Experimentation

Both high potential and high performance employees are often risk-takers. They like to leap over the cliff, and are confident about their own ability to fly when leaping over that cliff. They set the challenges high and find “flow” by progressively moving the bar up. This also means that these clients sometimes take the wrong risk and not only crash themselves, but also bring other employees down with them. Alternatively, they may often expect their co-workers to be risk-takers or make great demands on other employees in order to tackle unrealistic goals. As we already mentioned, the high potentials and high performers often do not pay sufficient attention to the domain of information—and when they leap off the cliff, they do so without knowing how far they will fall or the size of their parachute (or even if they have a parachute!).

Under these conditions, the coach can be very helpful by encouraging and guiding the client in the identification of and strategic planning for a responsible and reasonable risk. This often means that the coach helps the client set up one or more possibilities for “experiments”—pilot testing a new idea, running demonstration projects, creating a “sanctuary” in which new ideas can be moved to action in a manner that allows for “safe risks” and encourages organizational learning (Senge, 1990; Argyris & Schon, 1978). The coach might ask: “Where can you safely test out this idea?” or “What are some ways in which you can learn much more about the feasibility/practicality of this idea?”

The safe space in a coaching encounter is the ideal “incubator” for these learning experiments—events that can produce new possibilities. Contemporary Gestalt theory and practice has developed the “Unit of Work” (UOW), a process structure for managing the “safe emergency” that is needed in any learning experiment. Such experiments are experienced as the “pragmatics of magic” (Siminovitch & Van Eron, 2006). The carefully constructed four-part structure of the UOW assists in the safe exploration of risky possibilities.  The coach uses this orderly and artfully facilitated structure to collaboratively guide a client towards new possibilities by:

(1) Engaging the client in a determination and assessment of the current picture or issue: the “what is”

(2) Collaboratively assisting the client in choosing what  to attend to, while honoring resistance patterns (an old behavior that no longer serves, the learning from failure, or a desired new but “risky” possibility)

(3) Assisting and guiding  the client’s engagement in a small experiment conducted  in relation to what has been chosen for attention, while simultaneously exploring the habitual obstacles to new possibilities

(4) Articulating the new insights gained in order to identify  new possibilities that have emerged from this short exploration: the “new what is”

When completed, a Unit of Work enables:  “a clear idea of what has been done, of what has not been done, and/or of what the system is not ready to deal with at that time” (Nevis, 1987, pp. 44-45). A UOW needs to be carefully and scrupulously defined and designed so as “to achieve closure around problem areas and unfinished business” (p. 91). However, surprise is always a possibility. A model of the UOW illustrates its process (step-by-step) orientation and indicates its anticipation and acceptance of unexpected dynamics in its procedural enactment.

The Structure of Experimentation: The Unit of Work Model

Failure creates significant emotion, a factor which has long been recognized as important for new learning. The UOW structure is a useful process to safely explore learning derived from failure experiences.  Rapaille (2006) has elaborated on the high performance benefits of learning from failure, particularly when a good method is provided to do so.  The ”safe emergency” tension which the coach facilitates  in the UOW structure offers an excellent modality for significant exploration.  The coaching relationship is one of the safe containers for the high potential/high performance client within which to examine the failures en route to successful innovation.

Conclusions: The Authentic Engagement

In our ongoing conversations during our three-day symposium about the art and science of providing coaching services to high potential and high performance clients, we frequently returned to the essential character of the coaching engagement, particularly within an organizational context. The term “authentic” was inevitably part of all these conversations, and was commonly associated with the term ”trustworthiness.” It seems that these two terms, and the dynamics underlying them, are often intertwined. We concluded that high potential and high performance clients are likely to be very bright with regard to interpersonal relationships. These clients are highly resonant to important details that underlie success. They can readily discern inauthentic behavior, and expect the people with whom they work and interact to be honest and straight-forward. This expectation usually means that authenticity has to be steadily exhibited even while both parties to the interaction are “on the move.” A spontaneous authenticity is required—a sense of being “present” in the moment and conjuring the invisible power brought by trust to the relationship.  The capacity to create, evoke, and re-create trust is embedded in the experience of authenticity.

Clearly, there is no playbook or formula that can tell us how to be “authentic” or “present” in relationship with our client. Indeed, any preplanned or formulaic responses would, by definition, be inauthentic. Our own sense is that the risk-taking exhibited by high potentials and high performers should also be embraced by the coach, especially in those moments when feedback affords an opportunity for learning and development. More than is the case with other coaching clients, the work with these two challenging client groups requires the application of new approaches to coaching and an open and ongoing dialogue regarding the nature and purpose of the coaching engagement (what is often called the “meta-conversation” that occurs in effective organizational coaching). High potential and high performance clients appreciate the willingness of their coach to be candid about the challenges being faced in their mutual engagement, and are likely, in turn, to be candid themselves in talking about their hopes and concerns. High potential clients are best served by understanding what qualities and factors identify them as having “high potential.” High performance clients benefit from understanding what qualities and factors have brought them recognition as high performers, as well as what new development possibilities can serve to keep them engaged rather than complacent in the deployment of overused strengths. With the assistance of their coach, both client populations can identify and/or design safe environments in which experimentation is supported.  Both the high potential and the high performance client benefit from the artful mixture of challenge and support offered by the coach, such that organizational derailment is minimized. Both types of organizational clients benefit from opportunities inherent in an appreciative coaching process.