe it like we observe a "cool breeze"?

Roger then introduced what he initially thought was a simple model that is neither "right" nor "true." You can see the model in the picture here. Roger thought we could go through this in 15 minutes and then practice it for 90 minutes. What occurred was just the opposite. We discussed it for 90 minutes and practiced for 15 minute. Maybe we are all a bit dense.

As a side note…..Roger did say he only ever talks about one thing…..I do not know what this "thing" is……

I will attempt to explain the model (Maybe Roger can add or subtract as he likes) by discussing each step below.

Complaint. Our homework was to think of a complaint. Roger suggested it might be good to exaggerate and dramatize the complaint so you can really see the shape of it.

Roger asserted there are three types of complaints:

1) ones for entertainment and socializing

2) ones that create our identification as a complainer where people expect us to complain. This could lead to "role lock."

3) a complaint that is about something we deeply care about or are committed to.

One of us offered a complaint as a case study: Parents at his child's basketball games are yelling and clapping when their child's team does well and cheering when the other team does something poorly. He believes the parents should cheer for all the kids when they do something good. The parents also complain to the referees and are generally very competitive.

Narrative. This is where you as a coach will ask the other to tell a story about his complaint. The coach should listen and recreate as accurately as possible, asking to be corrected. Look for trends and patterns in the story or with other developmental conversations you have had. Pay attention to how you (the coach) are reacting to the story. Watch for how you might be hooked and decide, in everything, whether you will engage in that part of the story or by-pass it. This requires divided attention: Attention to other and attention to yourself.

Asserted Necessity. Here you will, as a coach, inquire about the assumptions, paying attention to what they see as "right" or "wrong." You may want to inquire about the consequences of the other's model. Try to find the thing they think "ought" to be a certain way and why? What is the value assumptions around this? Use lightness and humor if possible.

Displaced Commitment. (to tell the truth, reading my notes I am not sure I have this correct.) Look for the other's causal relationship to the complaint. Where is there judgement about what is right and wrong? Where is there a distinction of an other different from self. For instance in the complaint about the basketball parents, Roger noted that this complainer was enacting some of the same behavior: He wasn't saying to parents when they clapped "I am so glad to be here with you, I love the way you are clapping for the kids." He was silently disapproving of their behavior.

Range (inquiry). As we move to the right hand side of the model, we are looking for the absence of an other, and inquiring about our own way of being in a situation. Range is this movement. The exploration of "range" in the basketball parent example goes something like: "If the parents where clapping for all the kids when something good happened and just making room for mistakes, what would that make possible?" The answer was "then the kids would be happy, have fun, be joyful." the next question is "if the kids were happy and joyful, what would that make happen?' This line of questioning continues until the person answering moves laterally or retreats to talk about what wouldn't be present. This is where you can start asking about his/her context of service or mandate.

Context of Service or Mandate. We talked about this at a previous workshop so I don't think I will go into this a lot. The main thing is as a coach you want to really feel this persons context of service. Do not put your own in there. Really try to understand this.

The next two steps "Generative Forms" and "Process" should be skipped initially and the Indicators or results should be discussed.

Indicators. In this step you will ask the person to answer the question: how will you know the aspired state has been achieved. In our example: that the kids are having fun. Be careful here that you don't describe this in the negative.

The negative is actually not possible - by definition - but to create a negation, we actually have to fully create in our mind the idea of the thing we don't want. Then because we have it in our minds, the best we can do is to have less of the bad thing, we can not get rid of it.

It is better to describe an aspirational state as something positive existing that wouldn't have before. In our example we might say that the kids are smiling and laughing and the parents are too.

Generative Forms. Here we really look at describing the state if the mandate was held. How would that feel?

Process. This is where we ask the question, if we were living in a way that is consistent with our mandate, what would I be doing? how would I behave?

When discussing Generative Forms and Process we need to consider the ecology. Imagine it worked out as you want, what are the consequences, intended and unintended? If this happened how would you sustain it? If this happened what other coping strategies might you use? If this happened what might you want to conserve from the current situation?

A couple other things about the model. The right hand side is Intuitive. When we are in the left hand side we are living in duality, where there is an other, an object and subject. I think there are other things about the model, like the bottom of the page is grounded in the immediate and the top is something like the aspirations, but I am not sure on this.

When in a coaching situation, the coach holds the responsibility for the time so the other doesn't have to. Also this process should be bounded. Roger often sets up indicators and then checks back in a week or two so this doesn't go on indefinitely.

Homework: Divided Attention. From the time you notice you are awake in the morning until some predetermined moment (like when you brush you teeth, or cross a threshold) every time you breathe in say "I" and when you breathe out say "am".

Workshop Notes October 21

Facilitation and “Coaching” Workshop Notes October 21

Roger started class by having us all note that a change process has an organic cycle. You can put in all the care in the world and you still have to wait for your vegetables to grow.  That helps us find a place for patience.  But speaking of growing, we’re theoretically growing in this workshop. Today we reviewed what has happened so far.  It was a Midterm, of sorts.

How we all answer the question, what have you learned, tells a lot about our model of facilitation.

JF says we pay attention to where our attention goes.  We observe our range, we examine our mandate. JF has love and awareness as his mandate.

Pete says when you hit range, creativity ceases.

Amy says Cal Poly is a different environment than at her previous job and the old techniques don’t work. She is an IT project manager, and in a previous job, she had a shared vision of business value.  In academia, where she works with staff, there are broad viewpoints. People are entrenched, not everyone has a shared vision, and there is a lot more going on than a bottom line.

Rick says he is getting clear on connection and energy exchange, examining the quality of connection, the quality of exchange.

Kurt went to a meeting where students had not done what they were supposed to do. So this week, Kurt didn't talk at the meeting and the students had to work it out on their own.

Dianne wants an A on the midterm.

Liz would like coaching to be about peers, a non-hierarchy, which we always see it as a gift. How about that?

Rick says Hospice is an amazing coaching experience, an organization with incredible sensitivity to range.

Dan says coaching is about listening well, getting students to understand their perspective and other perspectives better.

Lynn says that milestones are a social construct that are only important if someone says they are. Even riding your bike across the Golden Gate bridge can be a milestone. Or not.

Sean says maybe a student isn't here to be coached or facilitated, which raised the question, can that be true? JF says every experience is a learning experience. Pete says re-frame the question to be “what would be a way to motivate them rather than assume they don't want to be coached.”

Amy says that in interactions with students, we have to demonstrate knowledge by photocopying tests and papers to prove the interaction took place, but that’s not the most important part of teaching. She doesn’t have time to interact the way she would like to.

Roger now stops us to ask what has been your reason for speaking?  Have you been answering the question? Was your mandate conscious? 
Roger says he heard us respond to coaching question by talking about our own model and advocating for it.  He reiterates that he thinks “coaching” is a useless word. Can we use ‘teaching’ instead, or better yet, maybe ‘learning?’

Stuart is overjoyed by our conversation; he values “coaching” even if Roger doesn't.

Roger says we all have an inclination to fix Amy’s dilemma. Linda says she can feel the oppression that Amy talked about, in our classes, at every level. But how can you stop participating?

Here’s Roger's self described “useless recipe.”  First, recognize your participation in the hierarchy. Then don’t fix personal case, recognize that it is the system.  For Roger's model, use the term non-active rather than passive.  Roger seems to be speaking of his own mandate against oppression objectification, violence, suffering, etc.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes (editorial addition).

Roger says we should explicitly work with mandate in groups of two, with one person speaking the context of their action. Could be the espoused model, could be lived.  Express your mandate, the context of service. You might find it is one possibility that you think of, it might be where you hit range. The other person has to re-create it with no changes, no judging, the same words, and as best as possible the exact sentences. It’s not about the meaning, you should ask, is there more, when they speak?  Then discover what it is like to go from speaker to listener when they were re-creating your mandate? Rick listened to see if they understood. JF worried about her being worried if she didn't get it all. Sean kept the mandate simple to help the listener. Dianne stared at the floor trying to memorize the sentences.

And now, the simplest homework assignment you’ve ever gotten.  Find a complaint in your life. See, told you it was easy. Find something that is a particular way and it shouldn't be that way. It ought to be another way. What is your relationship to this compliant? Bring it to class next week for show and tell.

See you Friday, Dianne

Workshop Notes October 14

Facilitation and "Coaching" Notes October 14, 2011

We start with an event and we give it a name. We recognize a pattern about the event and make a decision. We either bypass/suspend the cycle, or we can engage it. We can engage with an external or internal aspect. Consider trusting your intuition about the cycle, the pattern of something occurring. This happens when we recognize thought as a structure during meditation.

So Roger makes us all feel better by filling us in on the old saying “The mind is a drunken monkey dancing on scorpions”, which is actually “The mind is like a drunken monkey bitten by a scorpion.” Either way, the description is perfect.

We are inquiring into facilitation and the structural boundaries of practice that we have for facilitation and coaching. We have the physical space, the room, we have the conversation and we have the interaction between people in the room.

Typically there exists a transactional relationship between knowledge and need. Time and money are the common economy of transaction.

Knowledge <--------------------------> Need

                                                            in between is time and/or money

The relationship implies that time has a value, it implies no need on one side and no knowledge on the other side. At the extreme, one side produces mountains of paper to convince the other side that they have the knowledge and thereby is a need for money to be paid.

The knowledge-need transaction does happen successfully, according to Roger, just not all the time.  Co-dependence creates an imbalance. The transaction of knowledge-need is an artificial structure we use to navigate the world. It’s very one dimensional and neurotic, but our utility is based on it. Linda says she has seen this as teacher-student and has generated mountains of paper (HW) convincing students that she has the knowledge they need.  Haven’t we all?

Hey, is there another model please?

Well, the knowledge-need model is called epistemological.

You can also have the ontological model. Ontological, from my days in philosophy (and now Wikipedia), refers to the  ontological argument for the existence of God, which attempts the method of a priori proof, which uses intuition and reason alone. The argument examines the concept of God, and states that if we can conceive of the greatest possible being, then it must exist. Right on.

The ontological model gives the knowledge-need transaction a higher level called “context of service.”   The context of service might be your mandate...

So what is Dianne’s mandate for giving a talk about women’s success at Cal Poly?

Roger says Dianne is creating a noble lie to give them what they need. Roger sees the concern, Rick has empathy. It would help to have a context of service. JF says that the highest context is love or feeling good about what you are doing.  I’ll work on that and get back to you.

Roger reminds us that we all have a distorted view of reality that allows us to function. Your point of view (POV) is different from everyone else. No one POV can describe ‘reality’; you only have a particular view of it, you can’t comprehend it all.

Trevor realizes he is always in transactional knowledge-need mode, and he doesn’t really have a context for service. Roger helps by pointing out that collectively revealing reality is facilitation.

Collaboration is suspending insistence on MY POV so WE can have a shared POV. How do you make choices about where to go in a conversation? If Rick realizes he’s at range, he looks at his mandate; then reconnects to it. Re-creation informs choices you make in the knowledge-need process.

No one POV describes reality. A shared map of reality is called ‘science.’ Our collective map can’t actually describe the reality of the room we’re in, but a map is all we have. We can’t even get someone else’s POV.

So what does it mean for my survival to be able to sense reality? JF says we are all subjective and Linda says, SO WHAT, what we have is good enough. The apparent phenomena of a sphere can’t be accessed as a whole; you can’t see it all at once. So what?  

If we can’t know reality, then life is a narrative that is based on your own assumptions. The best you can do is to open new narratives.

For example, you can function with an unconscious context of service. Dianne will have to consider this when giving her talk next week. Dianne will do the following while preparing:  she will remember that every success has a challenge that needs to be overcome, simplicity is insightful, relate her unique contribution, speak from the heart, plant seeds, figure out why she is doing the talk, serve well-being, not be anxious, notice the positive that happens at Cal Poly, find peace, to respect the audience's intelligence - both emotional and intellectual, and perhaps celebrate failure robustly!

HW for next week is to formalize our mandate for our upper bubble, our context of service. Think, “I am engaging” in relationship to what? What assumptions are involved in your practice? Next time we will talk about mandates with each other and examine the consequences.

-Dianne

Workshop Notes October 7

Homework:

Feel the safety boundaries.

The words you used was “range”…. “I don’t know what range is”,

Where do people hit range.  What is in the environment to help them hit that range.

Roger: Be in an ongoing process to see yourself in coaching and/or facilitation.  Self observe!  What model are you doing this, how is this occurring for you, with enough clarity to tell someone else what your model is.  What are the structural conditions would you want in place to make this a safe process… like asking the person if you can talk to them.  The simple process of asking their permission.  Range…. The condition of complaint or offense… that something is the way it shouldn’t be… this is the entry point for a change or coaching process.  You might enter into this to “fix” it… in a superficial sense.  Often we don’t understand the context of why there is a problem… so it is better to inquire. 

Simple process:

                          -  External

              Engage –internal

Event –

-          By pass

Did we read the Bohm?

If we can suspend the judgment on the other person’s problem… we delay this, and have a reflective moment of inquiry. 

Pete engaged Tekuru this morning because she was not happy about the walkathon.  He suspended his judgments, and asked questions… engaging her in a practice of range.

Range is when they disengage in the creative process.  When they reach range… “because then I can get a Lexus Convertible”… now you are in a position to test your range, or if you will judge them.  In a coaching process, you need to be conscious of your own range… if you can never hit range, super!, but if you do… what do you do?  One way to understand range is to know your strategy…

What are the preconditions to being in a coaching or facilitation process?... caring.  If you find that you don’t care, then it’s not coaching anymore.  Then you can pull out.

For them in that moment it IS transforming… The Lexus is Transformative… Transcendental.  “Hello!  It’s a LEXUS”… they are at range.  Now can you extend their range…. But this carries an assumption that their range isn’t in the right place…. It would be better for ME!... it would solve MY complaint about their “wrong” priorities. 

If are at range, then the thing to do is BE there… stay there.  This is tough – especially when there is multiple range, which is conflict… to just stay there.

Coaching and facilitation is inherently compassionate process.  But if you try to get rid of the suffering, then you will likely not be “successful”. 

Often times, nonintervention is a powerful coaching technique… the least possible you can do in the coaching/facilitation process is most effective…. But you need a mandate.

A mandate may have consequences… It may just be a backstory… but you have to consider that none of this exists..

HW: Explore Mandate.  Look at the places where you’re coaching.  What is your mandate?  Where is your own range?

Is there an element of power… as if you decide to coach a colleague, now you’re listening to them at arm’s length and this could destroy your colleagiality?...

Roger: my answer to this is transparency.  Then you have to determine if your mandate is sufficient to interrupt the conversation to introduce your thoughts transparently.  This graphic is just a way to make explicit what is already going on in you… probably inefficienty. 

What if someone just taught you now as an adult to brush your teeth for the first time.  This would feel weird at first.  How do you make this transparency without making it too awkward in a group?  What are the boundary conditions to have in place to have a successful c/f model?

“Doing the least amount of possible is best”… This is just about being present. 

Roger: if you’re really present, then there is no “other”… most of the things I do distract me from being present.

“Range” means your needs are met…. But Bohm talks about suspension of apparent necessity.  This is the fundamental source of suffering – a perceived need not being met.

What are the entry conditions for any intervention.

If I’m to engage in pushing an adaption of capacity building (for instance) it can appear as violent to the people.  So can you make a container for this?

Transactional model: knowledge for money… like teaching.  This could be suffering.  Because it deletes the meaning and value of connectedness. 

For Roger, the background conditions of his C/F process … context to serve and be community, is it aspirational?… is that if this is something that they’d be doing anyway… is good (for him).  The (normal) money transaction is a byproduct.  Can I practice unconditional positive regard? 

Karma yoga is about the recognition of obligation with no thought of return… yes, this is impossible… but most of the time, you have this little thing…”what am I going to get”.. you need to be conscious of when you have expectation of return. 

Roger: My experience in the check in is suffering because of the system that I have to do something about it…. You ability to be in the apparent present suffering of “others” may exceed your range…. This can also happen with the exceeding happiness of others.

If we’re considering these things, how does this manifest itself in practice?

If someone close to you is in pain, you may not be able to remain within range as you will WANT to “fix” them..

If we engage in a translational coaching, then we are being manipulative behavior?  But some things are simply translational. 

To what degree are you attached to an implicit or explicit necessarily, and how do you bypass or engage that?...

You are manipulative if you are engaging in an interaction with an understanding that the other doesn’t have. 

So Pete realizes that this session has provided him the opportunity to finish his HW!

In coaching (and all other interactions), the structure I would want in place is that my actions (whether transparent or covert) would be consistent with the relationship we both knowingly accept.

-Pete

Workshop Notes September 30

Facilitation and "Coaching" Workshop Notes, September 30

After introductions of several new participants, we checked in to class and then Roger told us a story. Sometimes he is asked by companies to come in as a consultant and “motivate our apathetic employees.” Roger says that employees are highly motivated, just not, evidently, for what the management wants.  Management doesn’t always understand this, so Roger turns these jobs down. Just like the rest of us, the actions of the employees are naturally correlated to their perceived future. We could be seeing a pattern of the past that gets extended to the future, or the future might be based on personal experience. For example, grades are perceived to correlate to jobs, and a B grade might have associated with it an imagined future salary that is $10,000 per year lower than an A.

  

The concept of motivation brings up whether actions are universally positive. Your actions are positive in your world view, aren’t they?  Carl Rogers’ assumption is that behavior is logical in the context of one’s own life. If another person’s actions don’t seem positive to you, you don’t have their world view.

So our class needs to process this. I heard Roger say that unconditional positive regard is an assumption, but I also heard him say it's impossible to be true. Now what do we do?

If you are Jean Francois, then you can have unconditional love, with notable exceptions for serial killers and Hitler.

If you’re Carol, you aren’t quick to judge and you make a lousy juror.

If you’re Pete, then you don’t hold it against a mountain lion that it would eat you if it could.

If you’re Nina, then you could love the person, but not the behavior.

If you’re Trevor, you’re amused by how all these comments are just zipping by each other.

Roger hopes our class can help us reveal our pre-existing models and in that way be conscious about what we do and thus have a choice about it. Roger says we’ll be investigating the quality of our attention. But wait, says Kurt, what do you mean by quality? Quality could be right, wrong, same, or other. Examples of qualities include fixed, open, sharp, mushy, etc.  Roger admits his attention can have qualities of intolerance, judging, and doubting. He’s trying to convince us he’s human. Ha.

Jean Francois’ position indicates there is a right and wrong, so unconditional positive regard is for 95 % of people. Roger helps by defining “practice” to be the other 5%, and we should all just try to have moments of unconditional positive regard since it can’t be maintained at all times.  

Neil brings up the concept of triangulation in teaching, that students are motivated to follow you. We coach the students, they in turn coach us to be more effective. Neil will have to fill us in on how the details work.

Roger says that curiosity is a key feature of facilitation. You can imagine that you don't care about your student, but you really do. Lynn suggests that maybe professoring is not necessary (don’t spread it around) since learning is natural and it can happen without us professor types. Well Roger fills us all in on how students are always actively engaged, we just don't know what in. Hmmm.

Dan says that a critical element of facilitation is the level of engagement of your audience. But how do you know if someone is engaged? Drew told of a study that tried to measure it, but Drew wasn't convinced it was true. The study indicated that the students are most engaged in your lecture after the first five minutes and it lasts for about 10 min. Roger’s technique for assessing the level of engagement is pretty transparent, he asks students directly “why the hell are you here?” Well that oughta do it. For the rest of us, we can teach by following the Creative Model of Facilitation that says that the learning wouldn't accidentally happen on its own. It is distinct from the Mechanistic Model which says “I teach, you learn or not.”  I’ve had those days, haven’t you?

Ask a student why they are in class, and eventually the subject of survival will appear. Our dominant paradigm right now is money, and that brings up an example that describes the concept of range. Range is how far you can participate in the creative process. Eventually you can’t take it anymore, when asked “and what does that make possible?” one too many times. Range can look like boredom, humor, anger, exhaustion, etc. You should try to recognize your own range and observe someone else's. You can easily get someone else to range. I tried, it was easy. Recognizing my own range is tougher. But, that’s your homework now, so go try.

What is missing from an environment that has successful coaching? Permission. Structurally, what do you want to be present to be safe? We are going to talk about this next week with our fellow participants. Notice this process over the next week:

You have an Event. Immediately you have a moment of choice, you can bypass it, let it go, or you can engage it. 

If you engage it, you have a choice to do so internally or externally. Somehow blogs don't let you draw the picture for that. Oh well.

Dianne
 

Workshop Notes September 23

Facilitation and “Coaching” Workshop September 23, 2011

Roger Burton is our Facilitator for Facilitation. Roger doesn’t like the term “Coaching.”

rogersburton@gmail.com

Three Levels:

For Self, the term is Coaching

For a Group, the term is Facilitation

For an Organization or System, the term is Design

This workshop will concentrate on the first two, the third will hopefully be the focus of the winter term workshop.

Roger talks about the difference between an espoused vs lived model, and that we have a model for facilitation already in use, and then most importantly, that models are useful, although they are not correct.

Roger sees the class as one conversation for the entire quarter, and that all organizational change is in effect one conversation, since it’s about a narrative.

You listen through your expectations, your expectations affect your listening. So true!

The structure of facilitation also affects the outcome. We will make a coping mechanism to deal with the structure of the particular classroom we are meeting in. We can turn off the lights; that might help. That’s a coping mechanism, and the one thing you need to know is that coping mechanisms lead to more coping mechanisms (and just ask Roger, he’ll tell you that eventually there were no more birds.)

Participants introduced themselves and talked a bit about their expectations for the class.  Roger always likes to hear where people are when they come in. I’m not sure how he keeps it all straight, but he does.

Amy talked about her model of coaching, and how you can remove yourself from the experience, which affects your memory of an experience. She uses a structural basketball example of placement of your elbow and how that affects your shot. A very straightforward coaching.

Adrienne’s model of coaching distinguishes between overt and covert (passive). Roger doesn’t like the words overt and covert, so we’ll use active and non-active in the future. We need to separate the process from the result. Ginger sees hierarchy in Adrienne’s model.  You get credit for your “coaching”, and coaching is equivalent to teaching for a faculty member. You want to be active to get the credit, but be non-active to be effective with the student. What an irony! Coaching implies power to Nina.

Roger says that this quarter we will discover where our attention has been fixed, so if we are aware of it, we can make a choice about it for the future.

Our homework for this week is self observation.  Notice coaching and facilitation, how do you recognize it when it’s happening? What are the boundary conditions?