The Clean Language approach helps clients find ‘new’ answers by thinking differently about the question. The coach plays a vital role here – by keeping out of their way, says Angela Dunbar
The late New Zealand psychologist and therapist David Grove pioneered the technique of Clean Language in the 1980s as an effective means to treat patients suffering from traumatic memories. The technique has since gathered momentum as a tool for change within business due, in part, to the work of Carol Wilson of Performance Coach Training, along with Grove before his death in 2008.
Reliving trauma
Grove discovered that patients would often speak in metaphors when describing traumatic experiences. He realised they could be helped if they “honoured” their metaphors – asking open questions that reflected their exact words.
Over some years he identified 13 questions deemed to have the least influence on the patient in their metaphorical journey. He called this Clean Language.
The technique was observed and modelled by therapists Penny Tompkins and James Lawley, who expanded it into a methodology called Symbolic Modelling.
Clean Language is particularly useful in coaching when it helps clients change their ways of thinking. To paraphrase Einstein, no problem can be solved at the same level of consciousness that created it, so one way to help your client find new answers is to think about the question differently.
Shifts in thinking can bring practical and very real changes to how people behave, and in turn how their organisation functions.
Carol Wilson included Clean Language training in a coaching course at the St Mary’s NHS Trust. One manager there said she had successfully used it to mediate in a breakdown in communication between a patient and doctor.
A discussion with the patient in metaphor enabled her to realise that some of her aggression towards the doctor came from her relationship with a relative, who was present at the time. Through Clean Language the patient resolved the problem with the doctor and her relative.
Raising awareness
Meanwhile, a director of a multi‑national corporate near London was experiencing a business challenge around their energy levels and speed of working. One of the director’s hobbies was vintage cars and, using Clean Language, it was possible to develop quite an extensive vehicle metaphor for the client, covering performance, values and identity. The relationship between that and the work issues was then explored.
This exercise raised awareness in the client about themselves and identified ways to be and think differently about perceived challenges, using a language and model very removed from the usual business jargon.
Metaphorically speaking
Tompkins and Lawley1 highlight three levels of thinking we engage in: sensory, conceptual and metaphoric. We use language to describe the level we’re engaged in:
- “I’m too cold” (sensory).
- “No one seems to care about getting the central heating fixed” (conceptual).
- “It’s like an igloo in here” (metaphoric).
Tompkins and Lawley suggest that “metaphors allow people to express and give a form to complex feelings, behaviours, situations and abstract concepts”, which can then be explored more explicitly.
For example, let’s say your client describes the last month of their working life as like a “rollercoaster”.
By exploring the qualities of that metaphor the client understands more about how they are thinking about their working life. With Clean Language you help the client think about how they are thinking.
The concept
The term “clean” in this context means to communicate without attempting to alter the other person’s perception or add to it with your own thoughts or ideas. This might sound easy, and in line with many other non-directive coach approaches, but this cleanness goes deeper, to your own intentions. You need to keep out of your client’s way.
For instance, you may ask the client with the rollercoaster work life: “How could you find a less stressful way to work?” This is not a clean question. The word “stressful” may not be how they see that rollercoaster. To them it might be exciting. With a clean approach you only use words the client has used, along with a scattering of totally neutral words. For example, you might ask: “Is there anything else about that rollercoaster?”
Phrasing is everything
The above is a really useful Clean Language question that can be used in almost any situation. It allows the client to expand on what they have said and gain a greater insight into their own thinking patterns.
Interestingly, this question is phrased as a closed question, and many would think it an ineffective way to encourage a client to open up. However, it is a far less assumptive question than if you were to ask: “What else is there about the rollercoaster?” – as you are assuming there is something else when there might not be.
Phrased cleanly, it is more respectful to the client because it leaves them to decide if there is anything – and what it might be.
Another way to phrase your question to be as unobtrusive as possible is to begin with the words “and” or “so”. This has the effect of joining your question onto whatever the client last said, keeping things connected and relevant: “And is there anything else about that rollercoaster?”
Finally, repeating back the metaphoric content of the client’s language helps draw them into it.
You might say: “So, your working life is like a rollercoaster. And when it’s like a rollercoaster, what kind of rollercoaster is that rollercoaster?”
That question may seem strange as you read it now, but when put to the client they will hear their own words played back and feel listened to and honoured.
Questions to try
Clean Language is simple to pick up, yet works on so many levels it could take a lifetime to master.
As well as the: “Is there anything else?” question, you could also try: “And what kind of… is that… ?”
So if the client said the rollercoaster was a bit rocky, you could ask: “And what kind of rocky is that rocky?”
These two questions alone will help you enter the world of metaphor and have your clients learn more about themselves.
A third question to add to your repertoire will help a client define an outcome, within the world of their metaphor.
The question is: “And what would you like to have happen?”
You can use this question when a client has presented you with a problem, expressed in metaphor.
So, if the client said: “The rollercoaster is rocky because it’s unstable. I feel like it could fly off the tracks at any moment and I’m scared about what that could mean for me.”
You could then ask: “And when you’re scared, and that rocky rollercoaster could fly off the tracks at any moment, what would you like to have happen instead?”
When phrased in this way, the client is likely to stay in the world of metaphor and fantasise about another view: “I’d like my rollercoaster to have wings.”
That very simple and fantastical statement could have the most profound effect on the client, who is now re-jigging their mental construction of their working life to include a rollercoaster with wings and what that might mean for them. At a deep level their thinking is shifting. This can be encouraged by using the first two questions to explore those wings:
“And is there anything else about those wings?”
“And what kind of wings are those wings?”
Angela Dunbar is a qualified, accredited coach and council member of the Association for Coaching. She specialises in Clean Language and Emergent Knowledge and delivers training in Clean Language for organisations and on open courses.
www.cleancoaching.com
Case study: Clean coaching at the top
Adrian Goodall, managing director of Adrian Goodall Associates, is a graduate of the distance learning programme on Clean Language for coaches. With 25 years of commercial and executive experience in the City and in corporate strategy, Goodall works with leaders, their teams and rising talent who want better, faster, different results, typically dealing with the opportunities and challenges of leadership, effectiveness, confidence, clarity of direction and communication skills. He believes Clean Language has helped him and his client in a number of ways.
“I work as an accredited coach with corporate clients and have trained with Coaching Development and John Seymour (NLP) among others,” he says. “I have developed that learning over the past 18 months with Angela Dunbar.
“It is much more than just another technique in the toolkit. Although I don’t often have sessions that are exclusively ‘clean’, the approach and values are always with me.
“I believe this helps me as a coach in the following ways:
- Being efficient and direct with my questions.
- Establishing rapport (executives are surprised by accurate listening and reflection).
- Greater confidence in dealing with the client’s organisational jargon.
- Additional confidence in handling unexpected emotional issues.
- Extra creativity.
- Dealing with blocks by helping people move away from stuck jargon/thinking.
“I’m more able to be present because the clean values help quieten my ‘solutions’ voice. Obviously there are times when clients want solutions and other ‘content’ and we make a contract as to my role as coach and work together accordingly.
“I don’t tell my clients when I’m using Clean Language so I don’t have direct feedback on its impact, but my overall sense is that it builds a deeper confidence in coaching. Clients go away wanting to do things differently (rather than it being a duty). I’m often surprised at what makes a change land for the client, and I’m happy to go with that!”
- J Lawley & P Tompkins, Metaphors in Mind, The Developing Company Press, 2000.
For further information, visit
- www.cleanlanguage.co.uk and www.cleancoaching.com
- Read about Clean Language training at the BBC at: www.cleancoaching.com/#/ourclientsbbc/4528643155
- See also: A room of your own by Ken Smith (Coaching at Work, Vol 3, Issue 2).
Coaching at Work, Volume 5, Issue 3