Why Didn’t She Ask Why?

Photo Credit - Habibur Rahman Roni

‘We played not to lose. Only now do we realise the task needed the other teams….’, a participant shared during the debrief after an experiential learning activity. ‘Let’s talk about how best to initiate collaboration amid the tension among teams given the perception of competition….’, the practitioner responded.

As an observer, I was intrigued. The response challenged my expectation. A voice in my head asked: ‘Why not take up this opportunity to explore the WHY (e.g. what individual or group unconscious processes led to the assumption of competition)? Why go for the HOW instead?’ In fact, the whole programme focused on HOW.

Where my WHY tendency comes from

Observing the programme revealed my natural tendency to focus on WHY.  See how I celebrated WHY over HOW in one of my previous posts back in 2018– ‘I know how to… but I don’t really want to’.   

I reflected on why this is the case (again, my WHY orientation…. oops!). My training at the Tavistock in London, known for applying psychoanalytic and systems thinking to individuals, groups and families, whether in systems psychodynamics or family psychotherapy, influenced me a lot. Both point first to understanding what is REALLY going on: individual unconscious, group unconscious, family structure, social discourse, etc. Years of working in organisations that adopted such approaches reinforced the tendency.

Successful cases strengthened my habit, and it is the successes I remember. For example, I had a client who could not help confronting his boss publicly, though he knew it was not helpful to the underlying matter or their relationship. He had tried various ways of offering constructive suggestions but still failed. As we explored the unconscious group dynamics, he was relieved to see that he had taken up a rebel role mobilised by and for the group: his team needed someone to voice their frustration, and he had become that voice. This helped him catch himself and find ways to resist the role. (More in my earlier post The Moment Just Before)

I also realise that I hold an assumption that skillset change (HOW) can be achieved alone more easily without a coach. After all, resources on HOW are nowadays readily available online. Yet my own practice contradicts this. When a General Manager rehearsed her board presentation with me, I played a sceptical board member. No online resource could have pushed back at her like that. She later won the board’s support. Knowing how is not the same as being able to do it under pressure.

Reflecting deeper, I suspect that mindset work makes me look deeper and more ‘coach-like’. It separates me from ‘trainers’. To be even more critical, mindset intervention can also give me protection: if it fails, it can always be recast as ‘the shift takes time’!

False dichotomy between WHY and HOW

In writing this post, I notice that I frame WHY and HOW as a dichotomy. But is it one? After all, I agree that people can act their way into new thinking, as Herminia Ibarra argues in ‘Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader’. Perhaps the practitioner I described at the beginning aimed to take care of both HOW and WHY by focusing on the HOW. The question then becomes: how do I know when to focus on mindset or skillset to serve coachees best?

In 1:1 coaching, where I have more freedom than in a programme, my rule of thumb is to work on the HOW first, on the specific challenges coachees bring, with the WHY at the back of my mind. We owe clients the simplest solution first, though what is simplest differs from person to person; for my rebel client, technique was the harder road. I bring the WHY forward when a client seems to be going through the motions, or has tried many ways and still failed. Yet both of those exits could lead to mindset change.

Back to the iceberg metaphor, coaches usually draw it to remind us to attend to what lies beneath the waterline, and I have drawn it that way for years.  But I choose a slightly different one which illustrates a different meaning - the tip is the only part of the iceberg where anyone can stand.  My clients need somewhere to ‘stand’ first before looking down into the water.

Rereading my own website while writing this, I noticed that it describes my approach the other way round: understand the reasons why first, then design action. My practice has moved on; my description of it has not. Perhaps the bias lingers longest where I am least looking.

Which leaves me with a question I cannot yet answer: when the WHY sits at the back of my mind, who decides when it comes forward – my client’s need, or my own?