Possible Selves: Growing Ideas
Sarah Fletcher
http://www.TeacherResearch.net
Convenor: BERA Mentoring and Coaching SIG
A picture paints 1000 words?
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Which emotions do you see?
Bristol Coaching Exchange
Workshop 17 March 2008:
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What is authentic ‘happiness’?
What is ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ (AI)?
How do positive ‘Possible Selves’ (PS) fit in?
What use might all this be in my coaching?
What evidence is there that PS and AI work?
What are potential benefits of PS & AI?
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Realizing creative, imaginative potential
Nurturing growth in taking responsibility
Easing anxiety and depression
Useful resources:
http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/
http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/questionnaires.aspx
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/happiness_formula/4783836.stm
What is ‘happiness’?
What makes you really happy?
 What makes you happy when at work?
 How far do you work at being happier?
 What happy daydreams do you have?
 How far do you spread happiness?
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Does feeling positive increase happiness?
What is Appreciative Inquiry (AI)?
Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a 4-stage process focusing on:
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DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that
work well.
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DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the
future.
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DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
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DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the
proposed design.
The basic idea is to build organizations around what works, rather
than trying to fix what doesn't. It is the opposite of problem solving
What are Positive Selves (PS)?
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Positive selves can be consciously
conjured up in pursuit of desired goals
which can be positively construed.
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Positive selves motivate by giving a clear
goal to strive for and by energising the
individual to pursue actions necessary for
attaining a possible positive self.
Step One: Introduction
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Who do I think I am right now?
What are my professional values?
What are my best professional skills?
Where is my professional knowledge?
What are my current work-based targets?
Who do I want to be?
What are my dreams?
Step Two: My PS + My AI
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Try drawing a stick figure of you at work:
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What does your face look like? Happy?
What’s written in your thought bubble?
What are you busy doing as you work?
Where are your close friends? At work?
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How do you feel as you look at yourself?
Are you the person you dream of being?
Step Three: Coaching for mapping
How do you see yourself right now?
 How do we map your journey to your PS?
 What happens between now and then?
 How long will your journey take you?
 How will you feel along the way?
 Who might be alongside you?
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Step Four: Coaching for dreaming!
What dreams give you energy in life?
 How do you use that energy at work ?
 How are you living out dreams at work?
 Which aspects of work satisfy you most?
 Where might you extend that satisfaction?
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How will you bring dreaming into working?
Step Five: Self coaching
What am I good at? (How do I know?)
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(Use ‘Authentic Happiness’ Questionnaires?)
Step Six: Self Coaching
What might I improve?
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Step Seven: Self Coaching
What do I like most about me?
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Who can help me develop the parts I like best?
Step Nine: Self Coaching
What am I afraid of and could avoid?
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How will I overcome my fears?
Who will help me to overcome them?
What’s my plan to reach my PS?
By tomorrow
 By this Friday
 By December
 By 5 years hence
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How will I record what I achieve?
How will I know I am living my dream?
Action research: formulaic and technicist?
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According to Cooperrider and Srivastva:
‘…Action research has largely failed as an
instrument for advancing social knowledge of
consequence and now risks being (mis)
understood as little more than crude empiricism
imprisoned in a deficiency mode of thought.’
Action research: generative incapacity
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‘Action research tends to build into the client
system an institutionalized pattern for
continuously collecting data and examining the
system’s processes as well as for the
continuous review of known problem areas.
Problem solving becomes very much a way of
organizational life…’
Marguiles and Raia
Appreciative Inquiry: A sense of wonder returns
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Action research’s problem solving view of the
world is a primary restraint on its imagination,
passion and positive contribution… appreciative
inquiry represents a viable complement to
conventional forms of action research, one
uniquely suited to social innovation instead of
problem solving’
Cooperrider and Srivasrtva
Fletcher (2000) (a) Extract from my personal diary dated 1987.
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‘The moment I knew I was healing myself was one of the funniest I shall
ever remember. Encased in plaster from just below my armpits to my
knee there was ‘I’ seeing myself running, dancing and playing with
friends on a beach! Momentary projection. Pain, searing pain macheteing through my visualization – don’t panic! Hold, hold on to the certainty
that you will not falter in experiencing health. Draw from your being this
agony and gently, gently ease it into vision. Initially, so all pervasive, this
pain becomes a ball. Initially so immobile, it begins to move – it becomes
a BALL! It bounces – I can play – and there I am – a child with a ball – a
ball of pain. What do I do with this ball? Easy! I colour this ball, add
stripes and fair-isle patterns like knitwear … This ball of pain – this pain
ball – no longer daunts me! I have a choice – an ultimate choice – to let it
return to all-embracing agony – or to retain the ball, I bounce this
ridiculous sphere round the walls of my imagination – it loses its horror
and I am reborn as a new ‘self’; a self that knows health is closer.’