PEER COACHING IN CIRCLEGOING BEYOOND COGNITIVE FEEDBACK

Flavio Fabiani

People can only develop in small group

Manfred Max-Neef

A key learning for me during the IMO master in horizontal leadership is the practice of group intervision, a peer-to-peer process structured as a container where the same group of people come together cyclically to reflect about critical points at work and dialogue around the steps taken to address those points

This learning was truly a living learning because I immediately started to use this practice at work in different projects, and my colleagues at Peoplerise too. As A rough calculation we can count something like 300 applications from the beginning of 2015

Intervision is a practice of learning from one another in a self-orienting way within a group of colleagues and professionals focusing on everyday work issues. in a work environment that nowadays demands much more adaptation due to current cutbacks and reorganisations, intervisions represent moments of rest and reflection.

Intervision is a well known practice in the field of drug abuse and crime (see intervision guidelines by UNODC)

Among the others, advantages of using this practices in organized contexts are: - it is relatively inexpensive- you and your colleagues get to know each other better - expertise within the organisation increases as a result

there are 3 main roles in the intervision group practice

- case giver, the person who bring the case - coaches, people who support the reflection of the case giver - time keeper, a coach who is also responsible for the timing

the circle should not be overcrowded, 5/6 people are a preferred size

Step 1 the case giver bring a key question for herself and describe the event where this question arose. The description is based on real facts and personal interpretations are avoided

Step 2 coaches ask questions to the case giver with the intention to clarify the description of the event and the question behind. They are at service, their understanding is limited and should not go beyond into details, this is not the aim.

Step 3 coaches one by one and without explaining, judging or interpreting, give a characterization of the situation described on 3 levels: rational (what I understood), emotional (what I felt emphatically), factual (which will forces I perceived)

Step4 everybody in the circle one by one, identify a dominant steering conviction* as it appeared in the behaviour of the case giver acting in the situation. *Values, norms and ideologies work in us and they show themselves in steering convictions. These steering convictions direct our actions and behaviour in a concrete situation and they give it sense. To be able to change our actions and behaviour we must discover the steering convictions and bring them in movement.

Step 5 the case giver chooses the steering conviction which she feels more relevant Step 6 The group dialogue around the steering conviction identified with the aim to re-orient it to a new steering guide

Step 7 the case giver together with the group define a concrete step to experiment the new steering guide with a concrete step

during the practice of group intervision i got in close contact with a similar practiced of peer coaching, developed in boston at the mit, called case clinic.

case clinics guide a team or a group of peers through a process in which a case giver presents a case, and a group of 3-4 peers or team members help.

case clinics allow participants to:- generate new ways to look at a challenge or question.- develop new approaches for responding to this.

Intention Statement• current reality• Image of desired future• Learnign edge• Help request

clarifying questionsMirroring

Select a case

• Images• Feelings• Action tendency

generative dialogue

closing remarks• New ideas• Level of energy• Concrete stel

Step 1 Select caseStep 2 Intention statement by case giver - Take a moment to reflect on your sense of calling. Then clarify these questions:

• Current situation: What key challenge or question are you up against? • Intention: What future are you trying to create?• Learning edge: if this situation was designed to teach to something What do you need to let-go and what do you need to learn?• Help: Where do you need input or help?

Step 3 Coaches listen deeply and may ask clarifying questions (don’t give advice!) Step 4 Mirroring

• Each coach shares images, metaphors, feelings, and/or Actions that came up. Step 5 Generative dialogue - continue the conversation, starting with the case giver:

• the case giver reflects back on what these images, stories and actions evoke: Seeing myself from the outside, what touched me, what resonated with me, what questions, reflections come up for me now?

• All reflect on case giver’s remarks and move into generative dialogue, exploring new perspectives and views on case giver’s situation and journey. Step 6 Closing remarks

• By coaches • By case giver with expression of a concreate step to take• Thank you: An expression of appreciation to one another

Step 7 Individual journaling to capture the learning points

After using both practices I realized that there were strong points in both processes which where not present in the other one.

group intervision is missing - the learning edge focus during the case storytelling, a powerful moment which as a facilitator I always underline at the end of the clarifying questions (e.g. if the situation was build to let you learn something what would it be? )- methaphors used in the case clinic, bring a real imaginative feedback into the conversation, people love it! characterization seems to be weaker on it

After using both practices I realized that there were strong points in both processes which were not present in the other one.

case clinic is missing -the identification and re-orientation of the steering guides which are greatly framing our concrete step- the strong attention on the evidence and prevention of interpretations as a result, which is a way to go deeper into the case description bringing the case giver to a more authentic and vulnerable place

I was intrigued by creating a process which could include the strong points of both processes and I was inspired by the 7 life processes as described by R.Steiner and C. Van Houten

Both authors see the 7 life processes as the base of true learning, which differentiates from conditioning: our body is learning according to this cycle from the 1st day of our life, respecting this cycle create a sustainable learning in any contexts

i tried to fantasize on the possibility to give a full learning cycle based on the 7 life processes in a peer coaching circle and I come up with this

0. ROLE’S DEFINITION/all

1. STORYTELLING/case giver

• Who brings the case• Who keeps the time• Who are the coaches

(the time keeper is also a coach)

• Current experienced situation (how is it and how do you feel?)

• What are the point of views of other people who take part in the context of the situation you are describing?

• What is your expected evolution of the current situation• Which personal learning edge you envision while

facing the situation• Please state a clear help request to the coaches

(which question do you want to investigate together?)

2. CLARIFYING QUESTIONS/coaches

3. IMMAGINATIVE FEEDBACKS/coaches4. MIRRORING/all

The coaches write down what they have felt in terms of:• Images

(a metaphor of the story)• Feelings

(of the case giver and personal)• Actions/Gestures

(the most representative of the story)

• Everyone (also the case giver) reflects on the whole story and propose a steering guide hidden behind the case giver behaviours

• The case giver writes down all hidden steering guides including his own and choose one or put together pieces of different guides proposed

5. STATE THE HIDDEN STEERING GUIDE/all

• On the base of the hidden steering guide chosen everyone (also the case giver) writes down and proposes a new steering guide based on the chosen hidden guide

• The case giver writes down all new steering guides including his own and choose one or put together pieces of different guides proposed

• What new ideas have emergeto re-frame the current situation

• What level of energy do you experienced during the conversation

• What concrete step do you committo do in the next 10 days

6. RE-ORIENTING THE HIDDEN STEERING GUIDE/all

7. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS/case giver

• Ask question about the evidence of the case told (factual elements)

• Do not go into details (only a macro understanding is requested)

• Do not interpret (this is not your, don’t still the process from the case giver)

• When asking don’t be oriented to find a solution

• The coaches offer back as a gift to the case giver their images, feelings and actions/Gestures

• The case giver writes down all comments and at the end indicate what reverberates with her/him

Which is indeed the 7 life processes

Experimentation of this approach which is combining Group Intervision and Case Clinic was a sheer success. All our clients love this tool and ask to use it more.

From an epistemological point of view, Group Intervision and Case Clinic are base on 3 main social research approaches

ACTION RESEARCH (Glaser, Strauss, lewin, dick)

a family of research methodologies which pursue action (or change) and research (or understanding) at the same time. In most of its forms it does this by using a cyclic or spiral process which alternates actions and critical reflections, continuously refining its methods, data and interpretation in the light of the understanding developed in the earlier cycles

Developmental Theory (Lievegoed, Zwart, Bos).

This methodology is adequate for researching the organized community and its processes of development, change and innovation as they are handled by practitioners in organisations. This methodology uses the tension between the individual being and the community as its foundation: the creating principle for social issues in our times of individualized consciousness and organized communities.

Social Constructivism (Weick, Chia and van Dongen)

expresses the points that 1)reality is observed by human beings, 2)observations of different persons differ from each other and 3)it is only after observations that we are able to make interpretations

The story is constructed afterwards through interaction with each other. Social Constructivism shows us that we cannot find objective research in social reality anyway as reality evolves and shows itself under our hands. Only afterwards we can reflect on what we think has happened. Moreover different observations and interpretations play a role with people that are involved in the process.

Now I am intrigued to experiment something else which I saw, but I am still not sure how to do it:

The imaginative feedback nurture the case giver during collective reflection and this works very well in the coaching circles thanks to the metaphors expression, which are often very artistic and distant from solutions.

Taking Social constructivism as a reference “Reality is constructed through the interactions with each others …” I’d like to integrate more feedback which construct reality without stealing the process from the case giver, using the body and art

SOCIAL PRESENCING THEATRE IS AN EXAMPLE

FATHERSRudolf Steiner

Otto Scharmer

Bernard Lievegoed

Friedrich Glasl

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Adriaan Bekman

Coenraad Van Houten

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