The Journey Inside. Veronica MunroЧитать онлайн книгу.
client from the challenge and any emotions attached, so they can witness what is happening more clearly. From this ‘third position,’ or alternative perspective, the client is able to look at the situation, unencumbered by past judgements and emotions. This allows fresh perspectives to come to mind and is more conducive to developing and testing a range of strategies and solutions with a sense of freedom.
Some of the challenges, and more complex areas, this particular intervention can help clients with are:
• Creating new winning strategies to beat the competition
• Identifying new streams of business or products within a highly competitive market
• Scoping out the opportunities and gaps in the market from different perspectives
• Building a successful strategy for the acquisition of another business / company
• Identifying different approaches for shifting the culture / organisational structure to achieve a significant edge over the competition
• Reviewing 360-degree feedback received from selected stakeholders across the organisation and working on the new behaviours required to meet their success criteria in selected areas.
PRE-FRAMING AND THE 7 STEP PROCESS
Pre-framing
‘Framing’ here refers to creating the context, and setting a strong intention: a lens or lenses through which the activities can be experienced. Establishing frames ahead of a coaching session (pre-framing) enables the coach to avoid common misunderstandings so the client interprets what is happening in a specific way, or set of ways. Setting clear frames (of reference) upfront can also make a new activity more clear, purposeful and enjoyable. It is, therefore, a powerful way to help the client to become more motivated and focused on the task in hand.
Pre-frames serve important functions. They:
• Establish rapport
• Create a sense of safety
• Establish credibility for the exercise
• Amplify motivation
• Create agreement to participate.
Gaining agreement from the client, before you start this technique, is essential. This primes your client to be thinking, ‘This could really help me and is worthy of my time and energy.’ They will also want to know that this is a technique they can experiment with in any way they wish, with any challenge they have. There are no right or wrong moves, only different strategies and options.
As you begin, offer some frames of reference upfront (pre-frames) that you feel match your client’s needs, and gain agreement. (Note: examples of words spoken by the coach are in italics for ease of reference.)
Examples of effective pre-frames and follow-up questions include:
Exploration frame
• Today, we are going to focus on you exploring and generating a range of strategies and solutions to your challenge. There will be a variety of these, and there are no right or wrong ones. Your role is to explore these and identify the most appropriate ones to achieve your outcome. OK?
Control frame
• Some people get stuck and don’t realise when their thinking is ‘inside the box.’ Today we are literally going to go ‘outside the box.’ You will be in control every step of the way, and I will just be checking in to make sure you are happy with each step of the process. How does that sound?
Scientist frame
• This process stops the cycle of stressful thinking by moving everything to the ‘outside.’ It stops the challenge in the way it currently is, and allows you scope to experiment with new ways of moving forward. How does having new ways to approach things sound?
Risk-free frame
• If you could explore this challenge in a totally different way that made it easier to identify challenge points and test out new strategies and solutions with zero risks, would that be something you are interested in exploring?
Flexibility frame
• Everything that you try can be changed at any time. You are in total control and all your ideas can be modified or ruled out as you wish. Like a child playing with Lego, you get to create, build and change things in any way you want.
Confidentiality frame
• To support what we are doing, I will take photos of the scenes as they develop and include these in your confidential Coaching Report following this session. This means that you don’t have to think about remembering each step or insight. Is this OK with you?
A more in-depth explanation of reframing and its role in coaching can be found in Chapter 4: ‘Breaking Free: Unlocking Doors with Deep Reframing’ by Richard Haggerty.
THE 7 STEP PHYSICAL METAPHOR TECHNIQUE
Step 1: Elicit challenge and outcomes
With frames properly established, you can now take time to identify the challenge and outcomes.
You are specifically looking for:
• The challenge they have now
• Why it is a problem for them (the stress, emotion, difficulty etc.)
• The impact and consequences of this challenge on the client, on other people and within the organisation.
At this point, we want the client to connect to their challenge in a way that motivates them to want to move away from the potential consequences and create a better future. If there is no emotional connection to the challenge, there is unlikely to be any motivation or energy to work with it now, or at a later stage.
Take some time to research further and ask:
• So, what’s the challenge you wish to work on?
• How is that a challenge for you? And for others?
• What is this preventing you from doing?
• What are the consequences of the challenge?
You only need to get clients connected to the feelings and thoughts of the impact of the challenge briefly. Note down any emotionally charged phrases or ‘hot words’ they use that encapsulate the challenge for them. Pay attention to the client’s physiology when in the challenge state. You can use these later in the session to test for change.
The next step is to ‘break state’ so the client can come out of the challenge state. In other words, it is important to change the topic and ensure that your client is now focused on something totally different from the challenge. (Let’s move to the next stage now and consider your outcome.) Take responsibility for ensuring that they are at ease now. They should be breathing comfortably and not stuck in a negative or frustrated state.
Make it clear that this part is finished by ‘outframing’ the challenge, I understand where we will be starting now. Let’s park that challenge for a while. This allows you to move cleanly on to eliciting outcomes.
Eliciting outcomes
Ask: What is the outcome you wish to achieve?
The aim of having an intention at this point is to establish a direction towards an outcome. This may however change and shift as the client becomes aware of new possibilities, insights and perceptions.
Establishing outcomes helps a client’s unconscious mind to begin the work of looking for, anticipating and expecting something different. If the challenge was not having a motivated workforce or a team that does not communicate well (e.g. if working in silos), the outcome needs to be structured in the positive. It could be as general as:
• Find at least three ways (systems) to encourage all our teams to work together
•