When you are having a conversation with a team member, listen closely to what he/she says. Your goal is to identify the metaphors he/she uses to define their experiences. a b Wilson, Carol (2017). The Work and Life of David Grove: Clean Language and Emergent Knowledge. Troubador Publishing Ltd. p.329. ISBN 9781788033831– via Google Books. They are supposed to be simple as all that needs to be added is a selection of the client’s exact words represented by [x] and [y] above. Join us for12 online Zoom classeswhere you’ll start from scratch and learn how to uncover the metaphors and patterns that are beneath the surface. Find out how to develop a person’s metaphor landscape and to encourage the conditions needed for deep and lasting change.

Example 1 - Traditional Coaching: An individual comes to a coach with a problem. Instead of commiserating, or offering a solution, they use the 1 Minute Motivation or the 5 Minute Coach model, to stay in the thinking space of the person with the problem and to encourage them to take ownership of their desired outcome. Once someone experiences being coached this way, they feel the power and feel motivated to learn the questions. Have you ever had a hunch or instinct about something important, but been unable to explain it or convince people around you? Using Clean Language questions can develop that 'message from your subconscious' into more detailed thoughts, so turning your And you’d like a great career and to earn lots of money and when it’s a great career, what kind of great? If you’re familiar with the Pareto Principle (often called the 80/20 rule), you’ll know that it’s common for 20% of the effort in a thing to give us 80% of the value. The challenge is to identify which 20% we should focus on. With clean language, the first two questions consistently appear to be that 20%. Using just those two questions, we can get significant value out of clean language without diving into the rest. So we’ll spend more time with those.InfoQ: If InfoQ readers want to learn more about using Clean Language in agile coaching, where can they go? That The word ‘that’ allows for more specific ‘pointing’ at particular aspects of an inner landscape… e.g. If a client says, “I would like to feel more relaxed,” then asking, “What kind of relaxed is that relaxed?” directs their attention to the word relaxed and invites them to consider it in more detail. David Grove’s Clean Language will appeal to coaches who have a willingness to try something new, encompassing a very different way of thinking to help the client explore challenges, and an openness to a more psychological approach that involves working with clients at the deeper level of visualisation, metaphor and trance work.

Clean questions do not introduce ideas to the client… Clean questions use only words the client has already said… One clean approach is to ask about “a great career”. You could ask “A great career for you is like what?” and then develop the answer using “is there anything else about X?” and “what kind of X?”, plus a few “then what happens?”. For example:Asking clean questions, using the client’s own words and exploring metaphors are just a few of the things a clean facilitator can do to encourage the conditions for sustainable change.

When using advanced Metaphor Therapy techniques with trauma survivors and also as as an adjunct to regression hypnotherapy, Morris Berg found that some clients experienced energy entering their bodies at the conclusion of a metaphor session. This happened especially if the client had been feeling that some part of the self was lost or shut off. This sense of reclaimed energy suggests that there might be a link between some metaphor work and energy therapies. Such a link remains to be explored. Part 1 is observation. People often get tripped up here. Observation must not be an evaluation, but like a recording of what was seen or heard.“I noticed you stood tall, started on time, and called people by their first names”. Interestingly just a few Clean Language questions can produce surprisingly insightful and effective responses. They were developed by the Maori PTSD psychotherapist David Grove in the 1970s and 1980s. David noticed that when his interactions with clients were free from his prescriptions, advice, and interpretations, the clients could think through their “own stuff”’ and create connections in their minds that allowed them to heal more readily. David went on to develop other methods such as Emergent Knowledge and Clean Space, and sadly died in 2008. In turn, Caitlin Walker of Liverpool, England, took these questions to groups and organizations, calling it Systemic Modelling, or “Clean Language for Teams”. This is the area of coaching I am most interested in with Clean Language.While initially used in clinical therapy, Clean Language offers helpful techniques to all professional communicators, especially those working closely with others. If the client couldn’t get past the notion of struggling then we might ask “And when you are struggling, what would you like to have happen?” Likewise, the client’s “clouds”, “steam” and “ice”– the client’s metaphors – carry the energy of emotions and memories and transform them even though the work is not abreactive. To dismiss the metaphors as a form of distancing or dissociation is a mistake – they are not an attempt to get away from the problem but an attempt to solve it using the body-mind’s own creative powers. Anyone who has had a successful metaphor session knows that the work is very real and intensive indeed.