Sara L. Orem, Ph.D, Jacqueline Binkert, Ph.D, Ann L. Clancy, Ph.D
Certainty is often an illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), Greek philosopher, teacher of Alexander the Great
Who of us can forget that feeling of wonder and excitement when as children we first looked into a kaleidoscope? Suddenly we were privy to an incredible world of color and patterns that kept changing as we turned it. Nothing on the outside could prepare us for the images we saw on the inside. What a mystery it seemed to glimpse a whole other world, visible only through a tiny hole!
Invented in 1816 by a child prodigy, Sir David Brewster of Scotland, kaleidoscopes are enjoying a resurgence of popularity in the twenty-first century. For some collectors and aficionados, the kaleidoscope is a metaphor for wholeness and integration. The instrument is tube shaped and contains mirrors set at different angles to reflect the image of loose pieces of glass and other colorful objects, creating symmetrical patterns. Looking through the eyepiece, the viewer can turn the tube to see different patterns. A kaleidoscope can generate infinite numbers of images, yet focuses the mind in such a way that one sees into a new perceptual frontier, an experience that demonstrates the unity and interrelatedness of form into an organic whole—but just for an instant! One nudge of the tube, and that image is erased and a new one produced. Brewster, who was greatly delighted with his new device, named it using the Greek words kalos (“beautiful”), eidos (“form”), and scopos (“watcher”): the beautiful form-watcher.In this book, we will describe an approach to coaching that has its roots in Appreciative Inquiry. The essence of this approach— called Appreciative Coaching—is captured by the metaphor of Brewster’s kaleidoscope image because it is an exciting way to help clients discover the positive possibilities inherent within them. We have seen how with just subtle shifts in self-perception, clients become watchers of their own (beautiful) ability to be more self-integrated and bring form to their deeply held dreams. Of course, one hopes that such shifts in self-perception are built into all good coaching approaches. What makes the appreciative approach unique for us is that its core principles are designed to show individuals how to tap into (or rediscover) their childlike sense of wonder and excitement about their present life and future possibilities.
Our Desire with This Book
We were drawn to create this appreciative approach to coaching by the desire to help our clients create more meaningful lives in a way that would be inspirational and exciting, yet gentle. How could we help nurture the miraculous process of change and discovery in our clients in a way that would be self affirming and nonjudgmental for them? How could we help clients awaken to their deepest dreams and desires while at the same time help them see their own inner strengths and abilities to realize those desires?
We were inspired to develop our Appreciative Coaching approach because each of us, on our separate paths, experienced the marvel of a shift in perception. It turned out to be a profound shift for each of us, especially given our backgrounds. All three of us have doctorates and extensive experience in the field of organization development. We were originally trained to view the organizations we worked with as problems to be solved. Our job was to prompt executives, managers, and teams to identify their problems, and then to facilitate their finding solutions. By focusing on problems, our clients sometimes had difficulty thinking beyond them. Things improved for us when we began incorporating the concept of vision into our work, but it still felt as if we were missing a positive, life-enhancing way to work with our clients. Although we were often successful in bringing about change, we did not always see evidence of excitement and passion on the part of our clients.
That changed, however, when each of us discovered and began incorporating into our own work the Appreciative Inquiry approach to change, which is based on a very different premise, one that views organizations as miracles to be embraced and as mysteries to be explored. This appreciative approach significantly changed how we began to interact with our clients. It seemed as though we suddenly saw our clients in new and unique ways. Organizations weren’t problems anymore—they were whole entities that were inherently successful. Although they did some things “wrong,” they did a whole lot more that was right. We now had the tools to inspire people to explore what they found most meaningful in their work and to share that with others in the workplace.
Sara was the first to realize that this wonderful new approach to change might be equally profound applied to one-on-one coaching relationships. Together, we set out to explore this premise in a coaching research project1that culminated in the development of this process we call Appreciative Coaching.
Our Common Roots in Coaching
Coaching as it is being practiced today is a new field. Its rapid growth is an indication that it is tapping into a fundamental need to make people’s lives and work more meaningful, balanced, and holistic. The roots of the professional practice burrow deep into the fields of education, psychology, athletics, organization development, and communication studies. Postmodern philosophies, such as social constructionism, influence how we think about the nature of reality2 and our ability to assist clients in creating their preferred future. People come to the study and practice of coaching from one or more of its root fields. They have been scholars, managers, actors, psychotherapists, and many other things, and they bring all the richness of their history and experience to our profession. Given their roots, coaches usually find a groove or a core methodology they trust and depend on to practice coaching.
Pioneers have forged a way for us. In athletics, Tim Gallwey demonstrated that coaching as a method was distinct from the discipline of teaching.3Thomas Leonard, founder of modern coaching, forged new ground in bringing coaching into both the personal and business arenas. Since Leonard established the first CoachU school, many others have sprung up to enrich the field and encourage new practitioners to join the ranks of practice in a professional, competent manner. Universities are now setting up academic degree programs in coaching.
Coaches have begun to move away from relying on their intuition and the discovery of techniques and are calling for evidence-based research that demonstrates what truly works for their clients. Professional coaching associations sponsor research symposiums both in the United States and Europe; universities support research through their students’ doctoral dissertations; coaches worldwide are raising their level of expertise by supporting high standards in the profession. The influence and prestige of the field as an academic discipline has consequently grown.
Ann has been an adult educator, business writer, professional facilitator, and organization development consultant; her roots are in education, linguistics, and human and organizational systems. She has studied and incorporated action-oriented and developmental coaching in her work with professionals and executives, drawing frequently on her organization development background prior to coming to Appreciative Coaching.
Jackie has been an adult educator and organization development consultant. Her roots are in linguistics, adult learning, organizational learning, and human and organizational systems. Her work has also combined organization development with executive coaching.
Sara has been a salesperson, nonprofit manager, and director of organization development. Her roots are in communication studies, theology, and human and organizational systems. She has taught performance coaching (action-oriented) within a master’s management program and has also studied developmental methods.
Our diverse backgrounds have enabled us to bring a varied perspective to our work with clients. Our research has culminated in an appreciative approach to coaching that draws its inspiration from a vast literature in a variety of fields and from the many workshops we have attended in other strength-based and ontological coaching methods.
Our Paths to an Appreciative Approach
Although each of us came to Appreciative Inquiry (hereafter, AI) along different paths, we found that we all embraced it for the same reasons: its underlying principles and philosophy around positive
change.
Sara’s Story
Sara first became interested in and experienced with this methodology in her work with groups in corporations. For many years her career included facing mostly angry groups of people in large forums. As the change agent in several corporations, she was the messenger bearing badnews: “We have to change. We have to change now.” The owners wanted it, or the economy demanded it, or the market for the product was shrinking. People in these auditoriums and conference rooms sat stone-faced, arms folded protectively across their chests, eyebrows knit, immovable. They had heard bad news and been told they had to change before.
Then Sara discovered a new way to begin this process of learning and change, one based on AI. When she started to use the method with large groups, she found a completely different response to her message. People sat up in their chairs. They smiled at each other and dug into the questions about past history, current reality, and future possibilities. They reported feeling much more personal power around embarking on the change process, and they were excited to begin to answer the engaging questions and to define the necessary changes. In fact, they were excited about creating the changes.
Although this enthusiastic response to the need for change certainly made Sara’s job easier, it also made her a little wary. How could asking about people’s past successes and future longings elicit such a different and positive energy? If the energy she was part of was so powerful in large groups of people, could it be as effective with just one other person? She studied AI further and began to adapt its core questions into her coaching practice as a way to engage people in their dreams and designs for different futures. She also began to think about sharing her initial research and experience with other coaches in hopes of developing and testing Appreciative Coaching as a new coaching method. In the course of this networking, she invited Jackie and Ann to join her in the development of the approach.
Jackie’s Story
Jackie views her path to Appreciative Coaching as intertwined with the journey of her life. She felt a strong inner motivation to take advantage of certain events and possibilities as they presented themselves to lead her to a way of working and being that she loves. The time of the greatest change in her work began in the late 1980s when she made a career shift from adult education to organization development. She was fortunate at that time to have gifted teachers and mentors who taught her the value of understanding the present and creating a preferred future before deciding on action steps toward that future. Working with them, she designed programs that brought forth clients’ excitement about what was possible.
In 1990, she began working at Ford Motor Company as an internal consultant. There she was given the opportunity to collaborate with such leading thinkers as Peter Senge, author ofThe Fifth Discipline. Working with him and his colleagues in bringing organizational learning to Ford, Jackie expanded her learning and her methods for integrating the benefits and value of self-understanding and mastery into her consulting work with clients. As she progressed in her career, she was aware of AI but skeptical of its exclusive focus on the positive, especially in the initial phases of working with clients. Although she agreed with the underlying principle that “we get more of what we focus on” and even taught this principle to clients when talking about vision, she had difficulty reconciling it with her value of being honest with oneself about the past and present. These two principles were in conflict for her.
Interestingly, opportunities for understanding this dichotomy kept presenting themselves to her in the form of individuals who were having great success using AI. As she heard more about its positive results, she gradually began to recognize how aligned she already was with its philosophy and practices. So when Sara asked her to join in researching the application of AI principles to coaching, it seemed a perfect opportunity. It allowed Jackie to explore in depth how an appreciative approach worked for her and to learn in a way that best suited her style. She already believed in the power of focusing on the positive and on creating an image of the future. This offer gave her a way—through researching, experimenting, reflecting, and writing— to bring her education and experience together and finally to reconcile the conflicts inherent in her previous approaches. The experience moved her beyond an intellectual grasp of principles to an inner understanding of how empowering it can be to affirm and enhance one’s own strengths.
Ann’s Story
Ann first began using AI in her strategic planning efforts with organizations. Like Sara, she worked with managers who were by and large skeptical that any real change would occur as a result of their efforts. They had had plenty of past experiences in which the planning either petered out for lack of energy and momentum or ended with reports left on shelves. They had found that too often they got mired in the organization’s problems and who or what caused them. Although Ann certainly had success in helping groups identify their problem areas, create a shared vision, and map out an action plan to move forward, she observed her clients’ lack of pas- sion and enthusiasm for the future. It seemed a continual challenge to engage groups as a whole and individuals in particular in ways that generated positive feelings about where they were headed.
Ann, like Jackie, was also aware of the AI approach but thought it almost too good to be true. Although attracted to its basic positive premises, she was skeptical of its real impact on organizations. How could you avoid talking about the problems organizations faced? What would managers say if she presented them with a planning process that didn’t focus primarily on their problems? It seemed too risky. In her personal and professional life, however, Ann was an avid follower of using positive principles and imaging for the future. She was flourishing with her coaching clients and in her own coaching relationship; her coach helped her reframe situations and self-perceptions in more positive ways.
When asked by Jackie and Sara if she would like to join them in researching an appreciative approach to coaching, Ann felt as though fate had intervened. Here was a chance to integrate her professional and personal approaches to change. She began tentatively experimenting with an AI approach to strategic planning that bypassed an emphasis on problem solving and started immediately with what was already working well in the organization. Like Sara, Ann experienced dramatic changes. She could feel the energy rise in the room when people began sharing what they most cared about in the organization and what most inspired them. They told passionate stories about their work and their companies. They smiled and laughed and actually enjoyed talking about the future. Everything just got brighter. Evaluations from the planning sessions strongly supported the use of this method to complete work and connect to each other in a new andpowerfully energizing way. Today, Ann incorporates AI principles and stages into all her strategic planning and facilitation projects.
Coming Together
Obviously, the successes we experienced with applying appreciative principles in the realm of organizations and groups emboldened us during our research with individual coaching clients. One of the basic tenets of AI—discover and build on your past and present successes— informed our own research. What seemed remarkable was our similar experiences and results using an appreciative approach. Clearly this approach matched our personal values around change—that by moving forward with a positive intent and believing in the principles, we were responsible for the active construction of our own reality. Our biases will be evident throughout this book. In a way, the book represents a worldview that three different people found they shared. If you are reading this book because you also share this worldview, we welcome you. If you are reading this book with a healthy dose of skepticism, we applaud you for your curiosity. As you can see from our stories, we were also tentative in our acceptance of this approach.
How to Use This Book
We are excited to share with you the foundation and basis for our approach as well as the many stories from our clients that we’ve had the privilege to witness. We also talk about our own reflections, thoughts, and experiences in the development of this approach and present concrete steps and actions you can take to incorporate an Appreciative Coaching approach into your existing practice or in building a new practice. As a form of confidentiality for our clients, we have not identified the names of the coaches in the client stories; however, all the client stories involve one of us as the coach. We have also changed the names of some clients.
A wonderful gift of being involved in this effort is the sense of freedom we now feel—freedom from the constraints of viewing our coaching clients in limited or problem-oriented ways. It is very life enhancing for us as coaches to fundamentally believe that we can facilitate the miracle and mystery of life in our own clients.
Each chapter of the book is designed to build the case and to tell the story of our experiences and the positive results of testing and reweaving the AI principles and stages into an Appreciative Coaching model. For this reason, you are likely to gain the greatest benefit by reading the chapters in order. If you come to this book with substantial experience and knowledge of AI, however, feel free to jump around and read those chapters that call out to you. Our intent in the book is to give future practitioners of Appreciative Coaching all the theory and practical hands-on knowledge and tools they will need to move forward.
In Chapter One, we tell the story of Alan, who made a remarkable journey from frustration and embarrassment over his failing business to a “hugely successful year.” Reading this story, you will see examples of many of the elements of the Appreciative Coaching approach described in this overview of our coaching process.
In Chapter Two, we trace the historical roots of the AI change process and other positive methods on which our coaching model is based. As is true of every successful change process, there are fundamental principles involved that guide its theory and practice. We illustrate those principles in Chapters Three and Four in telling our clients’ stories of personal and professional transformation and in describing ways to recognize the principles in practice.
Chapter Five offers a concrete outline and the steps for starting an Appreciative Coaching relationship with your clients. Chapters Six through Nine present the four stages of Appreciative Coach-
ing: Discovery, Dream, Design, and Destiny.
In Chapter Ten, we outline the four key steps we followed as we incorporated Appreciative Coaching into our own coaching practices. We suggest ways of incorporating the stages and principles into an existing or new client coaching practice, describing how they can enrich other coaching methods. In the appendixes, we present a summary of our research project, our Client Information Form, and a sample Coaching Prep Form. We hope you are looking forward to discovering a new way of looking at coaching relationships or enhancing your existing approach.
The Authors
Sara L. Orem, Ph.D., principal of Lotus Coaching, enables the realization of concrete goals as well as long-held dreams for a client base consisting of managers, artists, and graduate business students. She has directed learning and development within large financial services organizations, coached senior executive teams, designed leadership development experiences, and taught Appreciative Coaching within graduate business programs. Her particular research interest is in turning conflict into learning and collaboration.
Jacqueline Binkert, Ph.D., president of Organizational Enterprises, has extensive experience supporting leaders and other professionals to create positive change in both the organizations they serve and their personal lives. Working as an executive coach and organizational development consultant, she has helped her clients deal with such topics as strategic planning, leadership excellence, personal development, and culture change. Her particular interest is in the relationship between the beliefs people have and the results they want.
Ann L. Clancy, Ph.D., president of Clancy Consultants, is an executive coach, organizational development consultant, professional facilitator, and qualitative researcher. She coaches executives, business owners, and professionals from an appreciative approach by leading them to discover, dream, and design their personal and professional lives around their true values and purpose. She specializes in offering an appreciative approach to strategic planning with clients ranging from corporations and governmental agencies to community groups.
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