透过框定改变来建立解决方案
Solution Building via Framing Change
将许多客户困住在看似无法解决问题的一个有趣框架，就是稳定性假设。这是一种远古的观念，认为世界是牢固、稳定、不变和固定的。虽然它是远古的，但有许多因素诱使大家这样想。语言可能是最大的罪魁祸首。词语和语言本身的本质是当你为一个事物命名时，那个事物就变成了你所命名的东西。之后就很难用其他方式去看待或思考它了。事实上，用言语表达一种经验给我们一种假的控制感。
标签问题尤其如此。一旦你以特定的方式给一个人贴上标签 – 他是酒鬼，她是婊子，他是精神分裂症患者，她是无情的商业领袖，等等，这个标签就蒙蔽了我们，使我们无法以任何其他方式看到这个人。随着重复，它产生了严重的限制。在这种情况下，诊断标签不仅会失去人性，还会把人置于不可改变的框架中。现在这个人真的被困住了！
想想假名词的语言 – 名词化。这些动词变成名词欺骗了我们，因为它们隐藏了行为和过程，使它们看起来稳定不变。当你听到「关系」这个词时，它听起来很坚实。然而，隐藏起来的是某人以一种特定的方式，在特定的时间与另一个人建立关系。它过度概括并造成了巨大的扭曲。
然而，我们都用名词化来说话，而且通常情况下，客户使用名词化来说话的过程本身就是一个问题。「当我的关系处于危险之中时，我的自尊受到了很大的伤害。」这种过于抽象的陈述使我们无法真正了解发生了什么，但更糟糕的是，我们推断出一个不变的世界。「意识到我的事业已经陷入僵局，让我的抑郁症更加严重。」
隐含的意思是有些事情是无法改变的。然而，事实上，改变是一个持续的进程。改变是不可避免的。稳定是一种幻觉。一切都在不断改变，因为我们生活在一个进程的宇宙中，在次原子粒子层面上，一切都是能量。这强调了解决方案的第9前提，解决方案可以透过框定改变是一个持续的、不可避免的进程来建立。
因此，要成为专注于解决方案的大成教练，询问改变、期望改变、寻找改变、并强调改变。虽然这对于一些客户来说可能很有挑战，但是耐心和坚持以及改变的期望提问最终会帮助客户发现改变是唯一的选择。「我一直是这样的；我就是对批评很敏感。」你小时候就是这样的吗？你刚学会走路时，对别人的批评就很敏感吗？如果你走进精神病院，其中一个病人开始批评你，你会有多敏感？
改变的好处是你不必从大的转换改变开始，你可以从小的改变建立一个改变的解决方案。事实上，小的改变会像滚雪球一样变成越来越大的改变。因此，要重视小的改变，并邀请客户看到小改变已经在开始了。「自上次教练节后，发生了什么改变？」如果客户找不到，询问细节，并注意听客户是否认为那些不算是改变（打折）。「喔，事情差不多是一样。好吧，那么在什么时候，你本期待事情会变得更糟，却没有发生？」
如果改变看起来太大、太势不可挡，那就缩小改变的范围。使用一个小的，甚至是次要的改变来促使一个更大改变的解决方案。邀请一个小的改变，一个看起来甚至不相关的改变，通常可以促进整个系统的转变和改变。这在你问澄清问题时，经常会发生的。你问客户，他是如何使用抑郁这个词时，你会在这个进程中发现它的意思是不快乐，而当你发现有小小的快乐存在时，抑郁的整体完形就起了变化。
作为一个大成教练，你在做这些的同时，也在使用系统思维。你采用后退方式去得到一个更大的视角，使你能够看到改变。它给你视角。这就像离家十年后回到家乡一样 – 你可以看到很多改变，而那些一直住在那里的人几乎不会注意到这些改变。
当你知道改变是持续的，而稳定是一种幻觉时，提问一些假设改变的问题，期望客户发生改变，强调改变的实例。然后，从改变中共同创建指引改变的解决方案，使其成为真正好的改变解决方案。
An interesting frame that locks many clients into seemingly unsolvable problems is the assumption of stability. This is the primitive idea that the world is solid, stable, unchanging and fixed. While it is primitive, there’s numerous factors that seduce a person to think that way. Language is probably the biggest culprit. It is the nature of words and language itself that when you name something— that’s what it is to you. Afterwards it is hard to see or think about it in any other way. The fact of languaging an experience gives us a pseudo-sense of control over it.
This is especially the problem with labels. Once you label a person in a particular way— he is an alcoholic, she is a bitch, he is schizophrenic, she is a ruthless business leader, and so on. The label blinds us from being able to see the person in any other way. And with repetition, it creates a severe limitation. This is where diagnostic labels can become not only dehumanizing, but also put the person in a frame of unchangeability. Now the person is really stuck!
Consider the language of false nouns— nominalizations. These verbs turned into nouns deceive us precisely because they hide the action and the processes and freeze them so that they seem stable and unchanging. When you hear about a “relationship,” it sounds solid. Yet hidden away is that someone is relating to someone else in a particular way, at a particular time. It extremely over-generalizes and creates an immense distortion.
Yet we all talk in nominalizations and, oftentimes, the very process of clients talking in nominalizations is the problem. “With my relationship on the line, my self-esteem has suffered a lot.” Such overly abstract statements prevent us from actually knowing what’s going on, but even worse, we infer an unchanging world. “The realization that my career has reached a stalemate makes my depression worse.”
Implied is the idea that some things are unchangeable. Yet actually, change is an ongoing process. Change is inevitable. Stability is the illusion. Everything is constantly changing because we live in a process universe where at the sub-atomic level, everything is energy. This underscores solution premise #9, Solutions can be built by framing change as an ongoing, inevitable process.
Therefore, to be a solution focused Meta-Coach, ask about change, expect change, look for change, and highlight changes. While this can be challenging with some clients, patience and persistence along with change expectation questions will eventually help clients discover that change is the only option. “I’ve always been this way; I’m just sensitive to criticism.” You were that way as a child? You were sensitive to criticism when you first learned to walk? How sensitive to criticism would you be if you walked into a mental ward and one of the patients started criticizing you?
The nice thing about change is that you don’t have to start with large transformational change, you can build a change solution from small changes. In fact, small changes can snowball into larger and larger changes. So value minimal changes and invite your client to see that bits of change has begun. “What has changed since the last session?” If the client can’t find any, ask for specifics and tune your ears for discounting. “So things are about the same. Okay, and where there times when you could have expected that things would have gotten worse, but they did not?”
If the change seems too big and overwhelming, scale it down. Use a small, even a minor, change to develop a larger solution change. Inviting a small change, one that may even seem irrelevant, can often facilitate an entire system to shift and change. This often happens when you ask the clarity check question. You ask your client how she is using the word depression and in the process you discover it means being unhappy and when you find out that there are small little happiness’s present, the overall gestalt of depression changes.
When you do this as a Meta-Coach, you are also using systems thinking. You are essentially stepping back and gaining a larger level perspective which enables you to see change. It gives you perspective. It’s like returning to a home or town after being away for ten years— you can see lots of changes whereas someone who has been there all the time hardly notices them.
When you know that change is continuous and stability is the illusion, ask questions that assume change, expect change in your client, highlight instances of change. Then, out of change co-create solutions that will direct the change so it becomes truly a good change solution.
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