 ‘Behind every problem, there is a question trying to ask itself. Behind every question, there is an answer trying to reveal itself.’ (Michael Beckwith) Second-guessing. It creates all sorts of risks. ‘What time does Paul’s meeting finish?’ Is that a simple request for information, or is there a question behind the question? ‘I’d like to meet with Paul this afternoon. What time will he be free?’ That’s better. ‘I need you to present an urgent strategy update to the Board.’ Again, is that a simple instruction, or is there an issue that lays behind it? ‘I’d like to demonstrate to the Board next week that our investments are achieving the desired results.’ Better. A problem with a question that fails to reveal the question, the issue, that lays behind the question is that it leaves the other party to fill in the gaps. In doing so, they are likely to draw on their own assumptions – which could be very different to your own – or sometimes their anxieties. ‘Is he complaining that Paul’s meeting is over-running?’ ‘Is she inferring there’s a problem with my work on strategy delivery that I hadn’t been aware of?’ Simply stating our intention can make all the difference.
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 ‘You can never really know someone completely. That’s why it’s the most terrifying thing in the world, really – taking someone on faith, hoping they’ll take you on faith too. It’s such a precarious balance. It’s a wonder we do it at all.’ (Libba Bray) There’s an idea in Gestalt psychology that we’re predisposed, hard-wired, to ‘fill in the gaps’. Here’s a real and practical example. I was once invited to facilitate a conference of around 50 people from diverse professional backgrounds in the housing sector. I had never met anyone in the group and they had never met me. I stood up on the podium, introduced myself simply as ‘Nick Wright, an organisation development consultant from England’, then invited everyone to take a pen and paper. I explained that I would ask them a series of questions about myself, to which they were to guess the answers. ‘Which newspaper do I read?’ ‘What political party will I vote for at the next General Election?’ ‘Am I married, or single?’ ‘What is my professional background?’ ‘What’s my favourite hobby outside of work?’ I then asked who had been able to answer every question. Everyone raised their hands. I now invited them to draw a simple face against each of their answers – which they wouldn’t be expected to share in the group. A happy face meant their answer drew them towards me; an unhappy face that it pushed me away. A neutral face meant, well, neutral. Again, everyone managed to do it. I paused and invited them to reflect at their tables on what had just happened. Person after person said how astonished they felt at how quickly and easily they had created a profile of me in their minds, and how that had influenced how they felt about – and were now likely to respond and relate to – me. They had filled in the gaps of not-knowing by drawing on hopes and fears, past experiences, personal projections, cultural assumptions etc. Filling in the gaps enables us to relate quickly to others rather than starting every relationship as if from scratch. It also risks unhelpful stereotyping and bias. This raised important questions for participants at the conference so I offered 3 principles: compassion, curiosity and challenge. Compassion: ‘What do I need to feel safe to contribute in this group? ‘How can I demonstrate a compassionate stance towards others?’ Curiosity: ‘What assumptions am I making about those around me, e.g. based on their looks, accent or job title?’ ‘Who or what is influencing the ways in which I’m thinking about, feeling about and responding to others?’ Challenge: ‘What am I not-noticing about those around me?’ ‘How open am I to have my beliefs about others tested?’  ‘I stand in front of you. I'll take the force of the blow. Protection.’ (Massive Attack) I recall vividly sitting opposite an older woman, a total stranger, on an underground train in London. She was wearing a Star of David necklace around her neck, a symbol of the Jewish faith. I remember thinking, ‘I’d give my life for you…and you have no idea.’ My own bleeding scars from a lifetime of studying the unthinkable horrors of Nazi atrocities run deep. I don’t have a Jewish background, and I didn’t live through that darkest period of human history. It’s a vicarious experience, an imagined knowing and feeling from a distance, which has nevertheless propelled me into a lifetime of work. Another occasion, this time in a town in North England, I stood outside some shops as an infamous, large group of rowdy motorcyclists rode past, weaving in out of traffic, pulling wheelies, provoking car drivers and generally behaving like hooligans. I suddenly became aware of a young Muslim woman standing not far from me, wearing a hijab and looking anxious. We caught eyes for a brief moment and she moved to stand beside me. We didn’t speak a word but it’s as if somehow she felt safer, and I could have hugged her. It’s something about vulnerability in the face of a threat. I hate it. I once talked this through with Ali, a beautiful-spirited, Jewish systemic coach who had lost many of her family members in the Holocaust. She was intrigued by my instinct as a follower of Jesus to intervene, to try to change things. We discussed some of the painful challenges that people can face in extreme circumstances. What to do if, say, you see a Nazi pointing a gun at a girl to shoot her, and you have a gun and could stop him? I said, ‘I’d pull the trigger.’ Ali said, quietly, ‘I’d put down the gun, then stand between the soldier and the girl.’ I stand in front of you. I’ll take the force of the blow. Protection.  ‘Today the lines between mentoring and networking are blurring. Welcome to the world of mentworking.’ (Julie Winkle Giulioni) Some people like conceptual models. For those who do, I’m sometimes asked how I differentiate between coaching, mentoring, facilitation and training. After all, they’re all practices that fall broadly within the people and culture arena. One way I’ve found useful is to depict them in a simple model framework, as above. We can see here that coaching and mentoring ordinarily have an individual orientation, whereas facilitation and training have a group orientation. The distinction isn’t always as sharp as that in practice however since, for instance, team coaching, as the name implies, is with a group, and personal training is with an individual. Coaching and facilitation use a primarily non-directive approach, often focusing on process and enabling a person or group to surface their own insights and ideas by posing questions. Mentoring and training tend to be more directive, often focusing on content delivery such as sharing of knowledge and experience. Again, the boundary isn’t always that hard in practice. For instance, a coach or facilitator necessarily brings their own expertise to the encounter, from which the client may well draw insights and ideas. In mentoring or training, the practitioner may well use questions to enable a client to process and apply what they have learned for themselves. How, if at all, do you distinguish between these different but related fields of practice? How do you decide which is most appropriate, for whom and when?  ‘The map of the world is always changing; sometimes it happens overnight. All it takes is the blink of an eye, the squeeze of a trigger, a sudden gust of wind.’ (Anderson Cooper) I ordered a large and colourful map of South East Asia for my bedroom wall recently. When it arrived, it was subtly different to the one that had been advertised and clearly depicts a Chinese geopolitical view of the region. Taiwan is colour-coded the same as China and the internationally-disputed 9-dash line is boldly marked around the whole of the South China Sea. It struck me how simple representations on a map can both reveal and aim to create a very specific cultural and political view of the world. I have another large and colourful map of the Earth mounted on the wall above my desk. This one shows the world as ‘upside down’, although the names on the ‘countries’ are still written the ‘right way up’. It feels strange and disorientating to look at and reveals, experientially, how fixed we can become in the representations we hold of of the world we have been taught and learned since childhood. A world map is also a mental map. Every portrayal is an implicit human construct. Nothing is simply ‘how it is’. |
Nick WrightI'm a psychological coach, trainer and OD consultant. Curious to discover how can I help you? Get in touch! 
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