How to Facilitate the Design Stage

The further round the 4-D cycle we go, the closer we’re getting to practical action in the real world. But at the Design stage, in one-to-one coaching at least, we’re not quite out of ‘possibility land’ yet.

We still want our coaching client’s ‘Default Mode’ or empathic brain network to be lit up, because this is where they (not you the coach) come up with options and choices about what they could do to move towards the Dream, or the aspects of it that they feel most moved to make into reality. If you’re structuring your coaching session around the 4-D format, this will be easier, as the client will just have come out of the Dream stage, and so should still be in empathic, creative mode.

I’m emphasising could do here, because these are options – the client is not required to commit to any of them at this stage. Why not? Because if they believe they have to commit to any of the options they come up with, the client will pre-vet them for viability or ‘being realistic’ before they even mention them out loud.

Why is this bad? Because we actually want bad ideas, crazy ideas, and flawed ideas. Creativity works by a process of association rather than logic. An idea that is objectively ‘weak’ or ‘not fit for purpose’ may lead, by a process of association, to another idea, that leads to another idea, that results in yet another idea which is the one that turns the client’s life around.

This process of association spreads out in all directions by a myriad different routes, not all of them accessible to the conscious awareness of the client. The first idea might conjure up a song title that is linked to their memory of a person they once met, which leads their train of thought to the town where they met that person, the name of which sounds a bit like – oh! a software package that they could use to solve their problem of keeping track of their customers.

Trying to impose any kind of ‘quality control’ on the flow of ideas as they come up would choke off the creative process. You want a mass of ideas for the client to choose from – the more the better. Of course, before implementing any ideas, you’d want the client to check them for viability, but that is best done later in the process, after you have a whole wall full of options to choose from.

In framing this part of coaching, you need to emphasise that we’re not quality controlling their ideas, they don’t have to be ‘good’ ideas, and the client is not required to defend them. The more ideas the better!

We are not aiming to lead the coachee, or do their thinking for them, but rather to assist in exploring what they could do, so they can decide which options work for them. If you allow the client to do this, they are more likely to develop creative approaches to problem-solving that they can use in the future, often without the need for further coaching.

Your role is to ask questions which direct the coachee towards possibilities that they may not have previously noticed, and to keep them on track during the process. The closer you can get to self-directed learning, the better. The basic question is, “What could you do? What else could you do?”

In a later article we’ll explore the kinds of questions you can ask, including how to use scaling questions, plus a couple of ways to kickstart the creative process if the client feels stuck or finds it hard to come up with any options.

If you want to use a more structured approach to idea generation, you could ‘plug in’ any creativity technique that you find useful into the Design stage – such as mind mapping, or Edward de Bono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’. If you don’t have a favourite creativity exercise, I’ll share an easy and simple one with you next time: the Disney Strategy for Creativity.

If you would like to get started confidently using Appreciative Inquiry with teams and small groups, join the Practical Appreciative Inquiry facilitator training starting soon!

– Small group size (max 12 per group)

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“I would take this course time and time again… The practical application of the Practical Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator training encourages you to apply the knowledge. The “possibility” it brings and the energy it creates is life changing” – Danielle (Dan) Watkins, Facilitator of positive change for organisational culture and people experiences, Australia