By Paul Watzlawick, John H. Weakland, Richard Fisch
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY
176 pages
Reviewed by Dahlia Verjee
REVIEW
“It obviously makes a difference whether we consider ourselves pawns in a game whose rules we call reality or as players of the game who know that the rules are “real” only to the extent that we have created or accepted them, and that we can change them.”
I was drawn to this book for its title and although it is a book more based in psychology and psychotherapy, I found its approach and message very clear and of much benefit for the field of coaching. The book also has a very philosophical leaning, with many points drawn from the work of Russell and Wittgenstein, which appealed to my background in the subject.
In my view, the key philosophical point they make is that to explain something, often requires us to move one logical level above what is to be explained, ie move to a meta language. However, in some cases, this is not necessarily available. It is the idea that one cannot see everything, because the organ that does the seeing cannot see itself.
How does this apply to change? The book uses change as something that shifts the way one might consider a solution to a problem. Instead of approaching the problem directly with a solution, considering a ‘meta’ level of change, which they call 2nd order change, one can get out of the apparent paradox I noted above and step outside of it – basically reframing the problem and therefore finding a solution. The important point they make is that solutions are not formed from a dichotomy of alternatives, which is how most people approach things, but from being able to step outside of that set of alternatives and look again.
I found Part III of the book most enlightening as it moves from a robust exposition of their theory to its practical consequences and also includes many examples, which one can easily transpose to current examples in one’s own experience.
Chapter 8, ‘The Gentle Art of Reframing’ has obvious appeal to coaches as often working with clients, a fresh pair of eyes that looks at same issue from a different vantage point is extremely valuable. “To reframe, then, means to change the conceptual and/or emotional setting or viewpoint in relation to which a situation is experienced and to place it in another frame which fits the ‘facts’ of the same concrete situation equally well or even better, and thereby changes its entire meaning”. Putting this together with the thesis of the book as whole, the authors in my mind successfully encourage us to ‘lift’ the problem out of the frame where it seems intractable and into another equally well fitting frame where that impasse does not exist. They go on to note that done successfully this also needs to be in tune with how the client’s thinking and how they perceive the world for maximum efficacy.
Chapter 9, ‘The Practice of Change’, is an interesting way of looking at GROW again from a psychological/psychotherapeutic way and I note there are many overlaps. The authors outline a 4 step process
- A clear definition of the problem in concrete terms
- An investigation of the solutions attempted so far
- A clear definition of the concrete change to be achieved
- The formulation and implementation of plan to produce this change
What I understood most importantly from this was, as Anne Scoular makes the point, that coaching “pulls out the capacity people have within”1, the authors suggest that the most elegant solution to ‘problems’ is usually to work on the attempted solution by the client in the first place.
1 Business Coaching, Anne Scoular; Financial Times/Prentice Hall 2011
The best example they give of the insomniac, who attempts to overcome his problem by forcing himself to sleep, putting himself into a paradox with an element of inescapability, the harder he tries to sleep the more he fails and the problem persists. However, the solution proposed now, is to ask him to force himself to stay awake. I find this sort of illustration very elegant, it is simple, and robust – of course it also has to be in keeping with the client’s own way of looking at the world, but it could work!
The authors admit there are of course failures of this solution, which include ‘unrealistic or inappropriate goals’ which from a coaching perspective we know is an important bedrock to working successfully with a client. The other issue they illustrate is that the reframing or the solution was not in tune with the client, ie it was not something that they bought into, in which case it did not quite ‘fit’. Another common speed bump encountered within the coaching sphere.
Chapter 10, “Exemplifications” is a wonderful chapter where the authors show a myriad of problems and their solutions, following their 4 step process, using reframing and most importantly providing insight into each solution. What I liked most about the problems is that each one was very easily translated into a problem at work or one that we might have encountered with ourselves or our clients. They were generic enough to allow them to be illustrative but specific enough to be realistic and challenging. As the authors admit, their examples and their theory is not limited to psychotherapy but from their expertise, that is where they draw their examples. This has wide reaching implications across all arenas of human communication and interaction.
SUMMARY
Although somewhat complex at the start with regards to laying out the theory of second order change, the persistence of problems and their formulation and then the use of paradox in solution, I found this book extremely lucid and very elegant. It is clearly written and as one reaches the final part of the book, the more practical illustrations bring the theory alive and make it accessible. I went back to read earlier parts having covered the exemplifications and actually got more out of the book that way. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone working with people, in psychotherapy, coaching, mentoring etc as it really gives me a well explained tool to take with me when working with clients.
