Often when we’re coaching, our colleague may choose to represent their situation in a non-literal format – with the use of a metaphor.
“I feel like I’m climbing a mountain with this promotion…”
or
“It’s like I’ve got all these plates spinning and more being added each day…”
A metaphor is a description of something as ‘like’ something else, often described with visual imagery or in a story. As a leader who coaches, metaphors give you the opportunity to coach effectively and efficiently by using this imagery to uncover new thinking, unlock the issue and step into the new state or outcome the colleague wants.
Images or pictures often communicate and shape complex information into one idea – helping us and our colleague stay out of the drama and detail and shape thinking towards what they want. Metaphors bring everything together into a much simpler format than words can.
As leaders who coach, the challenge in staying out of the detail and developing the thinking skills of your team can be assisted by recognising the colleague’s metaphor and staying with it.
If your colleague shared one of the metaphors above, how might you use this opportunity to coach with the metaphor.
“I feel like I’m climbing a mountain with this promotion…”
You might choose to follow this up with some of the questions below
“How high is the mountain?”
“Where are you on the mountain?”
“Where do you need/want to get to?”
“How is the climb going?”
“What’s the terrain like?”
“How do you want the climb to be?”
“What does this mean for you?”
“How far have you travelled?”
“What equipment do you have to help with this?”
As a process, you may wish to consider the 3 steps below
- Identify the metaphor: listen out for images, metaphors or your colleague starting sentences with “it’s like…” or “it’s a bit like…..” and how they are representing the situation and their connection to it
- Develop the metaphor: a couple of questions to reveal how the colleague is experiencing the metaphor, their thinking and feeling about the current situation
- Work with the metaphor: asking questions to see hopefully leading to a new way of thinking of a new perception about an issue
Things to try in your next coaching conversation
- Listen out for any metaphors and stay with them using the 3 steps above
- Ask your colleague to represent the situation as an image, metaphor or story. It can help activate their processes of thinking, making new links in their mind and discovering something new about their situation
- When you ‘spot’ a metaphor used by a client, what can you do to help them pay attention to it and understand it’s importance?
- Practice using metaphors in other meetings – how can you use this approach to reduce the amount of words and “bring alive” your points
Barum is a leadership coach, trainer and coach mentor. He’s usually found in his garden growing dahlias and chillies or swotting up on the latest trends in neuroscience or human behaviour. You can follow him on LinkedIn https://uk.linkedin.com/in/barumjeffries
