Clean is an amazing new way of exploring people's stories and metaphors. It can melt away ‘prepared scripts’ and well-worn complaints as if they were old coats of paint, uncovering who a person really is in their natural state so they can see themselves and communicate their truth to others.
In coaching or therapy, it's a whole new paradigm, like the invention of the mobile phone. If you want to get to the heart of an issue quickly, it gives you the power to do that and to change things fast.
And in any kind of business situation, that kind of truth can be invaluable! Imagine being able to ‘read the minds’ of your team members, business prospects… or even your boss…
As one participant said after discovering Clean in a recent teleclass: "The possibilities are unlimited. It's like opening up a whole new world. I feel as though a lightbulb has been switched on. It's like filling in a jigsaw puzzle, but without knowing how many pieces there are."
It started with Clean Language – a set of simple, powerful questions that were developed by therapist David Grove during the 1980s and ‘90s. They were designed to help him avoid ‘leading the witness’ by introducing his own assumptions into a session, and to help people to fully explore and develop their metaphors for their experience.
Metaphors are very powerful. They bundle a lot of information into a small package, and make the conceptual more tangible.
We live our metaphors. Someone who thinks their work team is like a Formula One pit crew will have a very different experience from someone whose team seems to them to be like a group of strolling musicians.
In fact, metaphors and stories are central to how we think, both consciously and unconsciously. In working with metaphors, people can discover and share information from below the level of their ordinary consciousness in a way that feels comfortable for them.
Symbolic Modelling, developed by Penny Tompkins and James Lawley, codified and extended David’s work. Their book about the process, Metaphors in Mind, was published in 2000.
These approaches - and others derived from them - are grouped under the label 'Clean', and the extent of their power is only just emerging.
Top
Here are a few
of the uses we’ve
heard of for Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling:
• Executive
coaching
• Helping victims of torture
• Working with disaffected youngsters
• Weight loss coaching
• Interviewing vulnerable witnesses
• Meeting facilitation
• Personal development
• Anger management
• Preparing long-term unemployed for work
• Skills needs analysis in pharmaceutical industry
• Sports coaching
• Business team-building
• Community group facilitation
• Couples therapy
• Social workers working with trans-racial adoption
• Branding
• Creative writing
• Management development
Symbolic Modelling can be integrated easily with other
methods of working, or can become the core of how you
work. These are cutting-edge communication skills that
apply across almost any context you encounter.
Top