Raising awareness of disruptive behaviours in relationships – Part 4.
How can a coach help a client address behaviours and take responsibility for their part in creating an unhealthy relationship dynamic?
This issue: stonewalling
Nicole Berg
If you’re like me, you might enjoy attending meetings that involve your client. I like it because I’m able to catch a glimpse into who they are and what they do in a more enduring context that is far different to our coaching sessions.
For this reason, I looked forward to meeting with a client and her line manager at the start of her coaching programme – and this was true of the time I met with a new client, Anna*, and her manager, to outline Anna’s goals.
However, the meeting didn’t go quite as planned. As the person in the room with the least knowledge of the client, the role, and the business context, I typically do the least speaking, instead facilitating the conversation, asking questions, reflecting, clarifying, summarising – in short, gathering data.
Anna was giving me a run for my money as the quietest person in the room, taking an almost passive role in observing goals being set for her. Having met her once before, I knew this was completely out of character – she was gregarious, assertive and knew her mind. Now, Anna was avoiding eye contact and essentially only speaking when spoken to, and as minimally as possible at that.
So, while Anna’s manager had attempted to take turns during the conversation, at the end of the session we had outlined a few mutually decided goals in the broadest sense of the term, with Anna’s manager stating, “We’ve talked about improving XXX”, and Anna nodding when required.
It was clearly not the ideal start to a coaching programme; I would have loved to see Anna taking the lead in her professional and personal development, with the manager feeding into the process. Moreover, it was indicative of their relationship day to day; this pattern of communication – or lack thereof – would have a detrimental impact on them as individuals, on the team and on the business.
Hitting the wall
Stonewalling is the unspoken refusal to communicate or cooperate; the listener simply ‘withdraws’ from the interaction and does not engage fully – or even at all – with the conversation.
It is one of Dr John Gottman’s ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’, the term he gives to the four behaviours that no relationship, whether personal or professional, can withstand over time. And it was a behaviour Anna was clearly in the habit of portraying with her line manager.
Not wanting to ignore what had just happened for the sake of Anna, her goals, and her relationship with the manager, I articulated what I’d seen and asked about it.
It turned out that Anna was frustrated with some aspects of the company culture, which was a culture that seemed to be aligned with her manager’s ways of working. She felt angry when confronted with instances of some cultural norms, and thus felt angry with her line manager on a continual basis, from a deep-seated, values-led place.
We coached around the emotion of anger as identified by Anna, and as she physiologically calmed, it became possible to begin a discussion about how she might work in an authentic, values-led way in a culture that doesn’t seem to welcome it.
No stone unturned
This approach is in keeping with Gottman’s antidote to stonewalling: first, to physiologically self-soothe; then, rather than to continue to avoid an issue (which is the intention of stonewalling), to address the issue.
Lola Fayemi, leadership coach and founder of Boss Ass Living, says:
- Since stonewalling is a form of protection, what we must realise first of all is that the disengagement and shutdown of communication coming from Anna stems from a sense of real or perceived danger. As human beings we are hardwired for survival and safety. Something in Anna feels unsafe and so is unable to speak up when it comes to her manager (and I’m guessing other people in her life, too).
- I would support Anna in raising her awareness around her actions and its impact on the situation. We would explore what she was trying to achieve or avoid by stonewalling. Explore the beliefs fuelling the stonewalling and drill down into the root belief. For instance, she may hold a surface belief that “I’m never heard”, which points to a deeper belief around her sense of self-worth. It would be good for Anna to see the root belief subconsciously playing such a key role in her life.
- Once we had accessed the belief I would have her explore the accompanying sensations or somatics and have her fully embody the feeling. This is so she is able to hear what this part of her needs and give it the soothing it asks for.
- From this soothed place Anna would be able to access the wisdom of a more authentic and less reactive part of her that has been marginalised out of this situation thus far. She could even name the value(s) associated with this part of her. Naming and embodying this wiser part of her would allow her to tap into her authentic wisdom about the situation so she can hear another perspective on how to handle the situation in a different way.
- From this new place Anna could also have a conversation with her manager where they can consciously design their working relationship together.
Fostering more open, two-way communication in this manner could stand to have an exponentially positive impact on the relationship, and a wider impact on the business as well.
*Names have been changed
- J Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, London: Orion, 2007
- In the next issue we examine Stephen Covey’s spheres of concern, influence and control and their impact in relationships.
- Nicole Berg is CEO and founder of leadership and development consultancy, Charis Coaching. Coaching at Work partnered with Charis Coaching as part of its Campaign for Gender Equality. www.chariscoaching.co.uk