A Work In Progress

One of the aspects of coaching that I’ve become interested in, although perhaps not quite as proficient in as I would like, is the idea of ‘clean’ coaching. Clean coaching includes the use of clean language which is “a simple set of questions developed by counselling psychologist David Grove. These questions are used with a person’s own words to direct their attention to some aspect of their own experience. Asking these questions in the right context often results in an interesting new insight or the recognition of some new possibility. And if that new possibility is then questioned using Clean Language, the result can be quite profound. Clean questions invite people to consider their experience from different perspectives and they are often surprised by their own capacity to generate new, powerful and useful ideas about their own experience”. See https://cleanlearning.co.uk/resources/faq/what-is-clean-language

This week in particular I have been struggling to keep it clean during my coaching sessions. One of the problems (and strengths) faced by artists coaching other artists is to do with shared experience and knowledge, mutual networks and common interests. Which are not problems in themselves but what I have experienced lately, whilst coaching relevantly recently graduated artists, is that sessions inevitably become closer to resembling mentoring sessions where we end up discussing actualities of the art world therefore diluting any ambitions I had of concentrating on clean coaching for the whole session.

The reasons for this are to do with the struggle for all new artists of finding their place within an art world that seems impenetrable, an unsureness about the direction of their practice, overwhelming frustrations around the financial implications of making work and the practical considerations for maintaining a studio practice whilst having to earn money in often low paid, time consuming jobs. Really, why would anyone embark on let alone persevere within a profession that promises such difficulties? BUT clean coaching techniques/questions CAN work to a new artists advantage within these parameters of doom. Where I managed to adhere to the principles of clean questioning within the sessions it was interesting to observe the ways in which they (the coachees) generated levels of thinking that broke some of theses seemingly insurmountable problems down into manageable chunks that they were then able to break down even further to consolidate thoughts that were then converted into practical tasks or solutions. The other parts of the sessions (maybe 50%) concentrated on necessary practical advice – where to go, who to speak to, what to apply for, does my website look professional, can you read my statement, or do a portfolio session…etc.

Where the clean coaching also proves effective is in trying to define a young artists developing practice. I’ve found that using the clean coaching questions helps young artists to consider more carefully their ambitions for their work, recognise and refine the threads that run through their practice, and establish routes/positions within the art world in which they can further develop. All of which will ultimately provide them with a useful stepping off position to progress towards professionalisation.

An interesting question within this is ‘Is there an ultimate time within an artists career when clean coaching will be at it’s most effective?’ I’m currently working with artists at varying stages of their careers and notice that for the more established it IS easier to keep to clean coaching. That’s not to say that sharing of information doesn’t take place, it would be absurd for two artists in the same room to not share information or discuss aspects of the world we call art, but it does appear to be the case that as an artists practice matures a deeper understanding of that practice can be facilitated more easily through clean questioning.

This idea of the greater efficacy of using purely clean coaching as determined by the artist’s experience or longevity of practice may prove to be irrelevant, I don’t know, but it is something I’m taking notice of and will reflect upon further at a later date.

Lancaster 2017

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was letting myself in for when I received the happy news that a-n and RD1st had accepted my application to undertake an 8 day coaching for artists programme. My initial reasons for applying were twofold. Firstly I imagined that this would be good for my artistic practice, by gaining some insights into my own ways of thinking and creative process, and also following years of working with post-graduate students I hoped to develop some new approaches that might be useful, not just for teaching, but also for working as a mentor, for newly graduated artists.

I had little prior experience of coaching – I once had a brief session with a coach and I remember on completion of the session I felt positive and confident but still a bit unsure of what to do next within my practice at a time when I really needed some guidance. My thinking then was that maybe I could incorporate coaching techniques into a more structured and practical mentoring role than the one I had experienced.

RD1st teach a method of coaching called Relational Dynamics which has three main components – Understanding Self and others, Coaching Skills and Personal Leadership Qualities. During the training course, attended entirely by artists, we were introduced to a number of different approaches and techniques alongside a myriad of exercises designed to question our prevailing assumptions. Of which it turns out we all have very many both about others and ourselves.

For the most part the exercises were hugely enjoyable and the group quite quickly formed a very close bond which in turn created a beautifully supportive space within which to learn and fail and pick ourselves up and learn again. Having said this we were at one point invited to participate in my most hated and embarrassing of all the group learning techniques – role playing…….Now don’t get me wrong I understand the value of this and greatly admire anyone able to do it but it sends me into a spiral of panic, where eye contact becomes defunct, my heart races, and any excuse to take flight is sought. Ordinarily I would’ve headed to the very beautiful nearby Lancashire hills, however it seemed more prudent to tackle this fear head on during one of my practice stints as a coachee.

A session that we took part in worked with self-limiting beliefs ie a belief (usually negative) that you can’t achieve something, are terrible at something or that something won’t ever happen – such as the aforementioned role playing. We learnt that often these are self-fulfilling prophecies, so deeply entrenched are they within our sub-conscious that they stop us from achieving otherwise attainable goals. One of the challenges of coaching is to try and re-frame these deep-seated beliefs through a process that works to re-frame the negative belief to an empowering one through investigating the ‘evidence’ that supports this belief. Divided into pairs we practiced coaching on each other, I decided to talk, about this particular fear and where it might have come from.

One of the defining factors of coaching is the creation of a non-judgemental, safe, neutral space where the coachee feels comfortable discussing any topic in confidence, which seeing as I have some embarrassment around my embarrassment this was most welcome. The shortened coaching session lasted for 15 minutes but in that time I managed to work out (after very few short but focussed questions from the coach) where this fear originates, why it bothered me so much (because after all I could just accept that this isn’t something I’m good at and move on) and what strategies might I adopt when faced with future situations. Whilst I wouldn’t want to divulge everything in public, suffice to say that although I don’t think I’m ever going to be the first to volunteer for any role-play situations I do feel a lot better about coping when the situation arises again.

It is also worth pointing out that all of the work is done by the coachee – a coach facilitates and assists to achieve clarity but the coachee necessarily does the hard thinking. Having admitted a couple of things to myself, recognised self-limiting behaviours and identified how I might cope in the future means that I have begun a process of acceptance and confidence that isn’t in actual fact anything to do with ‘fear of role-playing’ but that recognises that this comes from a much deeper place. This is the beauty of coaching, just when you think you’re talking about one thing something else charges up the rear and makes you go “oh yeah I hadn’t really thought about it like that before” and that is where the magic (or Voodoo as Emma H’s husband calls it) happens.