Among my most important developmental experiences was the more than 1,500 hours I spent in T-groups, the experiential learning methodology developed by pioneering social psychologist Kurt Lewin in the late 1940s and deployed at Stanford (among many other places) in the 1960s. And one of the most valuable lessons I learned in that setting was: Work with whatever shows up.
Whoever shows up--that's the group. Don’t worry about who's not there--focus on who is there. Whatever anyone needs to talk about, that's the agenda. Don’t worry about what you're "supposed to" discuss--focus on what is being discussed. Whatever happens is what's happening. Don’t worry about what "should" or "shouldn't" happen--focus on what is happening. Work with whatever shows up.
Although I've always identified primarily as an executive coach who works one-on-one with leaders, I spent so much time as a T-group facilitator not only because I enjoyed it and found it meaningful (although I did, immensely), but also because it made me a better coach. Having a candid, potentially fraught interaction with someone while the other 12 members of the group observed or joined in gave me much more confidence that I could handle any challenging issues that might come up in a one-on-one coaching session. And the tremendous variability of what 14 people might come up with in a given group left me prepared for anything that might happen with a coaching client.
All of that was excellent preparation for a coaching session yesterday. My client and I were talking by phone while he was on a walk in downtown San Francisco. About two-thirds of the way through the call I heard some shouting, my client suddenly stopped talking, and then there was a series of unintelligible noises. It became clear to me that something was happening to my client--an incident of some sort--although I had no idea what was going on.
Finally, after what seemed like ages but must have been less than a minute, my client returned to the line, recovering his breath. A homeless man, possibly mentally ill, had fixated on my client, screamed at him, and chased him, seemingly intent on causing harm. My client was able to elude him and get to safety, but it had been a shock.
There was a temptation in that moment that we both felt to "resume" our conversation, as if we had been "interrupted." And yet that struck me as precisely the wrong thing to do. Instead of trying (or pretending) to ignore what just happened, it seemed important to do the opposite: Notice it, acknowledge it, integrate it into our conversation. We did, and we found that rather than distracting us from the topic at hand, our discussion of what had happened contributed to an even deeper understanding.
A simple lesson, one I've learned many times before, but worth repeating, as it's so easy to forget in the heat of the moment: Work with whatever shows up.
