Research Paper: The Power Of Stories And What It Means For Coaching

Research Paper By Shruti Sridhar Murthy
(Leadership Coach, INDIA)

Introduction- What’s the big deal about stories anyway?

Humans and our connection to stories have always fascinated me – Especially because we seek them, connect with them, learn from them, share them and build on them ALL the time.

And stories, in turn, seem to have a way of teaching us, entertaining us, providing us with an escape, and re-orienting us towards our goals, not just consciously but even at a sub-conscious level.

Given below is a collection of quotes that really brings alive this connection beautifully:

What’s the connection between the stories we sub-consciously tell ourselves and Coaching?

One of my observations as a coach is the many layers my clients have as dynamic individuals with all their dreams, desires, values, beliefs, strengths, achievements, experiences and challenges. While their willingness to explore, reflect and work on themselves is nothing short of inspiring, I have also experienced first-hand how these individuals with immense potential stand in their own way, struggling to move from intention to impact because of the stories they tell themselves.

Let me demonstrate this using The Karpman Drama Triangle.^[1]

The drama triangle is a social model of human interaction – the triangle maps a type of destructive interaction that can occur between people in conflict. A drama triangle model is a tool used in psychotherapy, specifically transactional analysis.  It consists of 3 key roles:

1. The Victim – Feels Powerless; A victim of circumstances that are happening ‘to’ them
2. The Persecutor – The person making the victim’s life intentionally difficult
3. The Rescuer – The Rescuer feels guilty if they don’t go to the victim’s rescue. Yet their rescuing has negative effects: It keeps the victim dependent and gives the victim permission to fail while allowing the rescuer to avoid their own problems

In the context of the stories we tell ourselves, I believe that we don’t even need an external persecutor or rescuer. Across different coaching sessions, I have found that most of us end up donning all 3 hats at different points or even all at once in our own stories as below:

1. The Victim – Feeling like we don’t have a choice, that we are bound by reasons beyond our control
2. The Persecutor – Constantly belittling ourselves, doubting our capability and questioning whether we even deserve better
3. The Rescuer – Coming up with the story that justifies our actions and that we can share with the world so that others ‘get us’

Interestingly, the combined effect of these three roles makes us more certain with each passing day about the disempowering stories we tell ourselves.

All this is interesting, but is there science that can prove the impact stories have on us?

Given below is a sample of some very interesting research I found when I started diving deeper into the ‘science behind the art of storytelling and the stories we tell ourselves’:

Coaching Application – How can coaches help clients re-craft their stories or at least change their relationship with their stories? 

This would broadly involve 3 key steps:

1. Uncover the stories most important to them
2. Explore their relationship to their stories – how their stories are serving them or standing in their way
3. Encourage them to author the story that will support them towards the outcomes they seek – complete with changes to the storyline, action, learning and more changes till they are absolutely certain that this is the story that empowers them, gives them wings and propels them forward

I have tried to capture below my learnings from different sources of inspiration that we can leverage to help our clients change the stories they are telling themselves about themselves 

Inspiration	Modified for Coaching Application
The Empowerment Dynamic[6]which is a shift from the Drama Triangle. It includes three new roles: 1.      The Victim becomes Creator – Where the person proactively works towards the desired outcome 2.      The Persecutor becomes Challenger – Creates a positive tension for the Creator to grow 3.      The Rescuer becomes the Coach – Asks questions to help discover and achieve what the Creator wants PLUS TED Talks[7][8]that have touched on the power of Personal Narratives	1.      For the shift from Victim to Creator: a.      When the client shares a limiting story, ask them to come up with two to three different versions of the same story b.      Ask them in what way they can create space for new validations of the version of their story they like best c.       When they use terms like ‘I can’t’, ask them to rephrase it as ‘I choose not to’. That puts the choice back in their hands…ask them what, if anything changes when they realise it is a choice they are making or have made 2.      For the shift to Challenger, ask in what way they can challenge their inner critic and constructively support the Creator in them instead. 3.      For the shift to Coach, ask them to reflect on what they are learning about themselves in this process and in what way those learnings are further influencing their story.
Byron Katie’s The Work[9]which includes the following questions after isolating a particular thought: 1.      Is it true? 2.      Can you absolutely know that it’s true? 3.      How do you react, what happens when you believe that thought? 4.      Who would you be without that thought? 5.       Turn the thought around. Is the opposite as true as or truer than the original thought?	Work with the client to identify the story they are telling themselves and then ask: 1.      Is the story true? 2.      Can you absolutely know that it’s true? 3.      How do you react, what happens when you believe that story? 4.      Who would you be without that story? 5.      Is a completely opposite, ‘more positive story’ as true or truer than the original story? (Can you find at least three specific, genuine examples that validate your alternate narrative?)
The Hero’s Journey[10] [11][12] The concept of the Hero’s Journey began in 1949 with a book by Joseph Campbell titled The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It offers a circular structure where the story begins where it ends, but takes the hero from a known world to an unknown one (literally or figuratively), introduces them to powers or skills they never knew they had and forces them to lay everything on the line to achieve personal success or help their communities. While the hero is where they began at the end of the story, their experience forever changes them. Christopher Vogler (a Hollywood screenwriter, author and educator) in his interpretation of the Hero’s Journey took it a step further and added the inner journey: the emotional and mental transformation that takes place concurrently with the outer journey. When paired, the inner and outer journeys make for a clear and concise interpretation of the emotional and mental state of the hero during each stage of her journey.	This is something I haven’t yet tried implementing, but I am most definitely inspired to: ·       Share with my client what the Hero’s Journey is along with the visual ·       Ask the client what stage of their journey they currently are at and partner with them through the rest of their journey (There are many nuances that we can leverage from the Hero’s Journey – As an example, there is an additional step of ‘trials, allies & enemies’ between crossing the threshold/ committing to change and entering our innermost cave. In the coaching context, I would apply this learning by working with the client to ‘build their muscle’ in order to be ready to make the big change happen)
Thought to provoke Stories/ Poems/ Quotes	Share short stories/ poems/ quotes that we consider inspiring and relevant to a challenge the client is dealing with (Should not be more than 5 mins of talking from the coach’s end) and ask them what’s coming up for them as they are hearing this story

Conclusion – Where to from here?

In Coaching, we say don’t get into the client’s story but as humans, we are also known as story beings. Plus this Research has made very compelling for me the influence of the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we consume, in our lives. As I have tried to connect these seemingly disparate dots between two fields of work that I am personally very passionate about – Coaching and Stories, I have realised that the Coach’s role is to facilitate our clients to come face to face with the stories that matter to them, without going into them ourselves.

 What has been captured in this paper is just the start of my journey exploring ‘The Power of Stories and what it means for Coaching’, but the results I am beginning to see as I am applying some of these learnings with my clients have been truly encouraging.

References:

[1] Wikipedia (2019). The Karpman Drama Triangle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle

[2] Lani Peterson (2017). The Science behind the art of storytelling. https://www.harvardbusiness.org/the-science-behind-the-art-of-storytelling/

[3]Emily Esfahani Smith(2017). The two kinds of stories we tell about ourselves.https://ideas.ted.com/the-two-kinds-of-stories-we-tell-about-ourselves/

[4]   Frank Rose (2011). The Art of Immersion: Why do we tell stories?

https://www.wired.com/2011/03/why-do-we-tell-stories/

[5] Angela Noel (2017). Cognitive Bias Series: The Stories We Tell Ourselves.

[6] Mae Rice (2018). To Avoid Drama you need to break the Karpman Drama Triangle.

[7] Donald Davis (2014). TEDx Talks: How the Story transforms the Teller.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgeh4xhSA2Q

[8] Sarah Vaid (2015). TEDx Talks: Change Your Story, Change Your Life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTjN1K-zsSM

[9]Byron Katie (1986). The Work. https://thework.com/

[10]Patrick Takaya Solomon (2011). Finding Joe -A documentary on the Hero’s Journey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3LozCNO30w

[11]Sam Peek (2016). The Hero’s Journey Guide to Creating Irresistible Patient Testimonials. https://www.incrediblemarketing.com/the-heros-journey-guide-to-creating-irresistible-patient-testimonials/

[12]Blog (2018).The Hero’s Journey; A Perspective That Can Change Your Life For Good.https://sunwarrior.com/blogs/health-hub/the-heros-journey