In the second in a series on systemic coaching, John Blakey explains why we need to go beyond traditional coaching to engage with the larger systemic issues of our time – so we can become interconnected
When Ian Day and I published our first book, Where Were All the Coaches When the Banks Went Down? two years ago, it provoked some debate in coaching circles. Its title alone appeared to polarise the coaching community into two camps – one which saw it as an arrogant claim that coaches could have prevented the crisis by thinking we were more important than we really are, and another which loved the idea that we might be more important than we really are!
In our latest book, Challenging Coaching: Going Beyond Traditional Coaching to Face the FACT, Ian and I expand on these ideas. My own belief is that we are no more or less important than any other profession in engaging with the ‘big picture’ systemic issues of our time. The interesting questions for me include: How do we maximise this contribution? How do we do this in a way that aligns with our coaching ethics and principles? And how do we engage proactively with these challenges without being corrupted by our egos?
The discipline of systems thinking has helped me a great deal in grappling with these questions. It helped me generate some concepts and practical tools and techniques. I’ve outlined them here in this article.
So what is systems thinking? At its core, it is a belief that everything is interconnected and that it is the relationship between things rather than the things themselves that is the primary driver of change. A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organised in a way that achieves something. The human body is a system. A family is a system. A business is a system. All share common characteristics and rules of behaviour that can help us as executive coaches. They are:
Sub-optimisation
One of the first implications of systems thinking is the awareness that systems are often embedded in other systems. Hence the definition of the boundary of a system depends on the perspective we are adopting at any point in time. This ‘nesting’ is shown in the figure.
When a coach is working with an individual, it can be tempting to think that the individual is an ‘island’ and that their actions are independent of what is happening in the rest of the organisation. This way of thinking can lead to a focus on maximising the individual’s performance irrespective of their wider impact. In systems thinking terms the risk that the goals at a sub-system level dominate at the expense of the total system’s goals is known as sub-optimisation.
Practical tool: Systems-centred questions
The use of systems-centred questions to raise the client’s awareness of the wider implications of their thinking and behaviour is a simple tool to reduce the risk of sub-optimisation. Figure 1 gives a map of possible perspectives from which to ask such questions. For example, you might be working with a client on a sensitive decision which means a trade-off between profit and people.
A simple question such as:
“If your decision were to be featured on the front page of the Daily Telegraph, how would you feel?” makes the client bring in the perspective of absent stakeholders, such as the public and family. It might shed light on their decisions.
Fractals
The term fractal is used to describe how the examination of a small-scale component of a system can reveal information relating to the system as whole. A popular example is the coastline of a country which has lookalike features and characteristics viewed close up or at a distance.
Applied to executive coaching, the client can be regarded as a fractal of the whole organisation.
In working with the individual at a personal level much will also be revealed about the nature of the organisational system as a whole. For me, a vivid example of this occurred when working with two different management levels of a Scandinavian telecomms company.
At the more senior level, the client had talked about the risk of the organisation ‘hitting the wall’ due to the extent of its ambition and its pace. At the lower level, the client had also ‘hit the wall’. Both repeatedly used the same phrase about different levels of the system.
When this link was raised with both stakeholders it led to some dramatic outcomes. One of the coaches even commented that they felt this was a pattern in the Scandinavian culture as a whole (the Viking mentality), thus alluding to the relevance of the fractal at a system level above and beyond the organisation itself.
Practical tool: Sensitive listening
In their seminal work Co-Active Coaching (see page 20), H & K Kimsey-House, P Sandahl and L Whitworth introduced the concept of what they termed Level III listening: ‘global listening’. While they did not link Level III listening directly to systems thinking, note the language that they used to describe it: “At Level III, you listen as though you and the client were at the centre of the Universe receiving information from everywhere at once. It is as though you were surrounded by a force field that contains you, the client and the space of knowing. If Level II is hardwired then Level III is like a radio field.”
Sensitive listening is Level III listening. It is a profound sensitivity to the unspoken and subtle levels of information which flow unconsciously in any situation.
An example of sensitive listening interventions would be: “When you used the word ‘panic’ I felt a deep impact of that word and I am wondering what that is all about.”
Leverage points
Finally, the phrase ‘leverage points’ is used in systems thinking to describe those points in the system where a small change could lead to a large shift in behaviour. An example can be seen in the practice of martial arts.
How is it that a wiry, seven stone tai chi master can throw a six foot three hulk across the room with seemingly no great effort? This is because they have spent a lifetime studying the leverage points of the human body. They instinctively sense when the opponent is fractionally off balance and use the weight of the other person to create a dramatic momentum.
In coaching, leverage points in the system may be specific individuals who have become talismanic in the organisation. They could also be specific moments when the system is poised on a decision that will have far-reaching, irreversible consequences. If a coach is sensitive to such leverage points and intervenes decisively, a ‘ripple effect’ can be created akin to the impact of a martial arts expert on his larger, stronger opponent.
Practical tool: Giving the system a voice
It is not enough to be sensitive to the whereabouts of leverage points in the organisational system. There comes a point when the coach needs to provide the direct intervention that may transform the situation. It is a coach’s intuition that provides the spur for these moments. Profoundly unnerving, you are sat in the midst of a coaching conversation and it is as if someone else takes over the controls momentarily and with absolute authority and knowing, says, “Do this now!”
Your rational mind, usurped from its customary position of power and control, rebels against this rude interruption and replies, “You’re joking! There is no way I am saying that or doing that. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Of course it doesn’t make sense – it is the voice of your intuition! In systems thinking coaching, when these moments happen, you swallow hard and speak.
The observant reader will have noted that all three of the above system thinking techniques challenge the coach to show courage in their work. The courage to ask questions on behalf of absent stakeholders. The courage to butt up against the prevailing rational left brain ideology of the business world and rely on intuition. The courage to speak up and challenge, even when such a challenge might risk immediate personal self-interest.
Conclusions
Systems thinking expert Donella Meadows, passionately sums up my own belief when she says: “The first step in respecting language is to keep it as concrete, meaningful and truthful as possible… If something is ugly, say so. If it is tacky, inappropriate, out of proportion, unsustainable, ecologically impoverishing or humanly demeaning, don’t let it pass.”
Systems are liberated by the truth. The challenge for the coaching profession collectively is this: are we prepared to speak it? n
lJohn Blakey is an ICF professional certified coach who works with board-level leaders around the globe. For more information visit
www.challengingcoaching.co.uk
Reader offer
For a chance to win a signed copy of Challenging Coaching, join the Challenging Coaching LinkedIn group by 15 September (see http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4217796 ). You will then be entered into a prize draw. The first five people drawn from a hat will receive a copy of the book signed by Blakey and Day. You will also need to be a member of the Coaching at Work LinkedIn group (by 15 September) to qualify for this offer.
Coaching at Work, Volume 7, Issue 5