opinion

Provocative coaching

I recently had the privilege of participating in a workshop on Provocative Coaching facilitated by Steve Chapman. I found it excitingly rich in freedom, the unexpected, and a liberating sense of endless possibilities through the enabling of creativity, improvisation and vulnerability. I’m grateful to Steve for articulating the rich and thought-provoking concepts of safe uncertainty, the ‘pointless ambiguity of human experience’ and the provocation of moving towards what we’re trying to avoid. This is especially pertinent for both coaches and the leaders who are our clients, confronted as they are with a daily menu of unpredictability, uncertainty, the need for resourcefulness and the ability to constantly take new perspectives.

Reflections with reflections

The workshop enabled so many reflections for me, and each reflection carried its own reflection: whatever I was experiencing and learning in my identity as a coach, I was aware of the potential application and usefulness for leaders.

Freedom

I was able to see a wider range of possibilities because of the freedom within the container of the workshop – as Steve mentioned, both freedom to and freedom from, in a safe environment where nothing was at risk except the greater or lesser scope of our learning in the context of our willingness to be vulnerable with each other. Of course, there are parallels for the leader’s learning within the safety inherent in a healthy coaching relationship – and, outwards from there, the fertile space that the leader can enable for her or his teams in a context of safety, freedom and lack of judgment.

Certainty and uncertainty

Of course there’s no such thing as right or wrong in the coaching encounter: no predetermined answers, no pre-set course, but rather flow and emergence, and the noticing of these. And here’s where certainty and uncertainty arise, mirroring the working environment – and particularly the leader’s environment.

The Fertile Void

Thinking in terms of certainty may mean that the leader doesn’t see all the tripwires, since not everything is either certain or predictable. In my experience of coaching leaders, the capacity to allow, and allow for, uncertainty – frustrating as that may be – also allows for versatility, responsiveness to the situation as it is rather than as one wants it or assumes it to be, and creativity. Which in turn allows for a more agile response. In these times of constant change and unpredictability (brought home to us so acutely by the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic) that agility, and the capacity to be with the discomfort of not knowing, have been a critical part of the leader’s equipment. It’s the Gestalt concept of the Fertile Void, where anything can arise in the richness of possibility.

Constructs

It relates too to my wondering about how much (indeed, how little) can be viewed as absolute truth, and a lot being constructs we’ve created in order to make more sense of our world. Organisational life, and the leader’s life, are populated by constructs. I’ve discovered that looking through the lens of constructs is enormously liberating, and allows me space to enquire into ideas and challenges – both my own and my clients’ – with greater objectivity.

Solutions

Leaders often seek solutions – and many come to coaching seeking solutions. Thanks to Steve, I’ve discovered the work of family therapist Barry Mason, who characterises solutions as ‘only dilemmas that are less of a dilemma than the dilemma one had’.

On certainty he says[1]: I think we all understandably get caught up at times in wanting certainty, and yet I believe that it can indeed contribute, as [Jeff] Faris suggests, to a state of paralysis and lack of creativity, although clearly a degree of perceived certainty is important in helping us move on through our lives in as creative a way as possible.

He refers too to the importance of curiosity: ‘The less curious we are (respectful as opposed to intrusive), the more we understand too quickly and the more we may find ourselves in a position of “premature certainty”’.

Safe uncertainty

In contrast, he talks about ‘safe uncertainty’ as ‘a framework for helping people to fall out of love with the idea that solutions solve things…… Working towards positions that entertain different possibilities’. Complementing this, Steve Chapman’s perspective is that safe uncertainty is about feeling comfortable with the world of just enoughness. It is about having just enough structure, just enough control and just enough planning to mitigate only the biggest of risks, whilst leaving enough fluidity, spontaneity and freedom to welcome new possibilities’ [2]

In my experience, discovering and working with the conditions that enable different possibilities is part of what lies at the heart of the leader’s role (and at the heart of the executive coach’s role).

Freedom to and freedom from

And so back to freedom: ‘freedom to’ and ‘freedom from’. While the leader’s role may so often feel – to them and to others – circumscribed by the imperatives of organisational agendas and strategies, my sense is that allowing themselves freedom, and their coach enabling a context of safe freedom, are critical for encountering the exponentially increasing complexity of their world.

_[1]_{https://sfwork.com/resources/interaction/04Mason.pdf – InterAction VOL 7 NUMBER 1}

_{[2] Adapted from ‘Can Scorpions Smoke?’ Creative Adventures in the Corporate World (2014) by Steve Chapman}

^{Photo by Vladislav Babienko via Unsplash}

The illusion of solutions

Family therapist Barry Mason characterises solutions as ‘only dilemmas that are less of a dilemma than the dilemma one had’. There’s no such thing as right or wrong in the coaching encounter: no predetermined answers, no pre-set course, but rather flow and emergence, and the noticing of these. And here’s where certainty and uncertainty arise, mirroring the working environment - and particularly the leader’s environment. Thinking in terms of certainty may mean that the leader doesn’t see all the tripwires, since not everything is either certain or predictable. In my experience of coaching leaders, the capacity to allow, and allow for, uncertainty – frustrating as that may be – also allows for versatility, responsiveness to the situation as it is, rather than as one wants it or assumes it to be, and creativity. Which in turn allows for a more agile response.

Award for Coaching through COVID and Beyond

Pro bono coaching programme Coaching through COVID and Beyond (of which I'm a co-founder and a member of the core team) has won the Coaching at Work magazine award of External Coaching Champion (Organisation). The depth of our psychological safety in the core team has meant that we’ve been able to have difficult conversations in a spirit of openness and honesty, we’ve been ready to take risks in a context of uncertainty, we’ve been agile and responsive and happy to experiment in a spirit of ‘test and learn’, and we’ve welcomed diversity of all kinds. Living diversity means that we’ve constantly called on our collective intelligence - and so we've been able to achieve innovative success in several important ways.

Trauma

Trauma is a living expression of a life-changing experience that often can’t be expressed in words but is a fundamental – and literally visceral – part of an individual’s identity. The range of manifestations is endless, including addictions, anxieties, physical pain, illness, problems with sleep, problems with relationships, and repeating patterns of behaviour which are counter-productive but which the individual doesn’t seem able to change. Despite appearances, the most apparently well-balanced, cheerful and obliging colleague may be hiding pain and distress which can get triggered and thus result in unexpectedly negative behaviour. The need for compassion and self-compassion, patience and acceptance, curiosity and tolerance is significant. What do you notice at work – about yourself and others?

Belonging, identity and confidence in uncertainty

You might recognise a situation where an organisation’s strategy is unclear, poorly-defined, poorly communicated or in constant flux. In this context, the role and place of any individual in the organisation (and especially a new recruit) can be unclear. The criteria by which his or her performance is evaluated are also likely to be unclear or in flux, or even more unsettling, implicitly in flux. As a result his or her confidence, their sense of identity, and sometimes even confidence in their survival, take a knock. None of this is good news for performance or growth or development. Leaders can therefore begin to turn things round by being curious about what they could be more aware of, by enquiring into their reports’ experience, and by listening.

Fear and courage

Fear and courage are intertwined when it comes to leadership of self and others. Fear is inevitable and - if unchecked - inhibits and erodes performance, versatility and the creativity that can be crucial to address the challenge, complexity and uncertainty that are constants in the life of leaders. Courage isn’t inevitable, but it’s an invaluable resource when fear is present. Learn, experiment again with a small change in courage, keep learning, and keep experimenting.

The impact of kindness and compassion

The news emerged that Dame Clare Marx, Chair of the General Medical Council, was stepping down from her post, having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She reflects on her career that ‘in my happiest moments, I felt respected, valued and listened to. I felt I belonged’. Her wish is that ‘every doctor and every patient experiences the compassion that defines first-class care’. It’s the humanity between colleagues and by leaders that can evoke either distress or joy, isolation or feeling part of something bigger. How would it be if all of us, as leaders, spent just a couple of minutes each day being aware and conscious of compassion, kindness and listening? Awareness is the crucial starting point for change.

Power and the leader

One of the most striking features of power is, it seems to me, how multi-faceted the topic is – and how richly the facets interrelate and intersect and interdepend. There are many and varied implications for the exercise of leadership, and leaders can benefit from reflecting on these. For instance, a variety of perspectives are afforded by looking at ‘my’ power, ‘your’ power, ‘our’ power, and the power in and of the system. Further, within each of these comes the contrast between personal power, the power afforded by title or status, and the nuances of the perception of power that arise in the presence or absence of fear or shame. power can be ‘power over’ or ‘power with’ – and the latter implies more sustainability through relationship and connection. Power, courage and compassion can go hand in hand.

Integrity and power

The client’s terms of engagement transgressed my own deepest values, including integrity. This kind of behaviour on the part of consultancies seems widespread. Further, the attendant disservice to the ultimate end user stems from the enforced compromise of professional integrity, and the imbalance of power is experienced by many of their associates to be abusive. As professionals, are we prepared to tolerate this kind of attitude, behaviour and lack of integrity inherent in the contracting from so many perspectives? Are we really powerless or can we find ways to bring our power respectfully to a rebalancing that will be in all our interests?

Peace, ease and fulfilment

I accept that it may make no sense to juxtapose a street sweeper's relatively simple situation with my clients’ complex roles and environments. On the other hand, I’m very curious about how leaders conceive of their responsibility (and opportunity) to design and embed working lives for themselves, their peers and their reports which release greater peace, trust, ease and fulfilment - and thus greater effectiveness. More than that, I worry about their health, their wellbeing and their longevity if leaders don't take that responsibility.

Integrity, safety and wellbeing

I’ve just done something I’ve never done before: I’ve handed back a 4-year contract. At the heart of my decision was an inability to tolerate a client’s terms of engagement – both the formal, explicit terms, and the informal, implicit terms. My deepest values (integrity, professionalism, honesty, care for the coachee experience, respect, acknowledgment, being heard) were compromised. I felt deeply unsafe: my trust in the client was entirely absent. What was happening was moral injury, and the experience was threatening my wellbeing by demanding that I don’t behave in integrity – and I can only maintain my wellbeing if I’m behaving in integrity. I’ve learnt too that doing what matters deeply to me is a significant enabler of tough decisions and tough actions.

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