11

Reframing

There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.

William Shakespeare

Another key skill for the coach is to be able to help the coachee reframe their perceptions and understanding of situations, especially when the coachee’s existing interpretation of a situation is not helpful or is a barrier to progress.

What is reframing?

Reframing is essentially changing the way you perceive an event or issue, and by doing that you change the meaning of that event. When you change the meaning, responses and behaviour to that event will also change. So sometimes it’s really helpful to change the meaning so that the response is more relevant and more positive; in short, more effective. Reframing is deliberately looking at a situation from a different perspective and through a different lens, in order to help the coachee have a more useful and helpful frame or perspective on an issue.

Reframing is extremely common in the world of selling and advertising. For instance, the vegetables kale and beetroot have always been regarded as slightly boring, but have recently been reframed as ‘super foods’ leading to a boost in their sales. Another example of a reframe comes from the inventor Thomas Edison when he said: ‘If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.’ Basically he is reframing failure as a learning experience.

We always put a frame around a situation. Sometimes that frame is useful and other times it is unhelpful. We need to recognise what frame the coachee is using and if it’s not helpful, learn how to challenge their existing frame and help them find other, more useful frames. A simple example would be during a game of golf where a golfer hits a shot into the bunker. If you are a golfer you’ll know that some golfers react with fury, shout and curse, hit the ground with their clubs and generally beat themselves up. Other golfers, however, react calmly, tell themselves it’s part of the game, and see it as an interesting challenge and an opportunity to learn a key part of the game – that is, how to get out of the bunker. Which frame is the most useful?

How to use reframing as a coach

Often the coachee will be using frames which are not all helpful and it is your job to try and offer the coachee other frames which are just as valid, but are actually less negative and more positive, more useful and more helpful. Take a look at the example below that illustrates a reframe.

Mike was working with a fitness coach and lifting some weights. Pleased that he was actually able to lift the weights the required number of times, Mike was quickly brought down to earth by his trainer who immediately said, ‘These weights are too light!’ Now they hadn’t felt at all light to Mike, so now he felt bad and discouraged and felt that his trainer was being dismissive. He thought he was doing well, but now realised that in the trainer’s eyes he wasn’t.

What could the trainer have said differently? Well he could have reframed his thought and made it more positive and less dismissive. He could have said, for example, ‘I think you can do more …’, which is positive and encouraging. Or something like, ‘Mike, you are strong enough to lift a heavier weight!’

Both of these are reframes of the original thought, but instead of being perceived negatively, they would be more likely to be perceived positively and offer encouragement to the coachee.

Another example of an unhelpful frame would be when you are coaching someone for their career development and they say, ‘I’ve been so unsuccessful, I always seem to get to the final interview round and then don’t get the job.’ This negative frame can lead to discouragement, lack of energy and commitment to the promotion they are seeking. To help them reframe the situation to a more positive perspective you would ask them a range of questions:

• How many jobs have you applied for? If they say four you can reframe by indicating that they have in fact made the final cut 75 per cent of the time, which is an excellent ratio.
  
• How many applicants were there for these jobs? If they say, for example, over a hundred, you can reframe by indicating that getting to the final round puts you in the top percentile of all applicants.
  
• What have you learned from these three experiences that will help you for the next time?
  

Questions such as these are all designed to encourage your coachee to reframe their negative attitude to a more positive and helpful one.

So, constantly be on the lookout for any unhelpful frames that the coachee is using and try to help them reframe the situation in a way that is more helpful. Be careful, of course, to ensure that the reframes are realistic and meaningful to the coachee.

Tips for success

• Reframing enables you to encourage your coachee to look at things from a different perspective – and thus sometimes change their thinking about that situation.
  
• Get used to recognising the frames that your coachee is using – listen actively.
  
• Challenge and encourage reflection about any unhelpful frames.
  
• Help your coachee to formulate new, more useful frames to help them move on.