A pre-workshop interview with Pierre
Posted by Andrew 17 February 2010On Monday 29th March we are looking forward to hosting Pierre Blanc-Sahnoun’s workshop titled “Corporate Stories and Narrative Coaching”. Thanks to Pierre, he took some time out to answer a few questions I put together below. Enjoy!
1. In your bio it tells how you had the opportunity to meet and learn from Michael White (the key founder of narrative therapy) – what was a learning/interaction with Michael which made a significant impact on you?
I would say that the most important was that he was encouraging each student to make his own journey and to feel free in his creativity. This is unique. Most teachers try to push students into a model, Michael had this talent (I speak in the past tense because unfortunately he passed out 2 years ago) to have you develop your skills in your own way. This was very important to me to feel welcome to develop my own original applications in the field that I knew as a coach which was the corporate one. I think that these ideas that proved their relevance in Israel, Palestine, South Africa, Rwanda, etc. perfectly fit to the business world. Michael was a brilliant teacher and at the same time a “real person” with inextinguishable curiosity for others, and passions for a whole range of things and activities. Meeting Michael and learning from him was a turning point in my life and in my vision of my work. This impact still ripples now that I am teaching and passing through his teaching in my own way.
2. What inspired you to develop a range of creative ways to integrate narrative practice into Corporate and non-profit organizational contexts?
I had been a professional coach since the 80’s, with a MBA and a lot of interventions in big organizations. My clients were confronted to mutations in the business world and in particular the rising power of the financial shareholders and institutions, and the relative loss of power of operational managers. It was resulting in a loss of sense and a decrease of commitment of the workers, and also in a deterioration of the links between the people. Building sense and building links : these are exactly the 2 main topics of the narrative practice. There is also this idea that narrative works with communities and that a company is a work community or sometimes a “community of communities” with their own stories, myths, legends, heroes, etc. With 5 years of perspective I can say that it “works” where everything else based on expert knowledge has failed.
3. How would you say narrative coaching differs from other coaching models?
We have to abandon the idea of being the guy who knows and come to the companies in a very humble spirit, as guys who don’t know anything and who are here to learn from the community. One of the ground ideas of narrative practices is that the people and the communities have unique knowledges and skills to address the concerns of their lives and that they are often confronted to “outsider” knowledges and prescriptions. Explaining to a CEO that the workers in this plants may have more relevant knowledge of their work than him because they are the actual ones who do it, can sometimes be a bit of a challenge ! Another very important difference is about dealing with problems. Most coaching models try to fix problems by generating solutions or (for the most inefficient one) by finding the causes and removing them. Narrative practice deals with resisting to the effects of the problems and for this, develop ones own ranges of responses based on what unique skills, knowledges and ideas helps one in hardship. There are no “exercises” in narrative coaching because the coachee “renegociates” the place and the impact of the problem in his life and develops new understandings about what really matters to him…
4. What are you looking forward to most with you upcoming visit to Australia?
Meeting colleagues and sharing these ideas with them. I believe that teaching and learning are one same thing, as it is said in the Maori concept “Te Wakaakona”. Besides, I love the Australian simple and cool way of making you comfortable and I sort of feel at home Down Under, even if it is 26 hours flight from home !
For more information on the workshop, including how to register, download the easy-fax-back registration brochure here.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:34 am
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