Academy for Chief Executives Blog

“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” Richard Branson

At the reviewing discussion of a fishbowl demonstration that I gave to the graduates of a Coaching Associations programme, one of the audience said “But you broke the rules!”

One my exemplars is Moshe Feldenkrais founder of Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement and he regularly said ‘The rule is that there no rules!’ However I recognise that many of the people in the group at this time were new to coaching and this was their first training. And maybe as such it was helpful for them to learn some rules although I would have preferred that they had referred to them as guidelines.  So what are these ‘rules’ and what happens if we break them as I will most certainly be encouraging you to do?

Never interrupt a client

Some years ago there was a documentary about a wife and mother of two small children who had gone missing at Christmas time. Her family were adamant that she would not just have left home but must have been abducted or murdered. Her husband vehemently denied his innocence although he was a prime suspect. He featured prominently in the documentary all the time telling his story. For the following year the case was not solved although the husband remained a prime suspect. At this time a new inspector was appointed to the case who, after watching videos and listening to interviews with the husband brought him back in for questioning. As soon as he started to speak the inspector interrupted him and continued to do so … so that the husband could not tell his story. Within an hour the man had confessed to his wife’s murder.  The inspector had noticed that the man’s story was always the same; there was no elaboration which led him to believe that it was created and not the truth. By interrupting that rehearsed story the man had no alternative explanation and confessed.

So what has this to do with coaching? Well we live our lives by the stories we create by the perceptions we form of our experience. Sometimes those perceptions serve us well and result in ideal or desired outcomes but sometimes they do just the opposite and provide the framework within we keep ourselves constrained. And the telling of the story compounds the situation. Continue reading →