Using objects while coaching

Using Objects as an aid to a Coaching Conversation

Introduction

This article explains how everyday objects such as a pencil, pen, cup, saucer or spoon can be used to great effect in a coaching session. 

Applications

This technique can be used in any coaching conversation of 30+ minutes where the coachee’s topic contains a number of elements.  The topic may be of a personal nature, an inter-personal issue, a structural or systemic issue or about a project or process. 

Benefits

The benefits include:

(a)    An opportunity to unravel a problem, identify its separate parts and to see the relationship between them. (spatial sorting)

(b)   The ability to look at the whole ‘system’.

(c)    Getting the issue/problem ‘out of the coachee’s head and onto the table’.  This usually helps the coachee look/see/feel the situation more objectively and as an observer (disassociation and/or 3^rd position)

(d)   More scope for the coach to come out and be more detached and to ‘play’.

(e)   An ability to see, through the simplicity of the process:

(i)      How the situation is now; and

(ii)    How s/he wants it to be.

(f)     The process appeals to people with a strong visual/spatial preference or a strong bodily (‘tangible’) kinaesthetic preference.

(g)   It helps the coachee reveal the root cause of an issue on a deeper level.  The objects can represent intangible as well as tangible things e.g. the component pieces regarding an issue around using time effectively might be (i) love of variety; (ii) No time for myself; (iii) I never do anything properly.

(h)   The emphasis is more on awareness raising/personal insights, gathering and testing data, unblocking an issue rather than creating an action plan.

Process

The coach needs to start with some coaching questions, focussing down on the issue before inviting the coachee to work with the objects.  Until you become experienced in using objects I suggest you restrict the number of components/issues to between 3-5.  So for example one object could represent the whole of a team, rather than having lots of additional objects which represent each member of that team. 

You can use the process at a variety of levels.  The coachee could use one object to represent his/her diary and, at a deeper level another object(s) could represent a fear, guilt, a belief, lack of self confidence. 

Suggest to the coachee that they are open to anything that shows up and say that they can end the process at any stage. 

As in any coaching situation use your intuition and sense where the energy is flowing and what is working or not working.  Also give the coachee the space and time to think and feel into the issue. 

Clear a table and sit opposite, or alongside or at 90 degrees to the coachee, whatever is more comfortable for the coachee.  The coach should not touch the objects on the table at any stage in the process.  

Ask the coachee to focus on the current situation.  Let the coachee choose the first object from what’s already in the room e.g. a pencil.  Ask the coachee to place the object thoughtfully on the table. 

Ask the coachee the following type of questions as appropriate. ‘In which direction is the future, the past?  In which direction do you want your object to face?  Is there anything that springs to mind? 

Then repeat the above process with the other components/objects.  With each object the coach should check what the object represents e.g. my boss, low self esteem and ask ‘Where do you want to place e.g. your boss in relation to the existing objects?  How far apart?  Which way is it facing?  What’s happening in that space?  What, if anything, is missing in regard to your issue/question? 

Once the current reality is in place check that the coachee is happy with how the issue is represented. 

Now ask the coachee  ‘Let each of the objects have a voice and an emotion and let each piece talk to you and to each other’.  Ask the coachee to take each object in turn.  A project might say ‘I would like to benefit more from X’s expertise’. 

Ask the coachee e.g. ‘What is the overall system telling you?  What are you experiencing in your body?  What do you notice that you were unaware of before’?

The coach may comment on anything that may be significant to the coachee e.g. ‘I notice that your deputy is standing in front of you and is facing you’. ‘What are the messages regarding this?’ 

The next stage is to ask the coachee one or both of the following types of questions:

(a)    ‘What piece(s) would you like to move to help shift your perception/feelings about the current situation? or

(b)   How would the objects need to be arranged for the situation to be more satisfactory for you?’The coach could then deepen what this might mean in terms of the steps s/he could take.  Then the coach could end by asking for example ‘How do you now see/feel/think about the issue?’  What has changed for you?  ‘What insights have you had?  To what extent has this process been helpful? 

If you would like to receive a copy of a case study send an e-mail to Richard Fox at rjfox@tlc.eu.com or download it from www.coachingknowhow.com

Author

Richard Fox is a partner in The Learning Corporation LLP, a pan European firm of coaches and training facilitators.  He is a qualified executive coach, a business mentor and a master NLP practitioner with a particular interest in helping organisations and individuals clarify their unique identity, meaning and purpose and values. 

Acknowledgements.

I would like to thank and acknowledge Meike Buegler, Constellator and Organizational Development Consulatant at Syngenta Crop Protection AG for introducing me to Organizational Constellations, using people as well as objects.  Also Lesley Pugh, an executive coach and NLP colleague for contributing to this paper and the case study

Richard Fox    6 May 2009

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