In times of perceived crisis, the lines between coaching and therapy can sometimes feel more blurred than usual. This is because the kind of issues that people bring to coaching may touch on more personal dimensions and at a deeper level than they would normally. The Coronavirus and the intense drama that surrounds it is a case in point. People may find themselves not only, say, dealing with the impacts of lockdown on their business and work, but also anxieties they hold for the health, safety and well-being of their family, friends and colleagues. So here are some insights from four psychological fields to help coaches enable people to navigate such times and experiences. First, Gestalt. Notice if and when a person is fixated on one specific dimension of what is taking place, as if that is the only dimension. A vivid, current example is the mass media’s fixation on the number of people contracting or dying from the Corona virus – to the exclusion of attention to a far, far greater number of people who haven’t contracted the virus and who haven’t died from it. It can create the impression that everyone is contracting the virus and that everyone is dying from it. If, therefore, you notice a person becoming overly-preoccupied by one dimension of an issue, acknowledge the underlying feeling (e.g. anxiety) and enable him or her to notice what they are not-noticing. Second, Existential. The Corona crisis has evoked deep fears, particularly in wealthier countries where people and communities are no longer used to facing these levels of perceived vulnerability and threat. Dramatic soundbites in social media, claiming this is the worst crisis the world has ever faced, add to the sense of fear and alarm – that death and destruction of people, communities, organisations and social systems are imminent. Whilst such apocalyptic visions ignore previous and arguably far-worse crises (e.g. Bubonic plague; Spanish flu; Two World Wars), the coach can use this opportunity to enable people to explore their deeply-held beliefs, values and stance in the world. Third, Psychodynamics. People, groups, organisations and communities experience the present through the emotional, psychological and cultural filters of the past. People will very likely have experienced crises of one sort of another before that from their standpoint and experience ended badly or, conversely, worked out well in the end. Such experiences will influence what the person perceives, how they feel about it and how they will respond to a crisis now. If you notice a person reacting very strongly, particularly if it appears disproportionate or out of character, acknowledge the feeling and explore how it may be reverberating with experiences from that person or group’s past. Fourth, Social Constructs. People create personal and cultural narratives that give focus and shape to their experiences and, thereby, enable people and groups to make sense of them. So, for instance, politicians, health professionals and the media are, currently, presenting very specific versions of events in relation to the Corona crisis. They are construing facts, stories and images selectively to convey a particular narrative that will lead to a certain response; whether that be e.g. to engender public confidence, influence public behaviour...or sell more newspapers. Listen carefully to the stories people are creating and using and, where helpful, enable them to construct a healthier narrative. Can I help you with navigating a crisis? Get in touch! info@nick-wright.com
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'Vulnerability + Hazard = Disaster.’ (Steve Penny) It’s one thing to conceptualise it. It’s quite another thing to feel it, to experience it, to know it for real. Marcus Oxley, international disaster response expert, comments with insight that at moments when crisis hits, all vulnerabilities that pre-existed, yet lay out of view, come into sharp relief. It’s like a lightning flash in the darkness of night that, suddenly and just for a moment, reveals starkly what’s already there: e.g. political systems, public services, infrastructure, corruption, technology, security etc. Yet crisis can also reveal and evoke extraordinary awareness, resourcefulness and resilience. Shona Adams, a clinical psychology expert, observed astutely that people often don’t know what’s possible, or what they and others are truly capable of, until they are in a crisis. There’s only so much we can imagine, anticipate and prepare for in advance. People sometimes discover surprising strength, support and spirit and fresh possibilities emerge, as if by magic, that lay hidden or untapped before. So, here are some tips for leaders, coaches, OD and HR that feel especially pertinent in the midst of the Coronacrisis: 1. What vulnerabilities have emerged that were already there, yet your client now sees more visibly and has energy to address? 2. What has stayed strong or not broken in the face of crisis? (e.g. ‘If your client rates his or her resilience as 2 out of 5, what has stopped it becoming a 1?’). 3. What new opportunities can you and the client see and create: to be, become or do something new? Can I help you think through steps 1-3 in your work? Get in touch! info@nick-wright.com ‘The facts never speak for themselves.’ (Geoff Pelham) Res ipsa loquitur. A Latin phrase. It means: the facts are so obvious that no further explanation is needed. ‘Anita is under-performing, despite having been trained. She is clearly incompetent.’ Right? Wrong. Anita may well be incapable of doing the job, but the facts (under-performing; trained) don’t necessarily, of themselves, lead to that conclusion. What if, for instance, she’s trying to cover for an absent colleague at the same time as doing her own job, or if elements have changed that weren’t covered by the training? The focus on Anita, in isolation as an individual, is just one way of construing a situation. If we were to zoom-out, as with a camera, who and what else comes into view and what questions could that raise? For instance: Who sets the performance standards? What are they based on? Are they fair, realistic and achievable? What other factors could influence Anita’s performance, such as quality of line-management relationship, access to the right and timely information and resources, critical dependencies on other teams? The facts never speak for themselves. When have you experienced or enabled a paradigm shift, a radical re-framing, a surfaced personal-cultural assumption, that changed everything? How did you do it? What then became possible? Would you like help with thinking outside of the box? Get in touch! info@nick-wright.com You are what you eat. That’s what I read on social media anyway, particularly during vegan January (in the UK). We could propose alternatives: You are what you think; or, You become what you do. There’s an idea in psychology that we don’t really know who we are until we expose ourselves to different situations, or find ourselves in them, then observe what we think, feel and do. We may discover, with surprise, that we are quite different to how we had imagined ourselves to be. Another idea is to think of an idea, an approach, and then act on it as if it were true. It’s as if I’m choosing in advance who I will be, how I will behave, how I will respond. So, for instance, if I’m facing a presentation where I lack confidence, I can stand up straight, tell myself I feel incredibly confident, create an image in my mind of being incredibly confident, then act that out, like a role play, until it becomes real and normal for me. It’s about breaking default patterns and creating new ones. I’m reminded here of a biblical principle: ‘Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ I’m limited or changed by what I believe and act on, by faith, as possible – in this case, with God. Richard Bach in his philosophical allegory, Illusions: ‘Argue for your limitations, and they are yours.’ Henry Ford: ‘Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.’ This isn’t positive psychology on steroids. It’s an acknowledgement of the profound relationship between thinking, feeling, experiencing possibility - and hope. A goal of leadership, OD, coaching and training is to tap into the power of imagination, to create and release potential by paying attention to what people think, believe, hypothesise, assume, notice (and not-notice), the deeply personal and cultural narratives they tell themselves and each other – and to experiment with divergence, disruption, dissonance and change. You can because you think you can: When have you adopted this idea? How did you do it? What difference did it make? Are you ready to challenge and stretch your thinking and practice, to open up and create fresh possibilities and opportunities? Get in touch! info@nick-wright.com Like it or not, you’ve been framed. You’ve framed others too. Not just some-one. Everyone you’ve ever met or imagined. Think: male, female, black, white, tall, short, extrovert, introvert, manager, staff, marketing, operations, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, leave, remain. Whatever category we apply to ourselves, or to others, creates an experience, an awareness, of same-as or different-to. ‘I’m a white, male, Christian from the North East of England. I like riding motorbikes.’ Notice what those descriptors evoke for you. Reflect on which draw you towards me and which push you away from me. Have those words created a sense of greater affinity with me or do they now make me feel more alien to you? How are they the same or different to the labels that you apply to yourself? Why does this matter? Well, the categories, the frames of reference, we use are always selective and simplifications of a wider reality and, thereby, reductionist. They draw our attention to certain attributes and cause us to not-notice others. They carry personal-cultural value judgements and trigger emotional responses that influence, often reinforce, our beliefs, attitudes and behaviour. So - what happens if we switch frames, re-frame? What then becomes possible? How can I help you reframe your reality and relationships? Get in touch! info@nick-wright.com 'The brain is constantly searching for patterns to make sense of its experience. Inside your brain is the story of you.' (Nick Marson) We all have a story. As we look back over our lives, some people, relationships, events and experiences really stand out. Everything else fades out of memory, as if into an invisible backdrop. We subconsciously draw lines between those things that stand out to us, like dot-to-dot, and the picture that emerges becomes, for us, our life story. In this sense, the story is always a summary, an edited version, a glimpse. What stands out is often that which carried strong emotional content for us, or represented who or what really mattered to us at the time, or resonates deeply in some way with who or what really matters to us now, or with how we are feeling now – often out of awareness. In this way, the story-past we tell ourselves may well reveal someone or something important about our story-now. A story is one possible construct-configuration. Imagine, for instance, if we were to work with a client in such a way that raises the not-noticed into view, or that enables them to explore the same people, relationships, events and experiences from different vantage points, or to surface and evaluate the underlying hopes, fears, beliefs, values and cultures they could signify. What then becomes possible? How can I help you work with your story? Get in touch! info@nick-wright.com You may remember the poster. Seagulls in flight and simple words: ‘They can because they think they can’ (Virgil). It’s a great cognitive-behavioural insight. Faith is to act on what we believe as if it were true. How far are we held back by limitations in our thinking? How can we discover and release potential for what is truly possible? ‘Argue for your limitations, and they are yours.’ (Richard Bach) Jonathan Livingstone Seagull blew my mind. I was 17 at the time, working in a tedious, meaningless job, just to earn enough money to buy my dream motorcycle. I remember a tradesman called Steve handed me the book. He had travelled the world and had a perspective and outlook that seemed to transcend what we were doing. I opened the pages and started to read. I immediately felt gripped, challenged and inspired. I could see myself, my life, hopes and aspirations in a totally different light. It ignited something deep within me. I felt breathless with excitement. It set my imagination ablaze. Around that time, pop group Supertramp released, Logical Song: ‘When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, it was beautiful, magical. And all the birds in the trees, they'd be singing so happily, joyfully, playfully watching me. But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical. And then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical…’ It was as if they were speaking my words, my voice. It resonated deeply with the profound existential restlessness I was now feeling. The lyrics went on: ‘There are times when all the world's asleep, the questions run too deep for such a simple man. Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned. I know it sounds absurd, please tell me who I am. Yet, watch what you say, they’ll be calling you a radical, a liberal, fanatical, criminal...’ These words rang out for me like a prophecy. I immersed myself in radical literature, in political activity and, in the midst of it, found Jesus. Now this was a truly explosive experience, catapulting me from Star Trek’s impulse to warp drive. It felt like my whole body and mind were filled with blazing light. Family, friends and colleagues looked on, alarmed or bemused. I went into work, tore down demeaning pornographic material that covered the workshop walls, resigned from my job and studies, gave away my possessions and headed off to do full-time, voluntary, community development and human rights work instead. I was bursting with vision and energy and it completely changed the focus and trajectory of my life and relationships since. I’ve never looked back for a second. It taught me that so many limitations exist only in our minds. What limitations are you arguing for? Are they now yours? How can I help you to discover and release potential? Get in touch! info@nick-wright.com Accidents happen. How do you respond to incidents that knock your carefully-made plans sideways? I felt a bit nervous as I entered the office and, then, decidedly embarrassed as I accidentally tipped a hot cup of tea down my smart white shirt. The client looked bemused, as if trying to stifle a smile, before racing out of the room to return with a bright yellow t-shirt. Kind man. Not to be out-done by this, my brother went to a formal, tense business meeting with a client. As he approached their office, a car mounted the pavement and hit him, sending him flying into a wet, muddy gutter. His case burst open and his papers went everywhere. It almost broke his thigh but it also broke the ice. It’s funny how, sometimes, when things go wrong – paradoxically – it makes things go right. In both cases, what felt like a complete disaster in the moment turned out to be the very thing that enabled a different type of contact, a positive bridge of human empathy and relationship and a better outcome. An emotional experience of humour or relief melted the rational, technical barriers that could otherwise have proved more difficult to navigate. Yet how many of us would welcome such ‘accidents’ when they arise, or see only how they wreck our plans, expectations or delicate egos? It calls for a different kind of awareness, expectation and stance in the world. It means being open to possibilities, opportunities and potential in whatever happens. It’s far less about being planned and more about being prepared. It’s consistent with Professor Richard Wiseman’s view of what makes some people (apparently) ‘luckier’ than others (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06t5w4d). In coaching, we call this developing a client’s resource-fulness. Often, it entails enabling a person to approach the world, work and relationships with open hands, mind and heart; faith, hope and love. So – how do you respond to serendipitous ‘accidents’? How do you build clients’ resourcefulness? How can I help you to be more resourceful? Get in touch! info@nick-wright.com ‘Spontaneous counter-intuition.’ Those odd moments when, out of the blue, we find ourselves, suddenly and unexpectedly, acting radically-contrarily to our normal thinking patterns and behaviours – and yet with near-miraculous results. Have you ever experienced such a moment? What happened? What sense do you make of it? 'If you give children a problem, they may come up with a highly original solution, precisely because they don’t have the established route to it.’ (Edward de Bono) It was dark as I meandered through heavy, stationary traffic on my trail bike, trying not to be dazzled by headlights of on-coming cars. Suddenly, I noticed the strange shadowy figures of two men, one man attacking the other, punching him violently in the face against his car. Feeling like Bradley Cooper on NZT in Limitless, I pulled over fearlessly and strode towards them. I flipped up my visor, approached the aggressor, held out my arms in open gesture and asked, compassionately, if he was OK. He looked confused, stopped and skulked away. The other man, still propped against the side of the car with face covered in blood, thanked me profusely with breathy, gasping voice, ‘You saved my life.’ Now coming to my senses, as if waking up from sleep, I think I felt almost as surprised and relieved as he did. What on earth had just happened? How is it that I had acted so counter-intuitively in the moment and, in doing so, had ended the assault rather than escalated or become embroiled in it? I felt both stunned and amazed as I helped the man back into his car. It felt like a miracle. Edward De Bono coined the phrase, Lateral Thinking, to describe an approach to innovation and problem-solving that involves use of creative techniques that disrupt normal thinking patterns and stimulate fresh ideas. His ingenious methods helped to solve the human-psychological problem, ‘How can I think out of the box when I am the box?’ They help to break the frozen gaze, the ‘fixed Gestalt’, the mental webs of our own creation that become so entrapping for us (Gareth Morgan). And he made it possible to learn how to do it too. Yet how do we account for moments of instinct, of intuition, where we act, apparently laterally, without thinking, without conscious process of reasoning or decision-making? This looks and feels qualitatively different to lateral thinking, even if the results of it may appear so similar. How do we make sense of that sudden dream-like state, that doing the wildly unexpected thing that feels strange and unfamiliar, even to us? Is it something that we can learn, pray for, prepare for, especially in readiness for sudden crises? What do you think? Can I help you develop critical reflective practice? Get in touch! info@nick-wright.com ‘The problem is, we are protecting people when we should be preparing them.’ (Carole Pemberton) How to weather a storm. Resilience has become a buzz word in organisations today, linked with well-being, positive risk, agility, adaptivity and sustainability. As an individual-personal level, the imperative is being driven by a growing awareness of and concern about mental health issues, experiences, influences and impacts, including in the workplace. At a wider organisational level, factors include ever-more complex global dynamics and a seemingly relentless need for change. All in all, it can feel like a perfect storm – leaving leaders, managers, people professionals and staff alike feeling perplexed and exhausted. I worked recently with a forward-thinking public sector organisation in the UK. It was and is working through a merger with two sister organisations and recognised the criticality of building resilience by preparing leaders, staff and teams psychologically in advance for the transitions that this would entail; as well as to manage the practical change process itself effectively. I will share insights and ideas here that participants said they found most useful. We framed the experience as moving from an until-now-known reality to a not-yet-known future reality, through what sometimes may look-feel like a messy place in the middle. 1. Scary voids. In the absence of knowing exactly what a change and new future may hold, some people will fill the interim void with anxiety; others with hope. It’s normal – and partly influenced by what each person has experienced in the past. Hold your nerve. Reach out if you – or others – need help. 2. Small things are big things. In the midst of change and transition, the most insignificant of decisions and actions can take on great symbolic significance – positively or negatively. Don’t be surprised if this happens. Ask each other what small thing(s) would make the biggest positive difference – then, if possible, do it. 3. Mind games. People, teams and organisations construct narratives that help them make sense of their experience. Pay careful attention to the stories that you and other people tell yourselves – and each other – on route. Change the narrative: change the experience. 4. Rollercoasters. Transitions can feel like a bumpy ride, often feeling more like a ‘snakes and ladders’ game than a smooth change curve. Be patient, flexible and forgiving. One step at a time. 5. Building blocks. Reflect and help others reflect on life-work changes that have worked out well in the past – and how. Engender resourcefulness. Inspire hope. How do you develop personal, team and organisational resilience? Can I help you develop greater resilience? Get in touch! info@nick-wright.com |
Nick WrightI'm a psychological coach, trainer and OD consultant. Curious to discover how can I help you? Get in touch! Like what you read? Simply enter your email address below to receive regular blog updates!
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