Keeping track of the Desired Outcome

[phil]

From my own experience working with others and from watching others practising Clean Language, it is clear that the ability to keep the clent's desired outcome (D.O.) in mind is a vital part of facilitating well.

Yet, even knowing that, as the client describes their narrative and delves into fascinating problems, I still find I can get distracted and forget what it was specifically that they said they wanted. If this goes on too long, the eventual result is confusion for both parties or a sense that 'we don't know where we are going'.

So how to intelligently track the D.O and appropriately direct the client's attention to it? Please share your experiences of what works for you. Here are mine.

One thing I do is the obvious: I write the client's D.O down. This takes a little determination to do sometimes - the client is sitting there, possibly silently, while I write out each word and I sometimes imagine they are getting impatient. However I feel it is vital to get it written down because this is my 'contract' to work with them.

Sometimes the client will amend it when they see I am going to write it down or as I am writing it. That makes sense: as a client, I find there's something about seeing someone write my words down that makes me check inside: 'Is that right? Is that what I really mean?'

In fact there may be a lot of editing and changing of the D.O. This is not an irritation to me as a facilitator because I believe getting the D.O clear is not a precursor to 'getting to the real thing' - it IS the real thing, certainly during a first session. Other things come later (Developing the D.O, Necessary Conditions, etc) and they all depend on having an initial D.O to work with.

! The way they amend it (or don't) may provide insights into their patterns around how they choose their desired outcomes generally and the likelihood of their achieving them.

If their D.O changes during the session, it will help if you update the written D.O. I would love to say that I always do this - and I don't. I sometimes get into the flow of 'working in the moment' and don't want to interrupt that... and I think that's no excuse. It is my job to manage the therapeutic interview professionally and that means being able to change what I'm doing to suit what I think is needed. Still, it happens and if it does, I write down the update during a break or straight after the session or while they do a drawing.

! It would be interesting to write the D.O on a flipchart so that the client can see what's being written and perhaps make their own amendments. This could evolve into a hybrid session of Clean Language and Clean Space - the D.O gets written and edited on the flipchart then the client 'finds a space' in relation to it.
Once I have a D.O written down, I make my session notes around it connecting them with lines to the relevant parts of the written D.O.

I would love to hear what others do to keep the client's D.O. in mind.

Phil

[Corrie van Wijk]

Abbreviated by admin for compactness - see full text in previous post:

"From my own experience working with others and from watching others practising Clean Language...

... the D.O gets written and edited on the flipchart then the client 'finds a space' in relation to it."

I'm wondering about this Phil: Not only in Clean Space but also working with Emergent Knowledge, David will make you write down your statement on a flipchart or a post-it (I never saw him making any notes!).

Very often he tracks back from the paper to the book or whatever the words were originally on. When he hears a pronoun, he asks how old you were and what you were wearing. Once he found the pristine I, there's usually a resource that has been waiting to come out.

He then aks you if anything has changed about your statement: usually it has become irrelevant.

e.g.:
What kind of page could those sentences be on?
[paper]
What kind of [paper] were those sentences on?
[...]
How big could that [...] be, what kind of [cover]?
[...]
So, what's outside that [...]?
[...]
And what kind of you were you before you had a [...]?
[...]
And what kind of you were you before you had any [..]?
[...]
What kind of you were you when you were [...]?
[...]
What kind of time was that time?
[...]
What kind of you were you before you [...]?
[...]
What kind of you were you when you were [...]?
[...]
What was around you?
[...]
What kind of [...]?
[...]
And what kind of [..]?
[...]
And what kind of [age] could that [age] be before you [...]?
[...]
And what kind of you were you?
[...]
And what kind of you were you when you were [..] and [...] and what could you be wearing?
[...]
What kind of [somebody]?
[...]
What kind of [...]?
[...]
What does that [somebody] know?
[...]
Is there a space that knows what that [somebody] knows?
[...]
And what do you know now?
[...]

(Transcript from an EK session)

[Corrie van Wijk]

I wonder:

What kind of interaction is there between you writing down the client's desired outcome and their drawing a landscape?

[JamesLawley]

Corrie I appreciate you you giving specific examples of David Grove's Emergent questions. You also report that:

"He then asks you if anything has changed about your statement: usually it has become irrelevant."

Let's say a person's original statement is a desired outcome [want, need, goal, mission, purpose, objective, intention] and some time later, after a number of these questions and directions, "it has become irrelevant" - what does this mean?

From my simple perspective, given that clients do not ask for their desired outcomes to become irrelevant, then what "usually" happen is:

Client wants X, and they do not want [X to become irrelevant]
Client ends up with [X becoming irrelevant], and not achieving X.

Are we to assume this is beneficial?
Is this the desired outcome of an Emergent Knowledge process?

James Lawley

[Corrie van Wijk]

Thank you James for your critical input:

No, of course the client wants to achieve his or her desired outcome, it's just that what a person (thinks) (s)he wants at A is often different from a systemic point of view. So if you explore the boundaries of the system, what's inside, what's outside, what other spaces know about A, B or C, the client may get a different perspective on his or her problem etc. and the result of all that knowledge/feeling coming together may change what (s)he wants, needs, etc.

Corrie

[phil]

So is the purpose of the EK process to develop the client's first stated desired outcome into something that is more congruently what they want?

I mean is it the view of an EK practitioner that what the client presents as their outcome may not be really 'it', not really what they want or perhaps that it contains the seeds of what they want but needs time and nurturing for it to grow into a mature outcome? And is this on the basis of the belief that including information from their whole system, some different perspectives and new knowledge/feeling will cause a more 'matured' outcome to emerge?

Phil

[JamesLawley]

Corrie, thanks for keeping the topic going, and I appreciate and completely agree that:

"what a person (thinks) (s)he wants at A is often different from a systemic point of view. So if you explore the boundaries of the system, what's inside, what's outside, what other spaces know about A, B or C, the client may get a different perspective on his or her problem etc. and the result of all that knowledge/feeling coming together may change what (s)he wants, needs, etc."

And it raises a number of points:

1. What you may say may be true "from a systemic perspective", and very very few client's have a systemic perspective. So presumably, when a client says or writes a desired outcome, it appears true for them.

2. What you say is also the case for most processes that spend a little time giving the client time to reflect on a variety of aspects of themselves. I don't think it is a function of the Emergent Knowledge process, per se.

3. For me the question is:
Because the client may change their perspective on their desired outcome, what premise do we start with? Do we start from the premise that it is not their 'real' want, or even that it is "irrelevant"?

4. One of the many things I have learned from David Grove is to do my best to not privilege once type of client information over another, as David puts it, to be "an equal information employer". In my language, EVERYTHING a client says and does is representative of who they are (in that moment) and the fact that a client specifies a desire and later they say it is irrelevant or that they now realise they didn't really want it, IS information.

5. I am not advocating that desired outcomes are given special treatment, I am suggesting that they are as much of a person's psyche as any other aspect and so, as modellers, we should pay "due diligence" to that aspect of the person as well.

I also appreciate that you may not be saying that we can ignore the client's desired outcome, however, in several discussions I have had with people well versed in David latest work, that's the impression I get. Hence the post.

James Lawley

[Corrie van Wijk]

Hi Phil and James,

Thank you for your replies, I'm honoured. I read them yesterday morning, but didn't have time to answer them before I rode to the university, so now I'm up early to make up for it. So I had some time to think about it, but I admit I forgot your answers by the time I sat down on a terrace with a rose wine, tasting the latest tapa from my friend Francesco.

Phil: "is it the purpose of the EK process to develop the client's first stated desired outcome into something that is more congruently with what they want?

I don't know about anybody else, but I'd say no: it would presuppose that their first stated desired outcome is not want they (congruently) want. A clean approach would be that it might be.

You said above that "the ability to keep the client's desired outcome in mind is a vital part of facilitating well". I doubt that: David preferably doesn't want to know about the statement, he sits beside the flip-chart or post-it, not-reading it. He says that allows him to ask questions not related to what's on there, which may get the client to think out-of-the-box.

I think there's nothing wrong with making notes (every facilitator has his or her own way of working), as long as it doesn't influence the client's process. I'd suggest: just check it, like you check your spatial position in relation to them. Perhaps you can agree on what happens to the notes afterwards.

James:

1. "When a client says or writes a desired outcome, it appears true for them."
I think everybody everywhere any time thinks things are true (very often not only for them but for everybody else), because that's what they conclude from the knowledge they have. It's very difficult to realize that there are things that you don't know unless you had some previous (similar) knowledge about them (or had some experience of how not-knowing got you wrong). Not to mention somebody drawing the wrong conclusions because they don't think straight.
The beauty of clean facilitation is that you accept this world-view, as you wil accept any change of it during the process, including a possible different outcome than the one originally stated and (congruently?) desired -- at the time.
The client doesn't need to have a systemic point of view, their brain works systemically anyway.

2. "Most processes that spend a little time giving the client time to reflect on a variety of aspects of themselves".
I would say that all such processes are systemic and hence create the conditions for emergence.

3. "What premise do we start with?"
Again, I'd say you start with an open mind.

4. "The fact that the client specifies a desire and later they say it is irrelevant or that they now realise they don't really want it, IS information."
Of course it is.

5. "Desired outcomes are as much of a person's psyche as any other aspect."
I agree, it's just that at this moment in time they come to you for help on this particular problem: in the hierarchy of needs this one stands out. Making a statement about it or finding a symbol or space that represents it, helps to direct the mind to gather and select all the relevant information to solve it. Your job as a facilitator is to help them search and also make them look outside for new information in other spaces.

"I get the impression from people well versed in David latest work that we can ignore the client's desired outcome."
I don't think David would agree on that: the statement is a starting point and also a reference to know if anything has changed. That's why he makes you write it down and asks you afterwards if you need to make any changes about it.
My impression is that he looks for the (original) owner of the statement: some energy wants to make itself known, needs to be honoured and blessed, before it can integrate with the other parts to a new whole.

Let's ask him.

Corrie

[super_yacht@hotmail.com]

Well Corrie,
I asked David and am now more confused than when i started (note to self – pay attention when EVER David’s speaking).
I think we experienced some of this thread last night when David attended the practise group in Bath. He concurs with you Corrie, the initial statement is a starting point and also a reference to know if anything has changed for both the client and facilitator.
The D.O. will have moved on, perhaps becoming redundant.
More than this my brain started to get frazzled.:eek:

[phil]

To set the context, I am talking about sessions that are intended as being for changework, where the client has come along seeking change. Note that it is they who are setting the context towards desired outcomes. It's almost like this:

"What would you like to have happen?"

"I want to change"

"What kind of change?"

"[client states desired outcome]"

The DO I mean to keep in mind is not necessarily just this initial one which in Clean Space and I think in EK (?) is written and placed somewhere as a point of reference. This is indeed a starting point and reference point as David says. I do write it down and I note any changes to it.

The DO I mean is not even just the DO in Symbolic Modelling which has been developed and is (apparently) firmly on their horizon as something they want.

What I keep in mind is that they do have a desired outcome of some sort and 'what is it right now?' It may be changing and I want to stay as current with it as I can, so that I am facilitating both their discovery, exploration and development of what they want and later perhaps also facilitating their taking actions towards achieving it.

The intial or the developed DO's may still be current or may have changed and no longer be as stated - indeed they may never even have been what they said it was. I would think it odd if a client's DO didn't change somewhat as more information became available through their self-modelling.

However I don't think 'irrelevant' or 'redundant' is useful language to describe the initial statement because it seems dismissive. To a client it could be patronising and within the facilitator it is to dismiss a piece of information as less important, which goes against the 'equal-information-employer' metaphor of David's. In the moment a DO is stated it is relevant. And sometimes I have returned to a client's first words after several sessions to find that the whole system is represented there in compact form.

If a client is coming along wanting to change, they have a desired outcome of some sort. Whether they can state it, write it, draw it, place it or not, they have some intention, a desire. Working with them, if we don't have the client's desired outcome in mind or do not have part of our attention in that domain, whose outcome do we have in mind? Surely our own: what we want for the client, or for ourselves. Not clean at all.

If the session is only for modelling 'what is', change is not intended and keeping desired outcomes in mind is not necessary, though there will still be desires around and changes will probably emerge in the system anyway. This is a cleaner way of working - and not every client is ready to accept emergent outcomes of modelling the system, especially if they are not the outcomes they desire or are not achievable in the way they desire.

On a practical level, I agree with James that few clients have a systemic appraisal of their situation. Most want something. They pay us to help them get it. Some think we can give it to them. The clean processes require them to find it for themselves, with our facilitation to guide the process.

Thanks for the stimulating debate, all.

Phil

[Geoff T]

Maslov's Heirachy of Needs, as I understand it, states that higher needs only become noticed once more basic needs are satisfied.

If a desired outcome is comprised of needs, once they are satisfied then the oucome will be redundant for as long as they are satisfied. If only some are satisfied then the outcome will change as new needs become apparent and mingle with the unsatisfied needs.

If there is no change in the outcome then I start to worry.