STORY LISTENING

Great works of fiction and humble everyday stories both can open our imaginative eye. When good stories are shared, evocative images arise in the interaction between teller and listener. Such poetic language stirs and stretches our imagination of what might be true.

DANIELLE ZANDEE (2008, KL. 1712)

Once upon a time, a first-year special educator named Naomi, fresh from finishing her master’s degree, joined the faculty of an elementary school. Her assistant principal, Lydia, shared the story of that first year:

Naomi was quickly overwhelmed by the stress of the job. She complained that she had not been prepared for the multiple demands on her time—the amount of paperwork, the need to collaborate with general education teachers, the meetings with parents. It’s a tough job. One afternoon she shared her story with me. She had lost her mother when she was young and she was thrust into the role of mothering her younger brothers. I could see where her sense of overwhelm and of being unprepared for the demands placed on her were playing on old themes. Knowing her story helped me to understand where she was coming from, and that she needed more hand-holding and support. I could also see why she didn’t always have a good sense of what was appropriate. Sometimes she needed to be told, “You can’t say that, but here’s what you could say instead.” She hung in there, and now in her second year she is an enthusiastic mentor to a first-year special educator who joined our staff.

Stories are like that. They make sense of experience in ways that integrate emotion and meaning, facilitating movement, direction, and purpose. Stories have evocative power. Recently we were driving in a car on a highway when an aggressive driver sped up from behind and started to weave his way erratically through traffic at a very high speed. It was at once frightening and aggravating to be endangered and cut off in this way. As Bob started to berate this driver as a crazy idiot, Megan asked, “And how would you be driving right now if I was in the back seat, in labor, and about to have a baby any minute?” That question, which attached a possible story to an observable behavior, changed everything in the twinkling of an eye. Instead of fusing and fuming about this person’s aggressive driving, Bob instantly calmed down with a new sense of perspective. It was possible, at least in theory, that there was a story that would explain and make sense of this person’s behavior. That reminder reframed and relieved the emotion of the situation so that we could get back to the business at hand: driving safely down the highway to our destination.

The Power of Story

In Chapter Two we described how coaching presence includes careful attention to the dynamics of the coaching relationship. Evocative coaches are more concerned about the person than about the project being coached. In this we are taking our lead from a key insight of twentieth-century physics: “Relationships are more fundamental than things” (Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, & Flowers, 2004, p. 193). If we fail to get the relationship right, then few things are possible. If we do get the relationship right, then all sorts of things become possible.

But what does it take to get the relationship right? First and foremost, it requires coaches to practice what might be called “story listening.” People need to be heard before they can be helped, and stories carry the heart of what they want others to know. If that driver were to have been pulled over by the police, and if there was a story like the one we imagined to tell, it is likely that the driver would have continued to travel at high speed to the hospital, only now escorted with flashing lights and sirens. Stories have that kind of power because stories are among the most ancient forms of human communication. People get stories. Long before humans had developed written or even oral languages, people were telling stories with the use of gestures, facial expressions, pictures, music, and dance. After the sun would set, the long hours of darkness with their occasional perils encouraged families and tribal groups to gather around fires where they would naturally review, rehearse, and recreate the days of their lives. Over time, our brains evolved to pay attention to the structure and meaning of stories in special ways (Haven, 2007). Stories are our first and still our most memorable and meaningful of mental constructions. So, for example, people use mnemonic devices to remember lists. Once a list becomes attached to a story—“Every Good Boy Does Fine” (for the lines of the treble clef) or “My Very Earnest Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas” (for the planets in our solar system, before Pluto was demoted)—it becomes indelibly locked in our brains.

The default activity of our brains and minds seems to be telling stories, especially ones to do with people. The great advantage of this is the human capacity to “live” in the past and future as well as in the present.

David Rock and Linda Page (2009, p. 107)

As cognitive neuroscientists unlock the mystery of the human brain, we have come to see just how and where stories function in the brain as people make sense of experience. Our brains are literally hardwired to attend to and glean meaning from stories. For all its analytic powers, the left side of the brain is too small a canvas on which to paint a compelling picture. The right side of the brain must be engaged to create the stories that explain our past, explore our present, and envision our future. Stories are a specific type of narrative that features characters who face challenges, strive to overcome obstacles, and work toward important and meaningful goals. Although stories have plots, the primary focus and reason for telling stories are the characters. Haven (2007) highlights five core elements of stories:

1. Character. You need a viewpoint character to see who is doing the action and to gauge relevancy by assessing this character. To do that, you need perspective, viewpoint, and sufficient detail about the character to interpret emotional state, beliefs, attitudes, and to activate our “character” banks of prior knowledge and experience as well as your neural story maps to create meaning and relevance.

2. Intent. You need to know what story characters are after and why. As discussed, intent is composed of two key elements: goal—what the character is after (goal defines story outcome or resolution)—and motive—why that goal is important to the character. Goal and motive reveal the point and purpose of a story as well as of every scene and event in it.

3. Actions. You need to see what characters do to achieve their goals. You will assess characters’ beliefs, attitudes, and values by comparing their actions to banks of expected or “normal” behavior. The definition for actions corresponds to the dictionary definition for a story (“a narrative account of a real or imagined event or events”). Actions are the plot. In a story, you want to see those events—and only those events—that relate to a character’s efforts to reach a goal. Stories exist to explain and illuminate characters.

4. Struggles. Struggles are never easy or trivial. Struggles break with expected, normal behavior. Struggles are actions characters take in the face of risk and danger. Actions make no sense and elicit no interest unless we see that these actions represent an attempt to reach an important goal. However, there can be no struggle unless there is something to struggle against: obstacles that block a character from reaching a goal. Obstacles may either be conflicts (blockages created by other characters—or entities—in the story) or problems (blockages not created by a character). Obstacles may either be internal (the best fighting is against yourself) or external (created by something outside the character). The risk and danger they create need not be physical. Emotional, mental, social—any kind will do as long as it is real to the character. To establish context and relevance, we need to know that something is at stake. We need to be aware of the risk and danger a character will have to face, and we need to see the character act and make decisions in the face of those obstacles and that risk and danger.

5. Details. Details about the character, settings, actions and events, and objects that drift through a story create the mental imagery that you use to envision and evaluate the story. Details facilitate blending and memory. (pp. 75–76)

When coaches do story listening, we listen carefully to teachers and we assist them to explore these five core elements. Stories represent the raw materials that coaches and teachers have to work with together. They reveal what teachers are dealing with, how they are feeling, where they want to go, and how they might get there. In his book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink (2005) concluded that “we are our stories. We compress years of experience, thought, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell to ourselves” (p. 113). Jim Loehr (2007) adds that stories help us “navigate our way through life because they provide structure and direction” (p. 4). Although teachers often express opinions or conclusions as to how they understand experience, their stories may reveal other layers of dimensionality and possibility. By noticing what stories are being told, and by getting people to work through the core elements of their stories, coaches have the opportunity to generate those insightful “Aha!” moments that expand awareness and alter behavior.

[Stories are] the creative conversion of life itself to a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. . . . [They] are the currency of human contact.

Robert McKee (1997, p. 27)

David Drake (2008) describes the process of tapping into the generative power of stories as “narrative coaching.” He frames stories as having three levels: the situation, the search, and the shift. Each level, the beginning, middle, and end of the story, presents an opportunity for coaches to engage in story listening.

The situation gives us the context for the story and a reason for caring about what happens to the primary character(s). The search gives us the quest of the character(s) to deal with the situation, to put life back in balance, as well as the underlying assumptions, mental models, and cultural forces that come into play. The shift gives us what happens to the primary character(s), both internally and externally, as things get understood, resolved, and appropriated. As teachers tell their stories, all three levels inevitably come into play. Drake summarized the role of story in coaching as follows:

The stories that [teachers] share in coaching conversations shed light on their efforts to reclaim, retain and/or reframe their larger narratives about who they are and who they want to be in the world. These stories generally reflect the inherent tensions between their drive for continuity (and stability) and their yearning for discontinuity (and change). At the same time, these same stories contain clues for what will resolve this tension and, thereby, lead to a new story about themselves, their lives and/or others who matter to them. It is incumbent on coaches to have the pedagogical and practical tools to work with these stories in ways that are both honouring and transformative. (Drake, 2008, p. 67)

This chapter is about understanding and developing those tools. Telling stories is a powerful way for people to make sense of experience. When those stories are received by an attentive and caring coach with the wisdom to see their potential for personal and professional transformation, those stories shift and become evocative catalysts for change. When people tell a new story, they experience a new reality. Through telling and exploring their stories, people feel heard and discover new alternatives. By holding this invitation in the coaching space, coaches create the conditions for teachers to draw connections among the various elements of their stories and to entertain the possibility of telling a new story. In this way, through deep story listening, coaches facilitate motivation, movement, and change.

Evoking Coachable Stories

Since human beings have a natural propensity for telling stories, it is not hard to evoke stories from teachers at the start of a coaching session. Indeed, stories typically pour forth once we create a safe space and ask the right questions. Stories are not put on the table in hostile environments. It takes an absence of judgment and fear for people to open up and speak freely. That is especially true when telling stories about our own experiences. Such stories make us feel vulnerable because they expose what is happening in our world from our point of view. Whether Since human beings have a natural propensity for telling stories, it is not hard to evoke stories from teachers at the start of a coaching session. Indeed, stories typically pour forth once we create a safe space and ask the right questions. Stories are not put on the table in hostile environments. It takes an absence of judgment and fear for people to open up and speak freely. That is especially true when telling stories about our own experiences. Such stories make us feel vulnerable because they expose what is happening in our world from our point of view. Whether they be trivial or transcendent, tragic or triumphant, such stories paint a picture of what our experience looks, sounds, and feels like from the inside out. They reveal much about our understandings, feelings, needs, and commitments. No one is going to risk sharing such stories if they fear being disparaged, analyzed, or violated. Evocative coaches allay such fears by being genuinely interested, expressing acceptance, and honoring confidentiality. Our coaching presence communicates that we will listen respectfully and carefully to teacher stories, no matter how difficult or disappointing, because they represent the raw materials that coaches and teachers have to work with together. Such stories are gifts to be received with care.

Although a safe environment is necessary for evoking stories, it is not sufficient for evoking coachable stories. Apart from asking the right questions, a safe environment alone will often induce teachers to do little more than to ramble, grumble, and/or gossip. Although telling such unfocused, disassociated, and idle tales may release steam and feel good, it does not typically generate the kind of stories and energy we are looking for in coaching. That is why evocative coaches pay attention not only to setting the stage but also to crafting the script. We seek to ask questions that trigger stories related to teacher learning and growth. We want teachers to tell stories that focus, empower, and engage their efforts to be the best teachers they can be, and that takes a script that invites both connection and exploration.

At the heart of any good story is a central narrative about the way an idea satisfies a need in some powerful way.

Tim Brown (2009, p. 137)

We wrote in Chapter Two about the importance of coaching presence, comparing it to the way of being of a horse whisperer. Nowhere is that metaphor more apt than at the outset of a coaching conversation. To invite teachers to open up and tell their stories, coaches have to “Join-Up” and come alongside them in terms of energy, emotion, pacing, and understanding. Before we connect as coaches, we first have to connect as human beings. If we get down to business too quickly, or if we get out in front or behind them, teachers will feel pulled or pushed to do what we want. When that happens, especially when that happens at the outset of a coaching conversation, we fail to establish rapport and risk losing effectiveness. In order to minimize this risk, the best way to start a coaching conversation is to check in briefly with how teachers are feeling in the moment. When these feelings are expressed, acknowledged, and accepted, rather than analyzed or argued with, coaches will have laid a good foundation for evoking coachable stories.

To get a sense of a teacher’s feelings at the outset of a coaching conversation, coaches can ask a wide variety of preliminary and yet evocative questions. After setting things up by saying something like, “Before we get started, I’d like to ask . . . ,” coaches can, for example, say:

• How would you describe your energy right now, on a scale of 0 to 10?

• What three adjectives might describe how you’re feeling right now?

• What’s especially present for you in this moment?

• How would you describe your mood right now?

• What color might capture how you feel right now?

• What’s on your mind right now?

• How are you showing up for this coaching session?

• What is stirring inside you?

• What song could be the theme song for your day?

• What object can you see that reflects how you are right now?

• What physical sensations are you most aware of right now?

• What is alive for you right now?

The reason for setting up the initial check-in by saying, “Before we get started, I’d like to ask . . . ,” is to give teachers permission to talk about whatever is most present and pertinent in the moment, whether personal or professional. It expresses caring for the personhood of the teacher even as it recognizes the work of coaching that is yet to come in the conversation. By inquiring as to how teachers are feeling in the moment, rather than by immediately asking about or commenting on how things are going in their classroom or with their “homework” from the last coaching session, coaches gain insight into the teacher’s presenting emotional energy. Are they discouraged and depressed? Are they excited and optimistic? Are they frustrated and overwhelmed? Are they exhilarated and confident? There are endless possibilities as to how teachers may show up for coaching; and there is certainly no guarantee that teachers will pick up where they left off in the last coaching session. By doing a brief, initial check-in, coaches can come up alongside whatever energy teachers bring to the conversation through empathy and inquiry.

This is a recurrent theme in evocative coaching. We pay attention to feelings to navigate our way and to successfully move through the coaching conversation. When emotions are ignored, neglected, or demeaned, they confine and constrict the realm of the possible. When they are noticed, recognized, and respected, they unleash that realm. Evocative coaches appreciate how emotions generate motion, both in the coaching conversation itself, as teachers open themselves up to new possibilities, and in the classroom, as teachers experiment with those possibilities in real-world applications. Coachable stories will not be evoked until emotions are acknowledged and accepted.

Stories serve as windows into the architecture of [our] psyches and the longing of [our] souls as well as the platform from which to build and express new ways of being in the world.

David Drake (2008, p. 52)

One way for coaches to do that is through the lost art of attentive listening. After asking an evocative question, coaches can stop talking, lean into the space, and wait silently for teachers to respond fully. Honoring our natural proportions in that we have two ears and one mouth, evocative coaches seek to listen at least twice as much as we talk during a coaching session. That receptivity is what validates emotions and invites stories. It may be difficult to do, especially when coaches are in a hurry or think of some value-added comment we want to make, but listening carefully, attentively, patiently, and deeply is the first work of coaching. Talking too much or too soon short-circuits the transformational power of teachers opening up, sharing coachable stories, and feeling heard.

On occasion, the initial check-in will lead immediately to a coachable story. That is especially true when teachers show up for coaching with a lot of emotional energy around an experiment they conducted or an ongoing coaching project. Most of the time, however, the initial check-in simply establishes an emotional bond between the teacher and the coach. It serves as the gateway to one or more follow-up questions that ask specifically for developmental stories. There is no telling exactly which questions will be the most productive, since that depends upon many variables, including the emotional state of the teacher and the intuitive inklings of the coach. One thing is clear, however: coaches can do better than simply asking teachers, “How did it go?” That question invites an outpouring of complaints, evaluations, analyses, opinions, thoughts, assertions, and anecdotes. It typically generates one or more variants of the seven archetypal stories that tend to be told in organizations (Martin, Feldman, Hatch, & Sitkin, 1983):

1. The rule-breaking story

2. Is the big boss human? story

3. Can the little person rise to the top? story

4. Will I get fired? story

5. Will the organization help me? story

6. How will the boss react to mistakes? story

7. How will the organization deal with obstacles? story

Although filled with energy that coaches can respond to with empathy if and when such stories come out, those are not often the best stories for fostering personal and professional development. “How did you grow?” questions are more likely to evoke coachable stories. Assuming that trust and rapport have been established during the initial check-in, “How did you grow?” questions invite teachers to tell stories about themselves in relation to their goals, actions, struggles, and accomplishments through a different lens. They invite teachers to share their challenges and excitements with stories that express the learning orientation of coaching. “How did you grow?” is an intrinsically positive frame through which teachers can view even the toughest of experiences. Such stories set the mood and form the groundwork for all that will follow in the steps of Empathy–Inquiry–Design.

One way to evoke these fruitful stories is for coaches to invite teachers to tell stories about times when they felt engaged in, excited about, or challenged by the work of teaching. Examples of such invitations include the following:

• Tell me the story of how you came to be a teacher.

• Tell me the story of how you came to take on this particular teaching assignment.

• Tell me a story that illustrates what has been working well for you.

• Tell me a story about a time when you handled a tough situation well.

• Tell me a story about a time when you made a real contribution.

• Tell me a story that illustrates what you love most about your work.

• Tell me a story about a time when you had a lot of fun in the classroom.

• Tell me a story about a time when you felt strongly connected to one of your students.

• Tell me a story that illustrates how your values come through in your teaching.

• Tell me a story about an experience in the classroom that taught you a valuable lesson.

• Tell me a story about a time when you felt respected and honored as a teacher.

• Tell me a story about a time when you tried something new.

• Tell me a story of a time when your lesson plan went surprisingly well.

• Tell me a story that illustrates what helps you to do your very best.

• Tell me a story from your first year of teaching and an insight that emerged from that.

Such invitations sparkle with evocative energy. They transport people to a very different place than rambling, grumbling, or gossiping. They shape the stories that get told and the possibilities that get considered. They elevate motivation and prepare people for a productive conversation regarding methods. By inviting teachers to remember and to reveal the growth-fostering dimensions of their experience, they communicate respect for a teacher’s experience as well as confidence in a teacher’s abilities to handle new experiences. Such respect and confidence are crucial to the learning dynamic. These are the coachable stories that promote openness to change. When they enter the ecosystem of the school, they have the power to shift the entire system.

Notice that all of the sample “Tell me . . .” invitations are in the form of open-ended inquiries. It is hard to generate a story when an inquiry can be answered with “Yes” or “No.” The two best question words, when it comes to generating stories in coaching sessions, are what and how. These words seek descriptions rather than reasons. They beg for longer, narrative answers. Ideally, more than 50 per- cent of all questions in a coaching session will be open-ended questions or “tell me . . . ” invitations. Such questions and invitations allow teachers to take an active role in the coaching conversation as they explore the fullness of their experience. Too many closed-ended questions, that invite short “sound bite” answers, tend to shut down this dynamic. Examples of closed-ended questions include:

• How many days did you remember to write your objectives on the board last week? • Do you know about balanced literacy?

• When was the last time you used cooperative groups?

• Did you learn anything from trying the new approach we discussed?

Such questions can be reframed as open-ended questions by using “What” and “How”

• How did the students respond when you wrote your objectives on the board?

• What have you heard about or tried when it comes to balanced literacy?

• What has been one of your better experiences with using cooperative groups?

• What has become clearer to you since last we met?

Although why is also an open-ended question word, it does not tend to evoke coachable stories because it invites analysis and can easily provoke resistance by communicating judgment. For example, asking, “Why did you approach the lesson in that way?,” may cause a teacher to shut down and/or to respond defensively. “Why” questions can nevertheless be powerful when asked at the right time and in the right way. Why is best used after stories are told, to explore motivation. For example, after hearing a story, coaches can connect teachers to the meaning and measure of their stories by asking, “Why did you care so deeply about reaching that particular student?” or “Why did you reach out to that student in that way?”

If teachers are failing to open up and tell their stories at the start of a coaching session, it means that we have either set the wrong stage or asked the wrong questions. The stage is wrong, as we have noted, if it is perceived to be a hostile environment—a perception that can arise in many ways. It is obviously hostile if teachers sense they will be evaluated or judged on the basis of the stories they tell. It is also hostile, however, if teachers sense that coaches have a hidden agenda or do not have the time or interest to listen to their stories. Evocative coaches do not ask leading questions, with an implied right answer, and do not rush teachers through the telling of their stories. We communicate a sense of spaciousness and a genuine desire to unearth and savor whatever the stories have to teach us.

Instead of asking teachers to cut to the chase, getting to whatever business is ostensibly at hand, evocative coaches therefore invite teachers to tell their stories fully, teasing out the nuances, meanings, and treasures that seem to be important to them. The wisdom is in the details. For all our interest in stories, however, evocative coaches do not force teachers to share what they do not want to share and to reveal details they do not want to reveal. If teachers appear reluctant to open up, if they cannot come up with anything right away, if they appear to be avoid- ing a question, or if we do not think they are being totally honest, that usually says more about the stage we have set, the questions we have asked, and the level of trust we have established than about the teachers’ coachability. It is best, then, to reset the stage, to ask new questions, and to connect with the heart. Check in on how the teacher is feeling. Find a different path of development to explore. Ham- mering away in the same vein for an extended period of time is counterproductive when it generates resistance rather than curiosity and openness to change. One can always circle back later, reframing questions to evoke coachable stories in a particular area of interest, once trust and rapport have been reestablished. At their best, “How did you grow?” questions trigger a wealth of material that teachers and coaches alike learn from and enjoy sharing together. That is the promise of evocative coaching.

Great questions elicit what is on the teacher’s mind rather than what is on the coach’s mind.

Imaginative Listening

Perhaps you have heard the story of the three baseball umpires trying to impress each other with how they call the pitches from behind home plate. To demonstrate his accuracy, the first umpire proclaims boldly, “I call them the way they are.” Questioning whether anyone can ever know for sure whether a pitch is a ball or a strike, the second umpire proclaims sincerely, “I call them the way I see them.” Without disputing the importance of either accuracy or sincerity, the third umpire proclaims, with a wink and grin, “They ain’t nothin’ until I call them.” That is as true with instant replay as it is with an umpire’s snap decision. In the end, according to the rules of the game, someone still has to call them.

When teachers tell their stories they are, in effect, calling the balls and strikes of their experience. The things that hit and miss the mark are filled with emotional energy, both positive and negative, and teachers want to process those feelings by telling their stories. Teachers do not always realize, however, that the stories they tell are not reports of the world as it is; they are rather recreations of the world as it might be. They are not the experience in itself; they are rather hypotheses we are testing out regarding the experience as we understand it. No story is ever “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” It is rather a slice of the truth told from a certain vantage point, and the story that gets told is always a game-changing call. It creates impressions, parameters, boundaries, and possibilities for coaches to work with through story listening. Joseph Jaworski (1998) captured the game-changing power of stories when he wrote:

As I considered the importance of language and how human beings interact with the world, it struck me that in many ways the development of language was like the discovery of fire—it was such an incredible primordial force. I had always thought that we used language to describe the world—now I was seeing that this is not the case. To the contrary, it is through language that we create the world, because it is nothing until we describe it. And when we describe it, we create distinctions that govern our actions. To put it another way, we do not describe the world we see, but we see the world we describe. (p. 178)

Ann Hartman (1991) has put this premise even more simply and memorably: “Words create worlds.” Both the stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we tell others, not only determine the sense we make of the past but also create the way we experience the future. The now famous “Pygmalion effect” study, named after a Cypriot sculptor in an ancient Greek myth and first published in 1968, demonstrated the impact of telling stories to teachers regarding which students were significantly brighter than others in their classrooms (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 2003).

Although the students were selected at random and although there were, in fact, no significant differences between the so-called bright students and the other students at the outset of the experiment, things quickly began to shift, and by the end of the experiment the students designated as gifted had conformed to teacher expectations. Story created reality. Over the past forty years there have been literally hundreds of other studies confirming this effect, attesting to both its continuing theoretical and practical importance.

Experience does not construct stories; people construct stories, and, in turn, stories construct experience. How we describe a situation, how we characterize the actors, intents, actions, struggles, and outcomes, both reflects and affects how that situation is for us (Johnson, 1999). We should therefore be careful and intentional regarding the stories we tell (Loehr, 2007). If we tell a story as a “just-so story,” explaining how a situation just is, then our experience—as in the Pygmalion effect— is circumscribed accordingly. Such stories may explain how the leopard got its spots, for example, but they do not invite the leopard to change its spots. If we tell the story as a “maybe-so story,” portraying how a situation might be, then our experience opens up accordingly. Even as we tell one story about leopards and their spots, we recognize that other stories can be told. The work of coaching, then, is to listen to stories as “maybe-so” constructions and to invite the teachers who tell those stories to do the same. We are looking for new angles from which to appreciate stories and design reality. The more vividly we do so, the more reality takes off.

The facts are always less than what really happens. I mean the facts are just on the surface. . . . To me, [the facts don’t] tell you nearly as much as the story of one individual who lived through [them].

Nadine Gordimer (1976)

Listening to stories in this way is transformational. Instead of being viewed as givens, to be accepted with resignation, they are viewed as propositions, to be explored with anticipation, imagination, and curiosity. Evocative coaches yearn to understand how else stories can be told; the act of reworking and retelling stories from different perspectives opens the door to new frameworks, understandings, and possibilities. It is a form of empathy to imagine and play with stories as sources of inspiration and possibility rather than to use stories as occasions for criticism and humiliation.

The transformational power of reworking and retelling stories was amusingly and poignantly captured in the 1993 movie, Groundhog Day. In this movie, Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, an egocentric Pittsburgh TV meteorologist who goes to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, in order to cover the annual appearance of the legendary groundhog, “Punxsutawney Phil.” Connors does so with great sarcasm and reluctance, since he sees this as a demeaning and stupid assignment. After covering the festivities of the day, Connors ends up spending the night in Punxsutawney when a blizzard that he had forecasted would miss the town makes the roads impassable. Upon waking up in his hotel room the next day, Connors discovers that the calendar has not advanced. It is still Groundhog Day and he still has to cover the same event, meeting the same people, in the same town, and going through the same motions—but he is the only one who is consciously aware of being stuck in a time warp.

This is understandably confusing, troubling, and disorienting for Connors, who at first assumes he must be having a dream. So he plays along and relives the day. After getting stuck in the blizzard again, and returning to his hotel room, Con- nors figures that he will wake up from his dream and all will be right with the world. But when he wakes up, the scenario plays itself out all over again. He is still in Punxsutawney and it is still Groundhog Day. Connors is consigned to relive the same day, over and over again, with no apparent way to get out of the seemingly endless loop.

Over time, Connors goes through many emotions. He is variously angry at, depressed about, stimulated by, and despairing over his predicament; exasperated and enamored with different characters; empowered, entertained, and amused by his knowledge of the future; engaged by opportunities for learning and growth; and alternately indifferent as well as compassionate about the things that happen to other people. He doesn’t get out of the day until he loses his attachment to an outcome (getting out of the day) and gains an authentic relationship to both himself and others.

The entire plot of the movie hinges upon the discovery and exploration of story variants. Originally, Connors had one story, and only one story, as to how he saw the world and what went on that day. By the time his time warp was over, however, Connors had gained a multitude of new perspectives. He saw how other people experienced their day, how making different decisions changed the course of events, and how he could learn important life lessons from the experiences of one single day. Those same dynamics can be created in coaching sessions when coaches invite teachers to imagine new scenarios and interpretations of their experiences. Such invitations expand the repertoire of teachers’ ability to respond. To paraphrase Wittgenstein and other philosophers, “The limits of our stories are the limits of our world.” It is the work of story listening to expand the range of teacher stories.

Storytelling needs to be in the tool kit of the design thinker—in the sense not of a tidy beginning, middle, and end but of an ongoing, open-ended narrative that engages people and encourages them to carry it forward and write their own conclusions.

Tim Brown (2009, p. 158)

Imagine Vantage Points

The easiest way to get teachers involved in exploring different facets of their stories is to ask them to imagine what the experience might have been like for one or more of the characters in their stories. We all know that every person has a unique vantage point, but we often fail to do the work of transposing in order to understand, appreciate, and value those perspectives. Evocative coaches assist teachers to do this work as part of the coaching conversation. The first time teachers tell a story, it comes primarily from their points of view. That is like the first time Phil Connors went through his day. But most stories involve characters who are related to the teacher’s path of development in both positive and negative ways. The more teachers can learn to see things from the vantage points of other characters, the more open teachers become to considering alternatives.

Stories are like flight simulators for the brain.

Chip and Dan Heath (2007, p. 213)

Asking teachers to describe their experience from the vantage point of one of their characters, perhaps even retelling the story from that point of view, is an effective, engaging, and fun way to try on different perspectives. So, for example, after a teacher finishes telling the story of a challenging classroom situation, he or she can be invited to transpose one of the characters in that story, perhaps a student or a colleague, and to retell the story as that character might have experienced the situation. Coaches can also interview teachers while they are playing different roles to take them more deeply into the character’s experience. Such transposing, retelling, and recreating often generate new understandings and possibilities for moving forward because of how the process engages the brain. Neurons fire as if the story variants were actually happening. Such “perspective taking,” creates attunement, resonance, and shared intention (Siegel, 2007). It changes the neural mechanisms of the brain (Ruby & Decety, 2004) in ways that facilitate the empathy and mindful awareness required to contemplate and construct new possibilities.

Imagine Pivot Points

A more creative and challenging approach when listening to teacher stories is to ask teachers to imagine how an experience might have turned out if they had handled a situation differently or if they had viewed it from a different perspective. Teachers may have resistance to doing this, since they probably did what they did for their own good reasons. The actions they took may be understood as defining parts of their identities. But when trust is high and judgment is low, teachers may be willing to explore those critical junctures where they could have gone in different directions. We see this in the evolution of Connors’s endless day. At first,

he was attached to his persona and to doing things his way. Indeed, he did it the same way, over and over again. As time went on, however, Connors started to experiment with different decisions, approaches, and techniques. He connected in new ways with different people and situations. As a result of such experimentation, he experienced a gradual yet tangible transformation.

That can happen for teachers when they are willing to explore the pivot points in their stories. What if they had chosen a different path or taken a different approach? What if they had understood the situation differently? Asking teachers to play with and retell their stories from such hypothetical stances, carrying the narrative forward as it might have gone rather than defending their position, opens up entirely new possibilities. After a teacher finishes telling the story of a disrupted lesson, for example, she can be asked, “What if instead of sending her to the principal’s office, you had realized she was embarrassed and helped her to save face? Tell the story as it might have gone from there.” “What if ?” and “How might?” are invaluable openers when exploring such pivot points. When teachers are willing to play creatively with their experiences, they often shake loose attachment to decisions they made in the moment and generate engagement with alternatives they may want to try in the future. By so doing, teachers can discover new wisdom for improving instruction.

Imagine Lesson Points

As we have seen, teachers tell stories to make sense of their experiences and to glean lessons for moving forward. The “moral of the story” is, in a sense, the reason for telling the story, and usually they have but one. Teachers think they know what their stories mean. After playing with different vantage and pivot points, however, teachers may be ready, willing, and able to imagine new lessons or takeaways. Those lessons were always there, embedded in the folds of the story, as it were, but teachers may not have had the eyes to see them or the courage to look for them. All that can change in the context of a safe space and in the presence of evocative questions. Instead of intimidating teachers, “What else?” then becomes an occasion for extracting new material and even the occasional stroke of insight. Asking what teachers may have learned from imagining different vantage or pivot points invites teachers to go deeper and to see what else might be possible, just as Phil Connors discovered more and more about himself and the meaning of life by reflecting on and growing through the curious dynamics of his seemingly never-ending day. The more articulate teachers become about the many things they can learn from their experiences, especially the positive, growth-oriented things, the more open they will become to trying new things in the service of desired outcomes.

Whether or not teachers are willing to explicitly imagine and play with the vantage, pivot, or lesson points of their stories, coaches navigate through coaching conversations with good-natured curiosity. If teachers do not respond to the invitation to rework and retell stories, they should not be pushed. It is not a requirement of evocative coaching. It is important, however, for coaches to be genuinely curious about the stories teachers are telling. Upon first telling, stories are like diamonds in the rough. Curiosity assists teachers to polish them into gems of personal and professional mastery. There is a difference, however, between curiosity and interrogation. Curiosity is an enjoyable exploration that generates the “Aha!” of insight and innovation. Interrogation is just the opposite. It is a high- pressure grilling that generates defensiveness, suspicion, and resistance.

Evocative coaches therefore avoid asking too many questions in a row. Question blitzes are off-putting and destabilizing of the coaching relationship. Evocative coaches also avoid asking leading questions that have an implied right answer. Neither do we ask deep, probing, and challenging questions until after teachers tell their stories fully, feel heard, are in the flow of the coaching session, and have a receptive frame of mind. Even then there is a difference between authentic questions that connect with the heart and leading questions that surreptitiously deliver constructive criticism. Teachers can see through that in an instant. It is not helpful for coaches to make assumptions, give advice, or evaluate methods while teachers are sharing their stories. It is better for coaches to listen to what is being said, to what is not being said, and to what teachers may want to say, in order to gently guide them through the exploration of their stories.

The point of imaginative listening, then, is to evoke a robust engagement with storytelling, replete with story variants. The more teachers understand their stories as stories, rather than as settled facts over which they have no control, the more they are cultivating a willingness to change. It is dangerous to have only one story to tell regarding what happened and what could have happened. Such stories become self-fulfilling and self-limiting prophecies. They tend to confirm what teachers already know; they do not invite the consideration of what they might learn and how they might grow. Imaginative listening takes teachers in the opposite direction as they ponder the possibilities of what might have been and what might be.

Summary

Evocative coaching begins with a deep concern for teachers as human beings. By the quality of our presence, evocative coaches establish strong trust and rapport with teachers before turning to techniques. We care more about the person than the project we are coaching. Once a living connection is made, through vital check-ins, coaches evoke “How did you grow?” stories from teachers in order to begin the exploration of how teachers see themselves and the worlds in which they work.

By listening mindfully, quietly, and reflectively as teachers tell their stories, coaches disarm resistance and evoke openness to change. In the normal course of affairs, people seldom have the undivided attention of anyone, even for brief periods of time, let alone without judgment. That alone may account for why evocative coaching is powerful and refreshing enough to transform an entire school. To have someone listen to you for a good chunk of time, with no agenda other than your agenda, is a rare and beautiful thing. It can make a world of difference and a difference in the world.

Once teachers share their stories, evocative coaches confirm what we have heard and respond with curiosity in order to explore the rich learning nuances that are embedded in the stories. Teachers and coaches can do this by imagining and playing with at least three variables: the perspectives of other characters, the impacts of different decisions, and the takeaways of lessons learned. Through exploring these variables together, teachers and coaches become partners in opening up new opportunities and paths for lasting change.