I’m taking a writing class as I do periodically. I’m looking to get feedback in two areas. Most of my published writing has been fairly impersonal, and I’d like to write a more personal piece. The other reason is that I like to get feedback from other published writers/instructors about my work. This week we talked about putting more of ourselves into our writing—not our deep, dark secrets, necessarily–but our personality. I thought immediately that I wanted to write something about this for you.

As a coach it is important to give my full attention to you, to hear what you have to tell me, and not to impose my own views, or opinions on you. It is also important to be transparent. Transparency is a word and concept that seems to be way overused in business these days (in my opinion). What I mean by it here is that I owe you as partner in our coaching the courtesy of speaking my truth. So if something keeps occurring to me as you are speaking, I have the obligation to notice it out loud. If, for instance, you are telling me a story of how your boss does not give you her full attention, and you would like to learn how to solicit that attention respectfully, I may hear a story of my own experience with a former boss, or I may have an intuition about your other relationships. In order to be your best coach, I think I should notice out loud that my own situation keeps coming up and I tell you about it, not to impose it, but to see if there is anything helpful to you in there. Or I ask you about your relationship with you son, or your best friend—which might seem to come out of nowhere. This is putting my personality into our coaching.

The more of your personality you put into our relationship, the better we can SEE each other and therefore can co-create something that really works for you.

1. I love to hear a new or potential client’s story. Our stories are powerful, vivid, and give shape to who we have been, who we are, and who we want to become. When I hear these stories, I feel like I have been given a precious gift.

2. When I am coaching, I am reminded of both the fragility and the strength of all of our selves. I don’t mean by this that we are delicate, but that we are changing all the time and that our fragility relates to who we are in any given moment. At the same time, we are all strong beyond our own understanding. Each of us has places where we stand up for what is important to us, where we give more than what we are required to give, and where we remain true to unpopular people and ideas.

3. When I am coaching, I see my own vulnerability more clearly than I can at many other times. I see the importance of being present for another, and of being present to my own experience of that other. I also see my tendency to be judgmental, advice-giving, and a know-it-all, and I am humbled by these tendencies. My awareness sometimes prevents the voicing of judgment, advice, or pronouncements, but not always.

4. When I am coaching, I see how hard it is to change. I see how hard it is to change myself, and therefore, how hard it must be for any other person to change.

5. When I am coaching, I wonder at client’s courage to start something new at 20, or 50 or 70! I am joy-filled when I hear them describe dancing, or painting, or learning to risk a relationship for the first time.

6. After I have coached, I feel better about the world and myself.

7. After I have coached, I see possibilities that I have not seen before, and I see people in the street or in the next office with new and more appreciative eyes.

8. Coaching helps me to pay more attention to my adult daughters, my grandchildren, my husband, and my friends for I know just how wonderful they are, and I also know how tolerant they are of my foibles and shortcomings.

9. Coaching has brought me to writing, to meditation, and to singing, in an effort to be a better coach.

10. Ten is an arbitrary and and somewhat contrived place to finish. So at ten I end for now with the observation that there are very few coaches I admire. This may be because I believe clients deserve better than what I and others currently provide, and that I, for one, want to provide coaching that helps clients see their own possibilities with greater clarity, and their own paths to these possibilities with enthusiasm and commitment.

Peer-reviewed Presentations and Papers

S.L. Orem, W.B. Pearce, and others.
Presentation, Western States Communication Association, February, 2006. Paper published in conference proceedings.

S.L. Orem, J. Binkert, and A. Clancy,
Presentation, Research Symposium, International Coach Federation Conference, November 2005. Paper published in conference proceedings.

S.L. Orem,
Poster session for Research Symposium, International Coach Federation Conference, November, 2004. Paper published in conference proceedings.

S.L. Orem,
Fifth Annual Transformative Learning Conference, Columbia Teachers College, New York, October, 2003. Paper published in conference proceedings.

S.L. Orem,
International Organization Development Network Conference, Montreal, October, 2002.

S.L. Orem and L. Demarest,
Association for Psychological Type International Conference, Orange County, 1993.

Other Publications

S.L. Orem,
Currently under contract with Jossey Bass, publication date February 2007.

S.L. Orem and L. Demarest,
Health Communications, 1994. English, Japanese and Spanish editions.

Wow! Landing in Orlando in the middle of a storm Saturday night, September 15 should have been the first indicator that this was going to be an explosive week! Staying at a DisneyWorld Hotel should have been the second indicator that this was an “otherworldly” experience. All of the big names of Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Psychology, and Strength Based leadership were at this conference. I was so happy to see the luminaries joining hands and brains to describe the interface among and between all of the positive processes .

Sunday Jackie Binkert and I presented a day-long workshop on Appreciative Coaching, a really experiential day for coaches and people who work with coaches. We laid out the theory behind our process (Appreciative Inquiry) and then had participants work in pairs on a real topic through the four D cycle (Discover, Dream, Design, Destiny). We got great evaluations and had a grand time with our 31 participants.

The following days were filled with new learnings and new relationships. I watched and listened to my former mentor Frank Barrett describe Destiny through jazz and his magical jazz piano. Marcus Buckingham described his new book and new Strengths team assessment. Marty Seligman waxed lyrical about the work of Barbara Frederickson and positive emotions. Peter Coughlan of IDEO took us through a brainstorming session about finding new designs to address global warming. Dr. Frederickson herself provided the final keynote with two Indian yogis. She talked about the lasting positive effects of loving kindness meditation on individual happiness.

In between the keynotes, we mortals shared information, connected over drinks and goodies, and learned from each other. I particularly enjoyed my new Brazilian friends, Maria, Eduardo and Renato and hope to see them in their home city of Sao Paulo soon.

I will be doing a similar workshop with over 100 coaches for General Motors in a week or so. If you’d like to know more about the workshop for your company or group, respond to me here and I’ll contact you.

There once was a time when others marveled at my organization skills. Since I have worked out of a home office, however, my space is hardly visitor friendly. Piles of stuff have formed a mote around my desk. I step over the mote in the morning, and it keeps people away from my desk when I’m not here. I guess this is an advantage, but it hardly qualifies as organization. I say that I know where everything important is, but increasingly this is not only not true but an excuse for the lack of organization, transparent even to me.

So I bought a book, Getting Things Done, by the guru of time and self-management, David Allen. I cleaned up the pile next to my bed this morning. I’ve made the surface of my desk mostly visible. I know this is just the tip of the iceberg because as Allen says, we have to understand and implement a whole system of organization before we actually get organized. I’ve only read the first three chapters and I feel like much more is possible.

He says that we have to organize our thinking before we can organize our actions, that we carry around all the stuff we have not organized into some formula for ultimate action and that it weighs us down psychically. I see a correlation with Appreciative Coaching here. If we do not organize our thinking around our strengths and our skills to think deeply about them, we will not be able to act in a purposeful way to achieve our greatest dreams. We won’t procrastinate so much as run around in circles accomplishing something but not necessarily what we want.

So, Allen suggests writing down all of the projects in our heads. These can be as simple as “finish Aunt Millie’s scarf,” to “write the proposal for my next book ” or “write the book.” I suggest writing down all of your strengths. These can be as simple as “makes a mean grilled hamburger” to “manages complex IT projects to completion on time and on budget.” Allen suggests that we then write our ultimate hope or plan for each project, such as “the book sells a million copies in the first six months.” I suggest you write down a really big goal or dream that uses the strengths you have now. Finally, Allen says to write down one action that you can do now or today that moves you toward the vision of your ultimate hope for each project. I suggest that you write down one way in which you can use your strength today to move you closer to the dream or vision you have for your future.

Over the last week or so I’ve been dipping into Mike Robbins’ Focus on the Good Stuff, and Robert Emmons’ Thanks! Robbins’ book is a more conversational version of our Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change, and Emmons’ focuses on one aspect of living positively, and that is living with a grateful attitude. Another fascinating book that came out recently is entitled, Change the Way You See Everything, by Kathryn Cramer and Hank Wasiak. This book really gives specific tools for what they call “asset-based” (as opposed to deficit based) thinking: weighing everything in our lives from a positive, hopeful and possibility laden perspective.

What strikes me about each of these books and their authors is that we have perhaps reached what Malcolm Gladwell calls the tipping point, that is the point at which we are aware of more resources for viewing life positively than we are of viewing problems and weaknesses. I hope this is true.

At the same time, I’m also worried (as I am a worrier) that the positive perspective will be translated as happy talk, that folks who are sad, diagnosed with serious illness, or devastated in some deep way, will see all this as excluding them. To these people I say that the newish focus on emphasizing the good in life in no way diminishes its challenges. Being gentle with oneself, acknowledging pain and challenge, finding a sympathetic person to talk to, and waiting (as time does diminish many wounds) are all legitimate tools on the way to having a more positive outlook. I had personally held in such a wound for too long. Recently a friend invited me to talk about that wound in a safe and empathetic conversation. Just speaking it out loud released so much blocked energy, that I’ve found ways to return to my normally optimistic and thankful perspective.

If you find yourself wishing “if only I COULD feel positively about this situation” remember that it may take time, empathy, and patience to access that formerly positive person in you.

I’m so excited about my new project! I’ve just begun to interview editors and literary agents about their experience with co-authors, the perils and pleasures of co-authoring. Having suffered and celebrated co-authoring myself, I’d be interested in interviewing any readers of this blog who are or have been co-authors. I’ll respect your privacy and your anonymity. I want to offer tried and true ways to help potential co-authors have a truly satisfying and rewarding experience!

Often, what gets me into trouble is thinking. I depend on my ability to think. I make my living thinking, and I write to think (as many extroverts do when no one else is around). But thinking can be a liability as well as a gift. If we are too dependent on thinking, our selves are big heads and atrophied bodies and spirits. So my tools for today have to do with my body and spirit.

The first tool is a mantra. Mantras are words (Peace), sounds (Ohmmmmm), or phrases that, when repeated over and over, have the effect of focusing our busy minds away from thinking. A mantra provides a no thinking zone for overthinkers like me. My mantra is a rather long one, but one you’ve probably heard before: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. This is the serenity prayer of Alcoholics Anonymous and the prayer of many overthinkers. When I say this mantra/prayer over and over, I internalize three words, accept, courage, and change. I don’t necessarily think about these words, but together they change the feelings in my body somehow. I am calmer, less caught up in my own thinking, and better able to focus on what will move me to a happier, more productive place.

The second tool is related to the first. It is meditation. Mediation requires sitting or lying down in a place that is quiet, closing your eyes and concentrating on one thing. There is walking meditation, of course, and this requires a soft eye focus (you don’t want to get run over by an approaching bus), and concentration on the rhythm of your steps. Some meditation practices depend on a mantra. Some ask simply that the meditater observe her breathing and let all thoughts go by without attaching to them. This, of course, is easier said than done. When I meditate, if I can let even one thought go by, it is a small victory. I have even used a meditation teacher. She was gentle and persistent with me. The results of my meditating were instantly recognizable. I had less fear in me and about everything outside of me. I meditated for months, and then I stopped. Why, you might ask? I feel sheepish telling you that it was because I didn’t have enough time. But I have time to worry, you might say. Yes, and I am determined to reinstitute my meditation practice if only for five minutes a day. Ask me about this and hold me to it, please.

The last tool is making art. This can be knitting, cabinet making, scrapbooking, gardening, or painting. You don’t have to be an artist, you just have to love doing whatever it is you love doing with your hands, and you have to love it enough to get lost in it. So what if you won’t be asked to hang the finished product in the Metropolitan. So what if you drop a stitch and your scarf looks more like a cobweb made by a drunken spider than an article of fashion. If I can get lost in the rhythm of the insertion of knitting needles into the growing mass of my creation, if I can feel the softness of the shawl emerging in my lap, if I can look into the depth of the colors I’ve chosen, I stop thinking for a blessed while and my body and spirit grow to equal the size of my overused mind. I am integrated, peaceful, and refreshed.

I don’t know where I got the idea that if I try hard enough, I can always make a situation better.  This wasn’t something either of my parents emphasized as a positive behavior, nor do I think I learned it in school or my communities.  Perhaps it is a woman thing.  Yet I know many women who don’t have this obsession - and it sometimes feels like an obsession.

What does this look like in real time?  I’ll get cross-wise with someone- my husband, my step-children, a colleague, and the minor disagreement turns into a major feud.  I keep thinking about it, trying to figure out, first, where I went wrong in my communication, then what I could do to make it better.  My thinking usually goes something like this, “If I could only explain what I think the problem is in such a way that the other person would understand (not agree but understand), then we would be able to begin to break up the log-jam of our feud.  So I circle back, call the person or arrange to see them and do my best to describe what I think has locked us in combat.  Sometimes this works.

More often, though, I just make whatever it is worse.  The other person is tired of hearing what I think, or doesn’t care.  I know I’m assuming their motivation as I write this, so let me say that this is what the other person’s reaction looks and sounds like to me.  Some people would rather stay mad than resolve or explore a disagreement.  Some need time to process their own thoughts and feelings and my bombardment of thoughts just adds more information they may not want or need. 

This morning, after trying to resolve a current disagreement of some months’ standing with a colleague, I asked myself why I felt compelled to do all of the resolving?  It seemed almost comical to me, the image of my entering and reentering the ring of conflict without invitation or interest on the part of my colleague.  Who asked me to be the one to do this?

I believe that I ask myself because the existence of ongoing conflict is so painful for me, and I feel so burdened by my really awful history in resolving it with others, that I want to prove I can make it (whatever it is) better now after studying and writing about conflict for years.

Sometimes I can’t do this.  It takes two, or three, or a community, or a country or a continent to want to come together in honest exploration of an issue.  If I see myself as Palestine or Israel I can keep trying to reopen the exploration, and I may keep getting rejected or bombed, or relocated.  I know this is a simplistic comparison.  I also know that if I’m hurt enough, or angry enough, I may decide, or the other person may decide that conversation isn’t worth it.  I’ve described such a situation above.  Do you have ways that have worked for you to manage your own feelings in conflict?  What actions seem to have worked for you when in the middle of conflict with another?

My personal experience with conflict has been long and rough.  My scholarly interest and research (which is sourced in and fueled by this personal experience) has focused on ways to transform conflict into collaboration, as I passionately wish to do most of the time.  But we cannot do this alone.  Partners and colleagues must want our relationships more than they want to be right. 

Wanting a relationship that has been hurtful and damaging is hard.  Sometimes we have to let go in order to see how hard we were hanging on to righteousness, or to see the other’s perspective clearly.  Walking away from a marriage, a profitable business, a coaching relationship, or a friendship feels like failure.  It also feels like giving up on wonderful possibilities (greater profit, renewed love, effective collaboration) just because we are unhappy in the moment.  Why can’t we make things right between two people who know about conflict, and know about love?

In my own desperation to try to understand another’s hurtfulness, a friend asked “What makes you think you are not as important as anyone else in this conflict?”  My “not important” comes from trying to twist myself around the other’s assurance that they are right.   The resulting mental muddle only makes me less sure of what to do in the conflict.

I am reading a novel about a white man who lived among Indians in the early part of the 18th century somewhere in the southern U.S.  It wasn’t a pretty time in our history with Indians nor was it a happy time in the life of the protagonist.  He repeatedly loses the woman he loves to another man, the changing times, or his own neglect.  Yet, he is a good man, perhaps a great one.  I thought to myself as I was reading today that none of us gets through this life without some disregard for others, and without conflict.

In a recent conversation with my 87 year old mother, she mused that she didn’t understand why people left marriages just because of infidelity.  I immediately realized that it took me two husbands to understand that there wasn’t a perfect one waiting somewhere for me.  I said to her, “If you believe that there is a perfect person, then you would not put up with or accept the obvious imperfection of infidelity.  If you believe that we all have good and bad whirled together to make us unique beings, you might be inclined to value the relationship more than being right and stay to see if you could work it out.”  Some of us hold onto the possibility of perfection, our own or other’s, for long years into our adulthood.  Then we cannot forgive another for not being perfect.

That forgiveness and acceptance takes two.  Two countries, groups, or people.  One can’t do it.  One can’t kiss and make up, or bury the hatchet.  Both have to give up needing to be right at the expense of the other.  Both have to value the relationship above past hurts.  Only then is collaboration possible.