“A culture of honor is celebrating who a person is without stumbling over who they’re not.”
Bill Johnson, Bethel Church, Redding
Episode 25: High Point - Honour is one of 2 sessions in the final component of the Flow5 C.O.A.C.H. process and the penultimate webtutorial in the Catalyst Coaching Certification Programme. A High Point is defined as the most enjoyable and significant part of an experience or a period of time. It has been 6 months since we first began in this phase of our journey and we are nearing its end. Coach Wendy Koh took us through a quick review of the past before entering into the topic of Honour Time.
The discussions revolved around the following questions:
Who is someone you honour and hold in great respect? What is the reason for you holding them in high regard?
When was the last time you were honoured? What took place and how did you feel?
We honour those who we admire, not only because of their abilities and achievements but for the way they might have invested into our lives and inspire us. These are often our mentors. There is often a sense of reciprocity because their efforts investing in us makes us feel special, honoured. We noted that though some of the methods were harsh in some instances, those we honoured sought to help us become the best version of ourselves.
When it becomes time when we are honored, we sometimes have mixed emotions because we do not feel deserving. Being honoured is a form of recognition and validation which we need and yet we feel uncomfortable with this attention. This discomfort with being honoured can affect the way we honour others.
TakeAways & Reflections
Honouring our Coachees
To honour (verb) is to live up to or fulfil the terms of a commitment. Out of respect for our Coachees, we are to keep to our agreements, to maintain confidentiality and build trust and safety. We should not speak ill of the worst of their qualities. Neither should we publicise their successes without permission out of respect for their privacy.
To honour (verb) is also to give special recognition of the efforts and achievements of a Coachee. As part of the ICF Competency on Facilitating Client Growth, we are to "celebrate the client's progress and successes". It takes remarkable courage for someone to seek guidance, to commit to total honesty to a stranger and see a programme to the end. Each session is an opportunity to affirm the person's courage and tenacity.
To honour is not a feel-good exercise in coaching alone but a powerful instrument to convey that the Coachee is acquiring the right set of values, beliefs and tools that will take him beyond the present moment
Strategies for Honouring Life
Minimise Threat, Maximise Reward
This has to do with creating psychological safety in groups. Based on an understanding of neuroscience, David Rock, author of Your Brain At Work, came up with the SCARF Model designed to achieve minimising threat and maximising reward. Anytime that someone is not doing well in a social situation, it was likely a negative experience in one of the 5 areas of social need listed above. As Coaches, we should be aware of how our brain works in such a situation to avoid errors that might cause a Coachee to experience a sense of threat and to work towards triggering positive chemical neurotransmitters
2. Engage Your Social Brain (Learning)
Our first instinct is meant to be Love. The second we learn is Fear We become naturally wary because our brains are hard wired to protect ourselves - It's either Friend or Foe. In this current generation of young people, this tension results in anxiety - on the one hand, they desire human connection and are super networked and yet, they are often disengaged socially and emotionally disconnected. The reasons for this are too many to get into for this blog but how children first learn is by influence which is a form of social learning. They first learn from their parents and eventually teachers and their peers. Educators are not beginning to understand the value of social learning and there are lessons in there for coaches.
3. Nurture Emotional Agility
Dr Susan David, in her bestselling book Emotional Agility defines it as "the ability to acknowledge and accept your emotions so that you can respond to everyday situations in ways that are congruent with your values." This is particularly needful in a fast changing world. The difference between this and emotional intelligence is that EI enables us to better manage our emotion whereas EA goes deeper and sees emotions as data which can be used to determine the path forward. This is essentially a part of CBT. How this is connected with honour is with Emotional Agility, we first honour a person's emotions - Right or wrong, a person should be perfectly entitled to feel what he feels and not be judged. It is in the space where he is able to safely share these emotions that he can hear himself and the social setting and his values will then calibrate his behaviour where necessary.
4. Advocates Trust Over Doubt
As Coaches, we might come across clients which doubt our abilities or doubt their own abilities to change. This is connected to having a Negativity Bias. We need to stand back from our own emotions, listen actively and allow the Coachee to express his doubts which probably stem from bad experiences. By simply listening without judgement or negative emotional response, it is already nurturing trust that your Coachee can say these things to you honestly. Clarify his doubts and concerns and perhaps establish more honest open communications which will lead to greater trust. This is also another way to honour them to help them as they gain trust and move forward because we see their effort trying to make sense and stay motivated.
5. Facilitates Reflection and Insights
Very often, we don't think about our emotions. Thinking and feeling have become two separate and distinct activities - we either think or feel. When we think about why, how, when and why we feel and we feel about why, how, when and why we think in a certain manner, we are integrating parts of the left brain and the right brain. This results in a richer cache of insights to move us forward. By giving ourselves time and permission, we honour ourselves holistically and we honour all parts of the Coachee fully.
Final Reflection
Honour sounds like a very old-fashioned word today. Defending one's honour seems to sit better with medieval knights and ancient Chinese swordsmen in black and white wuxia movies . A Code of Honour might mark a band of people who will fight together but call me an honourable person and I will cringe with that thought. But Honour is at heart, the basis of human interactions. Honour places someone before myself, deeming a person worthy of respect despite his flaws and faults accepting that we are all human and humans are flawed to begin with.
I had an epiphany when I asked myself what the opposite of Honour is. Ta-Dah - Shame and Guilt which underlies our anxieties and insecurities! We will find it difficult to honour others when we have higher expectations of ourselves and sometimes we don't feel we deserve honour because we are guilty and ashamed of what we have done, what we have not done and what we have YET to do. When I think back to who I honour in my life, they are those who, despite my shortcomings, continued to gently persuade me to acknowledge my imperfections but focused on my strengths to take me through. I am learning as a Coach not to attach too much to the outcomes for a Coachee, honouring that whatever step he is taking now is a leap from his beginning. There is no shame and guilt for starting small and slow or making mistakes but I need to tell myself this even more often and honour myself for growing.
We need to restore Honour as a Culture to be fully alive to being human especially in a world that is anxiety-filled and worried over depleting resources, where technology threatens to take over our lives and yet brings it less joy and we are seen as part of a machine that generates products to be consumed and being consumed in the process. Honour is the 1% responsibility we can commit to for change. How we do this is to Embrace imperfections in ourselves and others, to Celebrate our smallest wins and to Connect with those around us empathetically in moments when we are weak. When we are able to create such a culture, we will no longer be occasional visitors but reside in our High Points!
Coach Maire, Peace out!
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