Deconstruction – the learning process that supports change

There are many models describing change.  Here is one offered to us on the I-Coach masters programme.  I used two pictures because the formal ‘four-box’ picture just does not get near to describing the confusion, frustration and despair that accompanied the learning process for me.  I would like to have extended the ‘despair’ block right down to the floor, but that would have been an over-dramatisation.

 

I think the steps are fairly well known so perhaps I should consult my notes on this … (nah!).  

In Unconscious incompetence we remain blissfully ignorant of what we don’t know.  Our denial systems work hard to keep us here.  But sometimes the situation demands our attention and we realise we are in..

Conscious incompetence.  We become aware of that our competence or skills are inadequate to the situation or the task in hand.  We may cling for as long as we can to what is not working anymore.  But for learning to take place we have to engage reality, acknowledging that we really don’t know.  At this point we are ready to haul out the books or call for help.  The learning process begins.  But learning requires ‘un-learning’ and this can be very difficult.  We need to make conscious decisions not to work the old way, even though we still cannot do the new way, or we just don’t know how.   In the learning process we may find ourselves double-guessing our ‘useful’ skills along with those we are working to change.   This whole affair can be totally disorientating.  

As we work with our inputs we decide on new approaches.  We apply these in the next phase of the process…

Conscious competence.  In this phase we apply our new skills, testing them out in learning or real situations.  This is where we make mistakes, we slip, staumbe and fall.  It is better if we can do these in learning situations, where we have contracted with the others involved, or we are working on our own.  But sometimes we find ourselves learning in the real world.  And I think that is when we need a support structures and mechanisms.  These may include a coach, mentor, good friend, our own reflective process, meditation and prayer.  Even though I have called this ‘joyful labour’ it can be very tough here.  

The model neatly shows the descrete boxes.  Perhaps this is how it works with small areas of learning.  But in larger, more complex areas I am certain that we move back and forth between conscious incompetence and competence.  Eventually the skill takes root and we find our selves in…

Conscious Competence.  We have the skills and we hone them here.  We carry out the tasks with confidence, vigour and applomb, till the next learning opportunity comes along (not forgetting Hubris).  Actually, with a solid reflective practice, I am certain we can become unconsciously competent at deconstruction.

So why is this called ‘deconstruction’?  Well for real learning to take place, we have to literally take apart the constructs we hold about reality and reconstuct them including our new learning.  Deconstruction is a non-trivial business.

The power of consensus in initiating projects

My website, StrategyWorks is all about facilitation and coaching and I have just added a note on consensus.  Consensus is a powerful mechanism to draw a team around a plan of action if we understand how the process works and how to harness the dynamics.

I show the process my friend Arthur Gobey uses to describe how ideas are aligned in conversation:

The arrows at the top are supposed to indicate how people arrive for a conversation with different perspectives.  The arrows all point downwards but if you have facilitated a few workshops you will know this neat picture does not begin to describe the degree of divergence participants can bring to a session.  And the neat flow lines, diverging then converging on “the proposal for a subject or action” are nothing like the muddle, confusion and frustration often happening in this phase.  Perhaps it would be better to show the first phase of a workshop like this:

The confusion may persist throughout the workshop but in my experience there is always some meeting of minds.  And if there is not, something else is going in the team and it is worth stopping the process to find out what it is.  Whatever process you use should allows for this divergence and convergence and the accompanying frustration. 

The process I use for initiating projects can be shown like this:

The steps in the process are probably self-evident.  If not let me know and I can put a posting about this.  I have a note on workshops for project initiation on my website.  And I like to show my clients how this process allows for the conversation dynamics that play out in workshops.  I do this by overlaying one on the other like this:

OK, I  admit the picture is stylised and sterilised but I find something like this happens in my workshops.  The opening sessions where we work in small groups to identify project issues, allow individuals to zoom off at radical tangents.  The process also allows these tangents to be heard and considered.  Of course, sometimes they are not tangents at all and the team realises they were close to missing the point.  So I find the process works.  

Two final comments:

First, if you are in a workshop in which confusion reigns, ask yourself if this is a function of this pattern.  And bounce your thoughts off the team.  It is sometimes heartening for us to know that our experience is indeed normal.

Second, if you are engaging in this process, get help.  At the end of my note on my website I make the comment that it is worth getting help from a good faciltitator if you are planning to go through this process.  I once read a rule of life that we should pay for our haircuts.  Well, it was a man sort of thing, but the same applies to hair-do’s I suppose (eek!!! thin-ice alert!).  But the same applies here.  I am astonished sometimes when large organisations launch projects worth hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, that will place them ahead of the game, then they quibble over the cost of someone who can take them ably through the initiation process.  Instead of months of confusion, a good facilitator can help you define a project plan in days.  Weeks, if it is a complex programme.

How do you structure the tools you use for coaching?

Our theoretical stance, as coaches, describes what we believe about mankind and how we expect change to take place.  I believe as multifaceted people, we can benefit from different perspectives in coaching.  These perspectives should preferably be congruent but even if they are not, as long as the coach and client are clear on the tensions or incongruence between models the clients will be able to decide for themselves.  I believe this is empowering.

But how can we structure the models we use?

In order to define the main types of coaching I do, I have plotted what I rely on as a coach (my process knowledge or content knowledge) against my approach to the client.  (Non-directive to challenging).

 

The four quadrants are: 

• Thinking space 
• Performance conversations
• Identifying patterns and creating models
• Information sharing

These quadrants could also be, but aren’t:

• Therapy
• Management
• Consulting 
• Training – where often the hapless victim is subjected to a day or more of information bombardment regardless of how well they understand or integrate the input.

I set boundaries for myself in each of these quadrants and I discuss these with my clients.  The orange oval describes how I currently spend most of my time as a coach.  I spend most of my time structuring client information (in ‘patterns and models’) and talking through conscious and unconscious obstacles to delivery (in ‘thinking space’).

Area 1:  Thinking Space 

Clients often need to work through issues more personal than the structure of their strategy.  Tools in this space may include:

• Nancy Kline’s “Thinking Partnership” 
• The assessment models and coaching conversations of James Flaherty

These tools provide the coach with a framework in which to allow the conversation and manage the boundaries where it becomes obvious that the client needs more focussed therapy.

Area 2:  Performance conversations

This is the area where I may challenge the client on progress against an agreed set of deliverables.  This is an evaluative space where together we find out what is working well and how we can do more of this to address areas where action is needed.

Area 3:  Patterns and models

I spend a lot of time with clients in this space using the most suitable models to structure the information they bring to coaching.  These models may include:

• Scenario models (plotting uncertainties on two axes and telling the story of each quadrant.  
• Strategy map and strategy models (informed by economics)
• Hudson’s phases of an adult’s experience of change (Go for it, The doldrums, cocooning, getting ready)
• Harrison’s culture model (power, structure, achievement or affect)

Area 4:  Information sharing

This is where I add colour to the coaching by relating life experience or something I have read.  Like did you know that Jean Paul Sartre turned down a Nobel Prize for literature?