Question 9. Suggest a metaphor for clients of your style that coaches can use with them to illuminate something important for clients to learn? Why do you choose this metaphor and how would coaches best use it?

My answer: I’ve experienced a lot of discomfort working with metaphors. I often felt like I was invading the client’s space, injecting them with something. For about a year now, I’ve been experimenting with Mary Basts’s Mettapohoria approach, where the metaphor emerges from the client’s own descriptions and language. My job, as coach, is simply to support the client in exploring their own metaphor. Here’s an excerpt from a conversation with soemone of Style Nine, who had difficulty in getting her business going:

Coach: And when you get going?

Client: Mountains turn into molehills?

Coach: And when mountains turn into molehills, that’s like …

Client: It’s fun! … Satisfying!

Coach: And when it’s fun and it’s satisfying, how does it feel?

Client: Achievable.

Coach: And when you get going, where are you?

Client: On a path!

For the next several minutes, the conversation went on to support her in fleshing out the description of this path and what she found as she moved along it. As coach, I didn’t need to understand or suggest any part of the metaphor. Within days, her block had dissolved and her business is now thriving.

If you’d like to see the other eight answers to this question, head over to the Enneagram Learning Portal. If you’d like to share your answer to the question, or discuss my answer, please leave a comment or trackback.

©2010 Leadership Sculptor. All Rights Reserved.

Question 8. What special techniques – either counter-intuitive ones or ones that create breakthrough moments – do you suggest for coaching clients of your style? How should these be used and when is the best time to use them?

My answer: Several spring to mind! Two simple and effective techniques are the following: guided relaxation and centering breathing.

Many people of Style Nine have difficulties in getting in touch with their body; they don’t recognize where they end and the rest of the world starts. A simple relaxation exercise, in which they focus their attention on different parts of the body, one after the other, can be very helpful. It is useful to debrief them after the exercise, to check which parts they visited. In many cases, it is the first time that they have thought about the back of their knee, or their left elbow. When they don’t recall visiting certain parts, you can help them to identify whether their focus of attention went to their thoughts (which usually has something to do with focusing outside themselves) or whether they simply dozed off (which is the classical metaphor of Style Nine being asleep to themselves.)

The second technique is helpful when they face a difficult decision or have something important to say to someone with whom they feel themselves to be in conflict. First, help them to breathe deeply to their Belly Center and to bring the focus of their attention there. Once their attention is there, remind them of the decision or the situation and ask them to say the first thing that comes to their mind. It is invariably a key sentence that helps them to decide or to communicate clearly with the other person. In addition, it is invariably a surprising and deep moment for  them!

If you’d like to see the other eight answers to this question, head over to the Enneagram Learning Portal. If you’d like to share your answer to the question, or discuss my answer, please leave a comment or trackback.

©2010 Leadership Sculptor. All Rights Reserved.

Question 7: If you could say something to all clients of your style, what would it be?

My answer: The world needs more of your story about you, and fewer of your stories about other people. Breathe deep and speak up.

If you’d like to see the other eight answers to this question, head over to the Enneagram Learning Portal. If you’d like to share your answer to the question, or discuss my answer, please leave a comment or trackback.

©2010 Leadership Sculptor. All Rights Reserved.

Question 6: What is the most frustrating part for coaches working with clients of your style and what can coaches do about it?

My answer: The most frustrating issue that can crop up is the coachee agreeing to do something and then not following through. This can occur for a variety of reasons: first, the person doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation and, therefore, doesn’t attach much importance to their commitment. Secondly, the coachee feels the suggestion is really the coach’s, or they feel they have been led to this action by the coach’s gotcha line of questioning.

The problem for the coach is that the “yes” of a Style Nine can have a wide variety of meanings: “I hear you”, “I understand what you’re saying”, “I agree with you”, “I will do it”, or “not in my lifetime, buddy!”. Unless your listening skills are particularly nuanced, you might not hear which yes you’ve just been given. One way to handle this is to ensure that the client develops the action plan themselves. Another way is to build in a few small in-between steps, so that there is an early warning that something is off course. For example, if the client wants to prepare a business plan by the end of the month, then ask, by when they’d need  a first draft so that they can make the deadline. Thus, it’s clear to all involved early enough, if something is on-course for completion or off-course. No need to wait for the tears and told-you-so’s at the end of the month.

If you’d like to see the other eight answers to this question, head over to the Enneagram Learning Portal. If you’d like to share your answer to the question, or discuss my answer, please leave a comment or trackback.

©2010 Leadership Sculptor. All Rights Reserved.

Question 5: What is the most exciting or stimulating part for coaches of working with clients of your style? How can coaches leverage this to help their clients move?

My answer: Many people of Style Nine are overlooked or overlook themselves. This is due to not thinking about drawing attention to ourselves; if we can do it, it’s not so special. So, it’s pretty exciting when we begin to see ourselves and our true strengths for the first time and our surroundings begin to notice this also. Acceptance is a prerequisite for this: Style Nine clients need to know that their coach accepts them as they are, is truly helping them and not pushing the coach’s own agenda. Once this acceptance is no longer questioned, the coach can suggest approaches that really help the client to stretch and grow. There’s no need to hold back: the client, imbued with the naïve fearlessness of Style Nine, is willing to try out almost anything.

If you’d like to see the other eight answers to this question, head over to the Enneagram Learning Portal. If you’d like to share your answer to the question, or discuss my answer, please leave a comment or trackback.

©2010 Leadership Sculptor. All Rights Reserved.

Question 4: What coaching techniques work really well with clients of your style and why? What coaching techniques do not work well with clients of your style and why?

My answer: A good strategy is to give us some time and space to answer questions. We’re busy sorting through all perspectives, so although it’s not obvious, quite  a lot is going on beneath the surface. This strategy needs to balanced against the chance that we’ll drift into a reverie; it can help, if you encourage us to report on the internal negotiation of perspectives that usually takes place before we deliver an answer. A coaching model like the Inner Team can be helpful here, since it puts a name on the different parts of the inner conversation and gives both the coach and the client a chance to name what’s going on and who is currently contributing.

A tool like Lewin’s Force-field Analysis helps us to structure a problem and see outlines of a possible solution. Such structuring reduces considerably the overwhelming enormity of change. Just get the first one-and-a-half steps down well and we’ll get going. No need for a perfect plan.

If you want to know why mules take our correspondence courses, just try to interrupt us in mid-answer, or attempt  to force the pace. Zero progress and a healthy dose of passive-aggressiveness is guaranteed.

It is also less useful to use most of the models that force people to clarify their visions and goals. We are not great at articulating what we want.  It’s more productive to develop a “negative” of the goal: just ask us what we don’t want, flip each answer 180° and the goal becomes clear quickly. A Nine client was leading part of an Open space workshop where about ten people spent almost half a frustrating hour trying to help him define an improved interface between him and his suppliers. After turning the issue around, to what he didn’t like about the current interface, they had a complete definition from him within two minutes!

If you’d like to see the other eight answers to this question, head over to the Enneagram Learning Portal. If you’d like to share your answer to the question, or discuss my answer, please leave a comment or trackback.

©2010 Leadership Sculptor. All Rights Reserved.

Question 3: What do clients of your style most need from their developers – managers, mentors, or coaches – why do they need it, and what do coaches need to do to demonstrate this to clients of your style?

My answer: We benefit most when we receive gentle clarity. Since Style Nines don’t respond well to in-your-faceness, a nudge is more effective than a shove or a threat. Clarity helps, as we often lose sight of our goals in an ennui of priority, due to our external focus.

As a developer, you need to make sure that we have actively agreed to our goals: silence does not mean assent! It’s sometimes difficult for us to articulate what we want. If this is happening, just ask us what we don’t want. A client of mine took part in an Open Space meeting; one breakout session was run by a manager of Style Nine, who needed to define an interface for working with their supplier. For almost 30 minutes he wrapped the group in a fog of saga. As I walked by, my client asked me what he could do: I suggested he ask what the manager didn’t want in the solution. Within 90 seconds they had a complete “negative” list, which they could flip to reach the desired solution.

Even when we have agreed to goals, it’s helpful to remind us of them from time-to-time, for they will disappear from view, lost in a whirl of ideas, sensations, requests, conversations, where was I’s?

Which brings up a second facet of clarity: communicate clearly with us. Short, declarative sentences are good. It models a style other than our saga-based natural style. Keep your own focus, so that we don’t lose you in the fog of saga. And point this out to us, by commenting on the style of communication in the conversation. You can even turn it into a game and ask us to notice ourselves, when we are drifting towards sagadom.

If you’d like to see the other eight answers to this question, head over to the Enneagram Learning Portal. If you’d like to share your answer to the question, or discuss my answer, please leave a comment or trackback.

©2010 Leadership Sculptor. All Rights Reserved.

The second path to curiosity for leadership is to view things from another person’s perspective. It’s a common pitfall not to do this. In a recent coaching conversation, a manger was telling me about how one of their direct reports had turned hostile and rude. They couldn’t understand why. As we talked further, it became clear that this hostility had surfaced after a meeting in which the manager had helped their direct report reshape their project (and in the process handover a good chunk of the responsibility to another colleague). All very logical. Once they began to think about how this looked from the report’s perspective, they realized what had gone wrong and how they could raise this topic and get the relationship back on track.

Good questions to ask yourself include: What do they think about this? How do they feel about it? How does it impact them or others? Many leaders find it difficult to answer these questions. They protest that they have no clue what their people are thinking or feeling. Perhaps not. However, that’s an invitation to start learning and take the time to get to know their people. Some people protest that they don’t have time for this. Yet they never stop to count the cost in time, results and frayed nerves to deal with what results from not having invested in these relationships.

A word to the wise: only make this investment in your leadership, if you are genuinely interested in your people.

Photo: Sarahnaut / flickr

©2010 Leadership Sculptor. All Rights Reserved.

Lawyers only ask a question (in court) when they already know the answer; leaders ask questions to which they don’t have the answer. They are curious. This curiosity pays dividends.

By asking questions, leaders engage their followers and tap into the knowledge and experience of their team. They have let go of the need to have the answer. Instead, they focus on being able to recognize the answer when they hear it. Certain types of questions hinder this curiosity, others support it.

Let’s start by looking at a couple of types of questions that hinder. The first type is closed or yes/no questions. They suffer from two main drawbacks. First, they require no thought or reflection to answer. Second, the presuppose the answer and strait jacket the search for answers. The very opposite of letting go.

The second type of question that’s not very helpful is “why”. It doesn’t help to promote understanding, since, in many cases, it can trigger defensiveness. If you don’t believe me, just observe your own inner response when someone asks you why you did or didn’t do something. The idea behind the question is to gain understanding. to do that, we need to ask other questions.

Questions that support curiosity come in different forms; they all strengthen leadership. One basic form is the open question, where we probe for more information by inviting the other person to give us information. Notice the difference between the following two questions:

1. Will  the report be finished by Friday?
2. What else do you need to do, to complete the report?

The first one is a standard yes/no question. It can be answered without the person needing to think. Since many people find it difficult to say no, you get the default answer of “yes” and are none the wiser. The second question, however, requires the person to think for a moment. As they begin to outline what else they need to do, you can begin to see whether or not you need to probe more deeply for information, or whether you need to take supportive action to help them achieve the goal.

Tomorrow, we explore another form of question that supports curiosity.

Photo: Marek Uliasz / iStockphoto

©2010 Leadership Sculptor. All Rights Reserved.

Memo to self: Let go of outcome. Enjoy the ride. Trust it’ll be a good one.

Photo: Floortje / iStockphoto

©2010 Leadership Sculptor. All Rights Reserved.