Multi story|Coaching at Work

Narrative coaching can be a powerful and transformative way for individuals to renew meaning in their lives. Ho Law and Reinhard Stelter take up the tale…

A lot of coaching aims to unleash people’s potential to enhance their performance and achieve goals. Narrative coaching takes a broader perspective. It focuses on meaning, values and aspirations and seeks to shape new, alternative and more meaningful stories about clients’ lives and specific events.

The process is one of co-creation and collaboration between client and coach. Both are engaged in a learning and developmental process – the creation of a fuller plot for the client that will ideally lead – as Polkinghorne1 puts it – to a “more dynamic and thus more useful plot which serves as a powerful and connective force”.

Telling stories to one another and developing and sharing narratives, in groups or one-to-one, is fundamental to the process of social meaning-making. Narrative coaches listen to clients’ stories of lived experience. They help clients identify the hidden meaning, values, skills and strengths and re-develop new storylines towards a plan of action. This creates the foundation for new or revised narratives of focus on clients’ personal and professional lives.

Foundations

Narrative coaching has two central foundations:

Societal/cultural Coaching is a reflective space in which the client makes meaning through storytelling2. The use of the metaphors from the client’s culture becomes a powerful means of transformation3,4.
Learning A process of co-creation of knowledge and meaning5 (Vygotsky’s proximal development) that can be developed into a community of practice.

Origins

The origins of narrative coaching are in cultural anthropology, community psychology and the psychology of learning. The approach is grounded in cultural anthropology, for example, in the use of metaphors such as ‘rite of passage’ and in rituals that mark life transitions6,3,4.

Counsellors and psychotherapists have found these metaphors to be powerful vehicles in transforming people’s perceptions, thoughts and feelings, with profound implications for their well-being.

Narrative therapy was made popular by the late Michael White at the Dulwich Centre, Adelaide, Australia. It has since become common practice in Australia and across Europe. There was a body of writing on narrative therapy in the 1980s and 1990s7. However, despite its widespread application in many arenas, storytelling is still a relatively novel approach in the UK helping professions. Narrative techniques were first adapted into coaching in the UK by Ho Law8.

Techniques

The approach consists of the following techniques:

Externalising conversations (1 : 1)
Re-authoring and re-membering (1 : 1)
Outsider witness re-telling (1 : 1 : n)
Definitional ceremony

Of course, all narrative practice is a kind of externalising conversation. However, as a story unfolds the coach may use different techniques depending on the context of the storyline.

Externalising conversations

Externalising is a new way of talking about problems or issues that might have been internalised by the client as a kind of personal characteristic. However, the fundamental position is: The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem. The client is encouraged to talk about the issue as if it were ‘out there’ and not embedded within9.

An externalising conversation can be embedded in coaching by taking the following steps:

Description Guide clients to talk about how the issue might affect their life, work and so on. Try to give the issue a label, exploring with the client new ways of relating to it. While listening to the story, attempt to understand the client’s action; clarify if necessary the sequence of events, in terms of their circumstance and time, and identify any barriers to the client’s learning. Michael White called this the “landscape of action”.

Relation mapping Map the effects of the barriers in the client’s life domains (home, school, work, peers; or family relationships or friendships) on the client’s self-identity (purposes, life’s horizons, future possibilities, aspirations, values, hopes and dreams). The life domain constitutes the themes or plots of the story. The client’s self-identity is “the landscape of consciousness”.

Evaluation Using a set of narrative questions, help the client evaluate emerging story plots in terms of strengths, aspirations, values and self-identity.

Justification Invite the client to justify the above evaluation.

Conclusions/recommendations Guide the client to put into words valued statements (conclusions) about their lives and identities. These may be a reflection on their beliefs, values, commitments, desires, preferred purposes, longings, wishes, pledges, hopes and dreams. Guide the client to formulate a plan of action for overcoming barriers and achieving their aspirations.

Re-authoring and re-membering

Re-authoring In narrative coaching, the story told by the client about their life is regarded as a script and the client the author. The coach helps the client re-author their story to invoke their strengths and skills.

To do this, the coach listens to the story and identifies any neglected events (unique outcomes) which may have an impact on alternative storylines. The client may state,

“I am hopeless at presentations,” and offer many examples of their failure to support this storyline. The coach may then ask: “Are there exceptions in your experience of feeling hopeless?”

Instances that the client can identify may appear as thin traces (‘thin description’) in the background, in contrast to the foreground dominant storyline (‘thick description’). Nevertheless they provide a point of entry to the alternative storyline.

There are usually gaps between the thin and thick descriptions in the stories. The coach continues to ask the client to recall times when they’ve performed confidently in order to thicken the plot. The questions provide ‘scaffolding’ that enables the client to bridge their learning gap and recruit a lived experience. Narrative coaching helps clients exercise their imagination and meaning-making resources.

Re-membering During the externalising conversation, clients may refer to significant people in their past or present. Re-membering conversations can be used to re-author, reviewing which people are important in the client’s life. It evokes the metaphors of ‘life’ as a ‘membered’ club and ‘identity’ as an ‘association’ of life.

The client may say, “X was very important to me in my life…”

The coach may then ask, “In what ways is X still important to you now?”, and “If X were here, what would he/she say to you?”

The evaluation may involve the upgrading of some memberships – granting their voices an authority in meaning-making the new story. Alternatively, the client may choose to ‘downgrade’ others who have a negative impact on their life – ‘disqualifying’ their voices.

For significant members, the conversation may offer the opportunity to honour their memberships. Through the conversation, the coach and client co-generate significant memberships in the client’s life. From these new memberships, a lot of learning, skills and knowledge may be discovered.

Outsider witness re-telling

Narrative coaching can be applied in group or team situations. Unlike in many group coaching or team building exercises, only one person at a time acts as a storyteller. The others act as witnesses to the story.

After listening, the outsider witnesses are asked to re-tell the story. This act does not simply reiterate the original story. The process is guided by the coach’s questions. For example, the coach may ask, “Having listened to this story, which aspects of the story resonate with your own experience?”; “Can you describe the image that the story has evoked?”; “What have you learnt about this person from the action described in that story?”

The re-telling of the story focuses on those aspects most significant to the client’s personal development. The outsider witnesses provide acknowledgements that strengthen the client’s knowledge of their life and identity.

Definitional ceremony

Outsider witness re-telling can be repeated if there are multiple groups. This retelling of retellings is called definitional ceremony.

It can be used in a community or conference setting and has the following structures:

Storytellings By the client.
Retellings of tellings (first retelling) By an outsider witness.
Retellings of retellings (second retelling) By the initial storyteller.
Retellings of retellings of retellings (third retelling) By outsider witnesses or by a secondary group of outsider witnesses.

The number of layers of re-telling depends on the size of the group although obviously the process can’t continue indefinitely. The re-telling of the story can take place virtually, for example, by email.

The definitional ceremony is a powerful way to provide social acknowledgments of the client’s self-identity as well as counterplots.

For example, an outsider witness may say, “Wow… I was very moved by X’s story in terms of how resilient he/she was… I do not see him/her as lacking in confidence, but full of courage to confront the situation…”

Thus the re-telling of the story provides empowerment by amplifying the original storyteller’s strengths, which previously might have been ‘thinly described’.

Empsy Network provides its members with different levels of accreditation for coaching and training in a narrative approach. www.empsy.com, ho.law@empsy.com
To discuss and share your experience and resources in narrative coaching, join the Empsy Narrative Coaching Network on LinkedIn. www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/2680307

Narrative coaching: pros and cons

Pros

Telling stories is an easy way to connect to the client.
Adults, children and groups can all use it.
Flexibility.
It is sensitive to cultural aspects and thus applicable in different community settings.

Cons

In the re-telling, have the outsider witnesses honoured and respected the storyteller?
Client confidentiality may be hard to maintain in the definitional ceremony. Anonymity makes acknowledgements difficult.
Coaches engaged in research may have a professional duty to publish stories as case studies (evidence-based practice).
This needs to be done with sensitivity – both honouring the clients and ensuring their anonymity.
Does the coach own the authorship, or should the storytellers own their own stories? Who has the power, responsibility and control for disseminating the stories and knowledge, and for whose benefit?
Are the re-told stories valid and reliable and representative of the client’s intention?

Case study 1: The definitional ceremony

A large international blue-chip company used the definitional ceremony at a corporate away day in strategic planning and team building.

Aims

Break down communication barriers.
Gain colleagues’ support.
Develop a new strategy for international business.
Facilitate an understanding of how the 35-strong multi-disciplinary team’s role fits into the corporate strategic plan.
Celebrate completed projects.

The coaching

The director introduced the definitional ceremony. A facilitative workshop followed with break-out sessions and five small groups. Each group picked a volunteer storyteller and a volunteer facilitator.

The storytellers were asked to tell the facilitator about a recent success in breaking down communication at work. The others acted as outsider witnesses.

Each group selected a volunteer to perform the re-telling at the post-lunch plenary session, while everyone else acted as outsider witnesses.

The outcome

The outcome of the re-telling was often enlightening and empowering. One introverted member spoke of how he couldn’t speak with confidence in meetings. However, having listened to how a colleague overcame the same barrier, he felt moved to volunteer to be the spokesperson.

Interestingly, once he started, the other outsider witnesses joined in, speaking about their experience in communication among team members in the international context.

The team then came up with lists:

Relevant skills and knowledge to improve communication, and develop the strategic international business.
Values members hold that were relevant to the corporate values.
Actions for the business plan.
Stakeholders that can act as champions of the internal business and implement the business plan.

Do’s and Don’ts

Listen.
Ask, “Are there any exceptions?”
Focus on the storyline that seems to be the most significant in terms of the client’s strengths and aspirations.
Talk about what was heard.

Don’t

Map the effects of the issue on too many areas of the client’s life.
Give opinions about the client.
Make declarations about the client’s self-identity.
Use your own story as an example.
Introduce moral stories.

Exercise 1: Outsider witnessing

Method

Groups of four to six.
Coach and client face each other comfortably while the rest of the group position themselves to observe/listen without distracting the coach/client.

Allow approx 15 minutes for the coach to interview the client, who is guided by the following questions:

Q Can you remember a situation where you experienced success?

Q How would you describe the situation?

Q What was it that gave special meaning and personal value for you?

Q How did that experience change something in your life?

When the 15 minutes are up, observers ask each other about the dialogue, without evaluating or judging, making the client’s reflections relevant to

their own life. They are guided by the following questions (15 mins):

Q What was it (of what you have heard) that you were most drawn to?

Q How does that resonate with something in your own life? What came to your mind while you listened?

Q Did you get some new thoughts about you and your life?

The outcome

The client reflects about what he/she has heard (10 mins). The coach summarises and concludes (5 mins).

After everyone has completed the exercise, give the group 10 minutes to reflect. In particular:

What was it like for the client, listening to the observer’s conversation?
How did the group feel in the exercise?
Any other surprises/outcomes from the exercise?

Ask the group for comments on the exercise and for any new insights from this style of coaching. Were they good questions? Any surprises?

Exercise 2: The roundabout

An experience of appreciation, valuing an initiative taken – and the development of alternative stories.

Person A presents a situation where they received positive appreciation.
Person B gives appreciative feedback and relates the situation to their experiences.
Person B invites person C to continue – and so on.

Case study 2: Metaphorically speaking

A client is confronted with a new executive director who was a former colleague. She hadn’t applied for the position herself because she believed the applicant needed an economic background, which she didn’t have. The client had professional respect for her new male boss, but would be happier if he was “more visible and proactive”.

The coaching

The client’s aim was to have “a more nuanced relationship to my boss”.

Coach: “What would be your optimal view of your boss?”

Client: “That I can count on him.”

Other questions and answers gave a clearer picture of the situation.

Suddenly the client said: “We’re dancing around each other!”

Grasping but modifying this metaphor, the coach asked: “How would it look like if you were to dance together?”

Client: “It would be either the waltz or the tango.”

Coach: “What would you prefer?”

Client: “Tango!” (smiling impishly, also a bit surprised about what she was saying).

Coach: “What does tango as a dance mean to you? It is surely him who leads, isn’t it?”

Client: “Yeah, I would give myself to him! It could be fun to try!”

Coach: “If you think about the situation, how would it then be for you?”

Client: “I’d come to feel quite relaxed!” (exhales and seems relieved). “That would be a new perspective for me!”

Both laughed – the client expressing happiness about her new perspective.

Conclusions

A metaphor can shape stories, as this shows. It also shows that those who have a specific embodied perspective or bodily anchored experience can strengthen the narrative perspective and initiate change. In that sense the co-constructed shift of the story also implies a change in the client’s felt sense of possible changes in the story.

About the authors

Ho Law is a registered occupational psychologist, chartered psychologist, chartered scientist, chair of the British Psychological Society’s Special Group in Coaching Psychology and is on Coaching at Work’s editorial advisory board. He is founder director of Empsy and president of Empsy Network for coaching. www.empsy.com
Reinhard Stelter is professor of sport and coaching psychology at University of Copenhagen and head of the Coaching Psychology Unit at the Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences. He is an accredited member and honorary vice-president of the Society for Coaching Psychology. rstelter@ifi.ku.dk

References and further reading

References

D P Polkinghorne, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, p179, 1988.
R Stelter, “Coaching as a reflective space in a society of growing diversity – towards a narrative, postmodern paradigm”, in International Coaching Psychology Review 4(2), pp207-217, 2009.
V Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndemby Ritual. Ithaca: Cornel Paperbacks, 1967.
B Myerhoff, “Life history among the elderly: Performance, visibility and re-membering”, in J Ruby (Ed), A Crack in the Mirror: Reflexive Perspectives in Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
L S Vygotsky, Thought and Language, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, [1926] 1962.
A Van Gennep, The Rite of Passage, Chicago University Press, 1960.
D Epston and M White, Experience, Contradiction, Narrative &Imagination: Selected Papers of David Epston & Michael White. Adelaide Australia: Dulwich Centre, 1992.
H C Law, “Narrative coaching and psychology of learning from multicultural perspectives”, in S Palmer and A Whybrow (Eds), Handbook of Coaching Psychology, Hove, UK: Routledge, 2007.
M White, Maps of Narrative Practice, New York: Norton, 2007.

Multi story