Читать книгу The Journey Inside - Veronica Munro - Страница 13

CHAPTER 1

TURN YOUR CHALLENGE INSIDE OUT

The Physical Metaphor Technique

Veronica Munro and Richard Haggerty

A powerful and systematic hands-on technique for clients to take a challenge, externalise it, and develop new perspectives and strategies that allow them to notice opportunities so they can take concrete steps to move forward. This enables their conscious minds to access creative ideas that are outside their current awareness.

Covered in this chapter

• An engaging ‘hands-on’ process that is client-led

• How to use the physical environment to represent challenges and identify new strategies and actions

• The power of pre-framing to create full engagement from clients

• Dissociating from a challenge to get new viewpoints and solutions

• How to create a completely safe space for clients where there is no fear of failure

INTRODUCTION

Military war games started as games not dissimilar to chess in fifth-century Ancient Greece, and then later in Northern India. These evolved into battlefield simulations during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and later into highly sophisticated military and economic war games across a range of organisations, industries and countries.

Conducting war games in the Napoleonic era, for instance, was a way of determining the best means to prevail given the known circumstances about an enemy location, and then look at possible options and strategies for fighting a battle. It introduced realism into the decision-making process so that when it was time to engage, the strategy which had the greatest chances of success had already been theoretically tried and tested, and could be implemented with confidence. The Physical Metaphor Technique (PMT) is a development of this tool in the context of coaching.

The purpose of the PMT is to facilitate a client to move from a challenge they have, through the use of this visual hands-on approach, to creating different scenarios and strategies, until they reach their outcome.

The PMT is designed to help your client identify new ideas, approaches, strategies and options to seemingly entrenched challenges. This can be achieved by using any immediate space in the environment around a client as a metaphor, and landscape, for the challenges, resources and potential solutions. In this way, it acts as a natural bridge to the client’s creative unconscious resources and solutions, and bypasses the sometimes more rigid limited thinking of the conscious mind. It is a powerful technique that assists the analytical part of the mind to work with much more freedom, whilst at the same time creating opportunities for clients to gain creative insights spontaneously from deeper levels of consciousness. This begins the journey within.

BENEFITS OF THE PHYSICAL METAPHOR TECHNIQUE IN COACHING

The PMT provides a safe space for clients to externalise the challenge, or situation, as a physically represented metaphor. This naturally dissociates the 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

• Define ‘good communication’ and get agreement from all our teams

• Establish steps to motivate teams and ways to test their effectiveness within the next six months.

Achieving outcomes

The outcome frame is very powerful. You can increase its potency naturally by asking for the evidence of success at the start. This will help the client focus more specifically on the outcome, what it will look like, and possible subsequent actions to achieve it.

• How will you know you have achieved this outcome?

• What will you see, hear and feel that will let you know you have achieved it?

• What won’t be happening that demonstrates progress has already been made?

• What are some of the visible and tangible signs that you are on track?

• Once you are making solid progress, how will you be feeling differently about the old challenge? What lets you know you are at that point now?

Step 2: Explain the PMT process

At this point, explain the Physical Metaphor Technique. Give enough details about the initial step to get the client engaged. Tell them they will be creating a specific kind of scene: a diorama (three-dimensional ‘metaphor’ model) that represents the challenge, with objects that symbolise elements, themes and people within that scene. Using these objects they will move towards identifying a range of new options and strategies for achieving their outcome.

Use the environment

Ask the client to choose a physical space in the room within which they will work with their challenge. You may wish to suggest a space they can use, for example a desk top, table, rug or floor area. Let them know that this space is going to be special for the purposes of applying the PMT.

Once selected, invite the client to pick out a selection of different objects from around the room and bring them back to the chosen space. Please look all around this room. Look everywhere. Look at your desk. Look inside the cupboards. Look inside your jacket pocket. Look inside your bag / purse / wallet. Pick out a selection of objects and bring them back to your chosen space. You may also use Post-its and other paper to write on and place within the scene as well as, or instead of, objects.

The coach must never touch the objects or pick them up at any stage in the process. You can only refer to them. This is to ensure that the client retains full responsibility throughout the process and any decisions, or choices, that come from it. We want to communicate non-verbally, This is your plan. You are resourceful and can generate new scenarios and possibilities based on this wider perspective.

The essence of the PMT is to facilitate a process where the client is proactive, feels able to take full responsibility and is therefore empowered to try new things.

Step 3: Create establishing scene and ask orienting questions

Client creates establishing scene

Feed back a brief summary of the challenge from step #1 and ask the client to use any objects they have collected to create a representation of the challenge, thus creating the starting point for the scene.

• Use any of these objects to create a scene that represents the challenge for you as you perceive it right now. Discard objects, or go and collect additional objects, at any time. There is no right or wrong way to do this. You decide what fits and what doesn’t. This is your own creative space. Experiment with this initial scene until it feels right to you.

• I will be silent some of the time, and, at other times, I may ask questions about what is going on. Please let me know when it feels complete so that you can share the details of how the challenge looks in the scene.

Ask orienting questions

Your aim at this point is to connect the client deeply to the symbolic meaning of the scene, so they feel totally invested in it and are able to explain why it has such meaning for them.

You want to leave them to reflect, especially if they are actively thinking and figuring things out as they construct the scene. Once they get into the exercise, it will take on a momentum of its own.

As the scene starts to come together and when the client signals it is complete, this may be a good time to ask any of the orienting questions below. Ask the client to describe the scene, what the objects represent to them and which are the most important or meaningful themes or items to them:

• What does x represent?

• What attributes does y have?

• What is happening here? What else?

• How do you feel about that?

• What is the most important aspect of this? In what way?

• Select and point to two objects in the scene and ask the client: What is the relationship between x and y?

A more in-depth explanation of metaphors and symbolism and their role in coaching can be found in Chapter 5: ‘Coaching the Unconscious Mind through Metaphor’ by Richard Haggerty.

Once you know a client is emotionally invested in this, and they have expressed the perceived parameters of the challenge, check to see if this scene is complete. Is there anything else you would like to add to make this complete? Once complete, let them know it is vitally important to capture the scene before they start working with it to achieve their outcome. They will then be able to assess progress later on and compare solutions against this initial scene. Photograph the scene now to record in their Coaching Report as a way to highlight the significance of what they have just created.

Step 4: Photograph establishing scene

Take a photo of the scene. A mobile phone or camera will suffice. You may want to have some Post-its that say ‘scene 1’ or ‘scene 1: establishing scene,’ so it is easy to identify the sequence later on, especially if you decide to include photos of all the intermediate steps.

Step 5: Move from challenge to outcome scene

Invite the client to create a new scene that begins to move them away from their challenge (‘establishing scene’) towards their outcome.

Remind the client of their overall outcome and ask some of the suggested questions below to help them get started:

• So, what is your outcome?

• What do you want to have happen?

• What’s the very first thing that needs to happen to move towards your outcome?

• What needs to happen next for this [establishing scene] to begin to change?

• If you wish to talk through your ideas please do so.

Ask them to start making any changes e.g. move objects around, remove objects or add new ones to achieve their outcome. Invite them to take their time so that they fully process the significance of the moves and how they will work out in reality.

Stay curious about, and connected to, their process by being present, watchful and silent. Let your client sit longer in the silences, longer than we would all do ‘normally.’ The reason for this is that people think faster than they speak and the extra time in silence enables them to think more. Allow the client to be the one to initiate a conversation with you. When you do speak use what and how questions, rather than why or closed questions, and remain sensitive to the impact of your questioning. Remember this is their time and space and never give any interpretations of your own. Ask for theirs only. For example:

• What will that move do for you?

• What is the significance of this?

• How will this support achieving your outcome?

Listen deeply and attentively. Very quickly they will get the idea that they can experiment without consequence and judgement. The more space you create and the fewer words the coach says throughout the process, the more effective PMT is likely to be.

Ask follow-up questions

Now the client is creating a new 3D scene it is important to draw out the meaning behind the metaphors – or further metaphors – to solidify and further deepen any insights that are emerging spontaneously.

The more a client can articulate perceptions and own their observations, the more likely they are to develop confidence about influencing those perceptions.

Examples of open questions the coach can ask include:

• The outcome

o What will the outcome look like relative to this scene?

o What has to change to continue towards the outcome?

o What else? What more?

• What is off limits here?

• What else is there that is not in the scene that you want to bring along now?

• What does this mean to you?

• If the client seems stuck, or is having difficulty articulating at any point, then help them out: I’m interested in what’s happening here [point to the part of the scene that you are curious about]. Tell me a bit more about this, and finally,

• What further steps do you want or need to take to achieve your outcome? until the client indicates they have some ideas and strategies to resolve their challenge and to achieve their outcome.

Once the client indicates that the scene they have created is sufficiently transformed from the original problem-establishing scene, and, that they have a new range of options, strategies and potential new actions to move forward on, be sure to capture this.

You may also want to check that your client is at an outcome scene by asking: How are you feeling now compared to the start of the session when you were sharing your challenge? Raising awareness of how they are feeling now will also help convince them that some significant shifts and changes have already taken place throughout the session.

Step 6: Photograph final outcome scene

Photograph the scene as you did with the establishing scene. Remember it may be helpful to have a label or card to number / name the scene and date, so you know later what this represents and the sequence it comes in. You may want to take a few photos from different angles (e.g. from the side or from above).

By having an establishing scene and an outcome scene captured, it is possible to do a contrastive analysis: in other words, it will be far more obvious to note what needs to change, what relationships developed and what else needs to happen differently when a client can see where they have been and where they want to go.

Step 7: Agree actions and client dismantles scene

Throughout the 7 steps of the PMT, the client has been experiencing new ways of thinking about their challenge and possible solutions. It is important now to make these concrete by establishing specific next steps that they are committed to taking after the session.

At this point, you may ask the client to provide a brief summary of the actions and what they will be committing to do to move things forward. This may include:

• Recapping important insights

• Agreeing the actions to take to achieve the outcome

• Giving specific details of the next steps

• Including a way to assess the success of that action

• Committing to a specific date and time

• Ensuring the client is accountable for the above

• Asking them if there is anything else they wish to add.

Finally, it can be very useful to ask loaded, or leading questions with presuppositions of success in order to finish with a sense of mastery and leave the client recognising that something profound has occurred:

• What was the most useful part of this for you?

• What insight do you feel will be the most helpful in making a change quickly?

• What resources do you have at your disposal already to begin to make this happen now?

Inform the client that you will send their report to them within a specific period (e.g. three days).

Client dismantles the scene

The client needs closure – and to recognise the importance of what has just happened and their ownership of it – by taking this final step. Invite the client to dismantle the scene and put all the objects back in place. Remember, as coach, you never touch any part of the scene.

By putting everything back and dismantling the scene, there is a strong unconscious presupposition that the client is in charge of their thinking about the challenge and their ability to influence it. By creating their own physical metaphors, changing scenes and experimenting, they have demonstrated their ability to think (and act) outside the box.

This brings the PMT session to an end.

CASE STUDY

A regional CEO in the financial sector was having serious challenges: her large geographic region that stretched across several countries was not meeting its numbers; her leadership team was ground down by the continuing pressures to turn around their performance within a highly competitive market; her boss was under pressure to deliver and felt his job was on the line; and the regional CEO was almost at a loss as to how to catapult the business into being a success where others had previously failed. The world was on her back and her posture showed it.

She requested some coaching to support her developing different ways of thinking about the challenges and identifying practical, new or different solutions to move towards turning the business around.

She explained to me that although she had engaged her boss, her peers and her team members to gain their insights and perspectives, the outputs were not far reaching enough to make the difference that was now imperative. She was stuck in her present way of thinking.

On the first day, knowing that she wanted a different approach, I invited her to use the meeting room as a landscape for the problems she was facing and to place and rearrange objects in the room (large or small, tables and chairs included) to show the nature of the problem she was facing. The team became the chairs, the regional countries became the table and her boss became a large heavy sculpture in the corner of the door. Then we got into the detail.

As her coach I invited her to consider the following questions to support her new thinking:

• Who are the other key people and organisations who are part of the scenario?

• Who are the key competitors?

• Who are not competitors, though key influencers in the region?

• Who do you know (a friend or ex colleague) that has significantly different views from you and can challenge you to think ‘outside the box’?

• What would they ask you? Suggest to you?

• What would they do in your position? What stops you from doing that too? How could you do a variation of that?

As we continued with these types of questions, she was constantly moving around the room, moving objects around the room, and talking out loud about the different possibilities this type of questioning and technique was triggering in her.

She was excited. She was starting to become aware of new choices she could make and options available to her.

Within the hour she decided that she had sufficient ideas to discuss with her key stakeholders and gain their inputs, ideas and support for these.

We followed this with one further session to take her thinking to the next stage, and another one to work on building her own identity as a leader and reinforce the huge strengths and talents she had and the confidence this gave her, something she had forgotten over so many recent years of challenges and missed targets.

The result was that she discovered some ingenious ways forward that all employees within the region became a part of. She was on a mission! Together, with the huge efforts from all the teams across the region, they achieved a giant leap in business performance and went beyond their targets.

For a more in-depth look at techniques to work with and leverage one’s identity go to Chapter 10: ‘Coaching for Identity Grows Purpose and Performance’ by Aidan Tod.

Coaching insights and summary

The Physical Metaphor Technique (PMT) technique is a powerful and systematic way to externalise the challenge that your client is exploring as physical mutable metaphors that they control. This tends to increase their confidence and willingness to test and explore solutions, whilst gaining the necessary perspectives to leave behind any negative or unhelpful thinking that may have kept them stuck.

Although this technique is developed along the lines of military war games, it can also be used with groups of individuals for business, or corporate war gaming. In this way, leaders and decision-makers can come together and ‘shape the battlefield’ by creating the competitive landscape and playing out (simulating) a range of potential scenarios and decide on the best prospects for their businesses. Whichever sector your clients work in, no one really knows what next year’s ‘trends’ will be. However it is the smarter ones who take the time to ‘mould the space’ and create next year’s ‘trend,’ and who lead in their fields.¹

~

Connect with the Authors

We hope you enjoyed reading about this experiential hands-on technique that can be used with individual clients, or indeed with small teams of leaders, who seek to identify new ways forward. To find out more, to connect with us or to explore further creative methods for generating sustainable behavioural change in your clients and their businesses, please contact Veronica Munro at results@veronicamunro.com and at www.veronicamunro.com or Richard Haggerty at richard@richardhaggerty.co.uk and at www.richardhaggerty.co.uk