A Coaching Power Tool Created by Josh Alwitt
(Executive Coach, USA)
I met with Pooja, a junior manager in India who was struggling with a heavy workload. She was trying to service people in the US and India timezones and was getting burnt out. I asked Pooja what she was doing to try to improve her situation, and she told me “I’ve talked to my manager in the US, and to the senior person here in India to come up with a solution. I’ve talked to my local HR person too, and the only idea they have come up with is to wait until we hire a few more people. I think I can tough it out.” I asked her who else could help with this problem and she drew a blank. So I shared the observation that I saw a key person who was not weighing in on the decision, and she responded “yes and I’m talking to you right now.” I told Pooja I was not referring to myself, but rather to herself. At that, her eyes grew damp as she considered that she would herself need to make the difficult work/life balance decisions in this situation rather than rely on others.
She saw that rather than being resigned to her situation and allowing it to be defined by others, she could take back the authority to determine her own priorities. By taking back her own agency and making more conscious choices, she was able to balance the tension between her apparently conflicting priorities of family, health, and job performance. She eventually came to see that she could actually improve her job performance by giving more attention to family and her own wellness.
Many of us are familiar with the Serenity Prayer by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can
And wisdom to know the difference
The last line is the crux of this power tool. How can we tell whether a situation should be accepted or changed?
In order to make a choice, we need to first identify that there is a choice. This can be as difficult, depending on one’s perspective, as a fish trying to understand the concept of water. Robert Kegan, a Harvard psychologist, has done extensive research into the concept of perspective and uses the idea of subject-object. When we are subject to a situation, we cannot identify it as separate from ourselves. When we can see the situation as object we are able to make conscious choices about it. A fish is subject to the water. For the human swimmer, the water is object, separate from oneself, allowing us to make choices about it.
Kegan’s research on adult development describes different forms of mind that influence how someone makes sense of the world:
In my own experience, people do not always think in a single form of mind. They can apply different forms of mind in different situations; especially during a time when they are moving from one form of mind to another in their life journey. For example, someone may start to think from a self-authored view in areas where they have a lot of experience and confidence, and still apply a socialized mind in other areas.
Now that we have explored the states of mind that allow choices, let’s look at the Resignation state of mind:
In the Resignation state of mind, a person has subconsciously accepted the current situation. They have taken their underlying assumptions to be facts and are not aware of any alternatives to the condition they are in. This is different from an explicit decision to accept a situation where one has thoughtfully considered the alternatives.
In the opening example, Pooja assumes that she does not have agency in the matter of the hours she is working. She is following the values of an organization with an emphasis on performance and teamwork. Because she wants to perform, and doesn’t want to let her team down, she sees no alternatives to the current situation.
Underlying the state of Resignation is a set of assumptions, and usually what Kegan calls the Big Assumption. The Big Assumption is an underlying belief, and as such, is like the water the fish swims in. Helping a client shift their view of the Big Assumption is at the core of this power tool. Here are some real examples of Big Assumptions that I have seen subconsciously prevent people from seeing that they have choices:
When your client is able to recognize their BIg Assumption for an assumption, rather than an implicit fact of life, it opens up all sorts of new possibilities.
Here is the challenge: as coaches, how can we help our clients see their Big Assumption when it’s subconscious?
Kegan and Leahy outline a simple, effective, four-step thought process in their book Immunity to Change. I will describe the steps here and also encourage you to read the book in order to be able to apply this effectively. The entry point for answering these questions is that the client currently wants to do something and has the skills, but for some reason cannot do it. It may take some reframing on the part of the coach to get to this entry point. In the example of the junior manager, I might have asked “what is it you would like to do in this situation that you are currently not able to achieve?” Kegan and Leahy’s four questions are:
- What are you trying to do?
- What are you doing instead?
- What are you afraid of?
- What is your Big Assumption?
Helping the client see their Big Assumption frees them to see the universe of choices available to them. Their Big Assumption may even be true in some cases, but if they can see it as only an assumption there may be ways to work with it. In Pooja’s case, I was not acting consciously as her coach. In retrospect, it would have been more effective to take her through the Immunity to Change process, and help her come to see her Big Assumption on her own.
Application:
Here are some examples of Big Assumptions and possible reframing:
When you see a choice that your client is not seeing, there is an opportunity to help them shift from Resignation to Choice:
Turning Choice Into Action:
If your client has succeeded in seeing alternatives where none existed before, that is tremendous progress. Now there is Choice and the question shifts to which path to choose. Extending the Big Assumption examples above, let’s look at possible actions the client could take in these situations:
Summary
When we find ourselves in uncomfortable situations, it can be difficult to see that there may be alternatives. Depending on our client’s form of mind in a given situation, they may not be able to see the choices available to them, and move into a state of resignation. As coaches, we can help our client’s see and challenge the assumptions they are making, opening up new choices. Through serenity, courage and wisdom we can make conscious decisions to either accept or change our life situations.
Reflections:
Reference:
Immunity to Change, Kegan & Lahey, 2009
Changing on the Job, Garvey & Berger, 2012