It must be clear by now that I see my major role in life is to guide my clients when they decide to make changes to their lives. Hopefully, these will be changes for the better. I have had the good fortune to be present on many occasions when the people I worked with became unstuck and I helped them to reach a tipping point—the crucial moment in time when they were prepared to change. Perhaps that’s the reason why, on occasions, some of my clients have called me a CEO whisperer. I remember laughing the first time one of them gave me this moniker, shortly after the 1998 movie The Horse Whisperer came out. Based on the novel of the same title, the movie starred Robert Redford as the eponymous horse whisperer, a man with an in-depth understanding of how to communicate with horses.
The movie tells the story of two teenagers who go out for a winter morning’s horseback ride. As they chat away happily, their horses suddenly lose their footing on the icy ground, slide across a road, and are hit by a truck: one of the girls and her horse are killed. The other has her right leg amputated. Her horse, which miraculously survives, is traumatized, seemingly beyond help.
Desperate for help dealing with the calamity of her daughter and horse, the girl’s mother hears about a horse whisperer, a cowboy who can communicate with horses. According to these accounts, this person re-educates horses, returning them to normal after accidents or ill-treatment. The mother decides to bring her daughter and the horse to horse whisperer and ask him to deal with their trauma. He turns out to be a man of great patience, who, faced with a mother, child and horse in great need, heals the horse, dissolves the girl’s mental trauma, and, to boot, helps the mother become less of a workaholic. (Horse whisperers are a real thing: their deep understanding of horse psychology enables them to interpret a horse’s body language and elicit their cooperation.)
After I saw the movie, I understood my client’s comment. Instead of whispering to horses, however, I whisper to executives, many of whom (in spite, or because, of all their successes) have acquired dysfunctional behavior patterns. I see my task as helping them overcome dysfunctionalities that range from compulsive, to narcissistic, to bipolar behavior patterns. For my work to be effective, I need to be able to interpret my clients’ verbal and non-verbal communication.
The Working Alliance
When faced with challenging C-suite executives I initiate a whisperer’s “dance.” To make this “dance” work, I need to take a number of steps. The first is to establish a working or therapeutic alliance.1 This is an important clinical concept that helps explain the dynamics of change and why change can take time.
What is a working alliance? Basically, it is how I connect, behave, and engage with each of my clients. It pertains to the feelings of trust between me and my client that allow us to work together effectively. A working alliance is also characterized by mutual respect—the confidence that both parties feel genuinely understood and valued—but an effective working alliance will also include an agreement about goals, what my role will be and what my client wants to accomplish. Importantly, a purposeful collaborative relationship between me and my client correlates with positive progress. Therefore, if you are the client, you should always keep in mind that the quality of the working alliance will be a much better predictor of whether the intervention works than whatever your preference is for a particular orientation to therapy or coaching.
When I am building a working alliance, in which trust is the critical factor, I have to pay attention to the peculiarities unique to each of my clients. A further complicating factor is that my whisperer’s dance never plays out in a vacuum; it unfolds within a specific context. Predictably, given the variations between individuals’ characters, there are going to be situations where the relationship does not click and where the dance grinds to a halt. Occasionally, I will not be the right person for a specific client.
I have found that the secret in building a working alliance with challenging executives depends not only on what I whisper to them, but also, and equally importantly, the way I listen to what they whisper back to me. For CEO whisperers, deep, active listening is an essential requirement to be able to decipher the verbal and non-verbal clues that clients present. I have to listen carefully not only to the things that are being said, but also to the things that are not being said. In addition, not knowing, and being prepared to accept not knowing, is part of the challenge as a whisperer. Frustrating though this is, I need to be able to tolerate my ignorance, which is not easy as, like most people, I would prefer some form of closure.
Countertransference
My ability to be empathic and sensitive is the bedrock of my work as a whisperer. Empathy refers to my capacity to experience what others experience while still being able to attribute these experiences to the other and not to myself. The way I relate emotionally to my client—right brain to right brain or unconscious to unconscious—is essential in creating this kind of attachment bond. I need to be able to recognize the client’s early emotional patterns and become conscious of them as separate from myself, so as to be able to use this information effectively.
This is what is meant by countertransference—the redirection of my feelings toward my client—in other words, I need to untangle my personal emotional entanglement with my client, that is, my emotional reaction to my client’s statements—how I unconsciously project my feelings onto the client. I need to decipher what my client is trying to enact and how I am tempted to react to the material he or she presents, and then help both of us not to act out our usual scripts but to create a new, healthier outcome. I have described this process as “using myself as an instrument.”2 I should not acquiescence under pressure (in spite of the fact that certain lines in a client’s script may reverberate with my own script) and buy into the client’s script. What I need to engineer in these situations is a reenactment, but a reenactment with a twist. The outcome must be different.
Countertransference serves as a sensitive interpersonal barometer, a finely tuned instrument in the field of social interaction. But how countertransference is used in the dance between me and my client can make the interface either helpful or problematic. It always remains extraordinary difficult to figure out how the other feels. It means that I have to be extremely cautious of not projecting my own feelings onto the other.
Furthermore, while countertransference is undeniably an important source of data, it is not always a source of hard evidence. The information that can contribute to greater understanding needs to be sorted out carefully in the interchange. Complicating this sorting process is the fact that I need to operate on two alternating levels: I have to be an objective observer of my client’s ideas and emotions while also being a subjective receiver. I need to sort out the “me” from the “not-me.” And I need to handle these two levels deftly, using my subjective emotional life actively and directly in the dyadic interchange.
As with any dance, the opening steps are critical. I know from long experience that the first encounter with a client will always be the trickiest one. It is the moment of mutual assessment when we determine if we will be able to work together. If my potential client doesn’t feel engaged or doesn’t feel that he or she can build some kind of relationship with me, there is very little chance that a working alliance will be established.
Transitional Space
To nudge my clients along in this dance, it is important that I show a modicum of understanding of their predicaments. Making them feel comfortable is the first step in creating this working alliance. To make our relationship work, I also need to generate a transitional space—a safe space within which both of us can explore the kinds of changes we are looking for—a space where we can “play.”3 The transitional space can be described as an intermediate area of experiences between our inner and outer world, where fantasy and reality overlap—a space created by both parties. It can be a strange and confusing place but also be one with great potential, enabling creativity.
But in order to “play,” my clients need to feel safe, accepted, respected, and comfortable. They should be able to talk to me without the fear of ridicule or judgment. Many people come into a coaching or consulting session fearful of “letting their guard down.” They may fear being laughed at or ridiculed about the problems they present. It will not take much to switch their defenses into overdrive. If they are unable to open up, they will not get much out of the interface. Good interventions are situations where my clients are willing to push themselves out of their comfort zone and try things that are new, unfamiliar, and may even be scary at first.
I try to be careful while creating a safe space. I have seen how easily the magic between client and coach, or therapist can evaporate. Seemingly innocent comments can be perceived as threatening and may jeopardize the working alliance. Clients who feel judged will start withholding information, which impedes progress. Generating an atmosphere of mutual respect depends very much on my openness, degree of warmth, and earnest desire to see things from my clients’ perspective. They want my help in achieving their objectives, whatever their objectives turn out to be. Building a strong working alliance also necessitates giving these people reassurance, showing sympathy, and demonstrating tolerance for possible peculiarities. This requires that I come across as non-judgmental, even about a client’s values and beliefs that are very different from my own.
As a CEO whisperer I need to demonstrate not only a degree of objectivity about my client’s problems but also understanding. In the opening moves of the dance, I am mainly supportive and offer interpretations sparingly. The last thing clients want is to feel that they are being lectured to and controlled. I have discovered that, when appropriate, humor can be a highly effective tool to create a bond between both parties.
As the dance progresses, my challenge is to remain attuned to the person I am whispering to, to generate curiosity, to be gently challenging, and to create a framework for the future relationship. To be able to do so, I encourage people who want to work with me to tell me about their stressors, frustrations, and dissatisfactions. For my part, I need to match their expectations; I need to formulate the goal component of the relationship.
While keeping all these concerns in mind, I always find it useful to wrap up the interchange by asking how the client feels about working with me. This is a way of getting feedback on the initial impact of the dance: whether the client feels safe, really heard, taken seriously, and cared for. Of course, hope is always hovering in the background, in expectation of a successful outcome.
During the opening interview, I ask the client a number of questions to elicit their thoughts and desires. Examples are: What brought you to see me? What do you feel is presently wrong in your work and personal life? What are the issues you would like to work on? What can you say about yourself? What would you like to be different in your life? I also ask them to imagine that they are looking into a crystal ball and tell me their fantasies about the future. In other words, what would they see as the best outcome from working together? After the initial niceties of the opening steps of the dance, I concentrate on the answers to these questions. Essentially, I invite the client to imagine a desired future, and to create a mindset focused on progress.
To help me better understand a client’s inner theater and what makes them “tick,” I also ask them to tell me something about their personal history, including their childhood experiences, education, the nature of their relationships (I am thinking of attachment patterns), their current living situation, and their career trajectory. I also like to get some sense of my client’s life anchors. I am always very careful, however, about questioning my clients about sensitive areas of their lives. While they might talk openly with some people about their sexual desires, intimate relationships, childhood, and work lives, they should be able to decide when, how, and with whom they want to discuss these things. It can take some time before some of these issues emerge in a coaching or therapeutic relationship.
Generally speaking, I prefer to ask open-ended questions and am in favor of having an open-ended, unstructured dialogue. And while I do this, I always look for recurrent themes in the dialogue that represent the client’s experiences. I try to link their feelings and perceptions to their past experiences. I draw attention to feelings that they experience as unacceptable and, if the timing is right, I point out the way they avoid their feelings. I focus on the here-and-now relationship I have with the client, drawing connections between my relationship with the client and comparing this to other past and present relationships the client has. (This is the concept of transference, which I discuss in more detail in Chap. 14.)
During the whispering dance, it is of utmost importance to be aware of and adapt to what does and what doesn’t work, what resonates and what doesn’t, and to balance spontaneity and self-control. Even the client says something that doesn’t make sense, I modulate my reaction. I think twice before I challenge the client’s views, in case I inadvertently raise issues that the client isn’t ready to face. The dance will not progress if I focus too much on unpleasant things in the beginning. My general aim is “to strike when the iron is cold”—the client needs to be ready to digest specific observations. I need to assess how much truth the client can handle and avoid pushing their defenses into overdrive. This means keeping my mouth shut, if necessary. When I make an interpretation, I better make sure the client is ready to hear what I am whispering. At the same time, I refrain from easy praise or false assurances. It is more important to offer the hope that the client can and will change his or her life for the better.
Once a working alliance has been established, I try to pique the client’s curiosity and attention by carefully challenging them to reflect on an issue or by making a trial observation or interpretation to see how they respond. The process of clarification and confrontation becomes important here, although there will always be some confusion whether my questions can be classified as the first or the second, depending on how the recipient perceives them. I am not a stranger to the occasional “wild analysis,” either. I accept that, at times, I could be accused of communicating a conclusion without regard to therapeutic tact, interpreting a client’s mental life with claims that might not yet be solidly based on the evidence of the case. Tact or no tact, I maintain that serious leader whispering requires delving into uncomfortable, difficult, and vulnerable aspects of your life. While too quick a judgment risks triggering resistances and defenses, seeing how a client reacts to trial observations or interpretations helps me to assess how well the dance is likely to progress.
It will not come as a surprise that character make-up plays an important role in how the dance evolves. From supervising the work of colleagues, I have seen how their personal attributes can have a negative influence on the working alliance, in instances where the executive coach or therapist is too rigid, uncertain, exploitative, critical, distant, tense, aloof, or distracted. Some types of interventions can also have a negative impact on the working alliance, such as over- or under-structuring the intervention, excessive self-disclosure, and inappropriate transference interpretations (trying to make unconscious behavior patterns conscious at inopportune times).
Creating a working alliance is going to be more difficult with clients who are overly defensive, are extremely guarded or quiet, or do not have any idea what they want to get out of the intervention. The client must be willing to engage in the change effort. When people don’t have any curiosity about themselves, it doesn’t augur well. The whispering process will also be impeded by clients with specific psychological challenges, such as depression, and bipolar, borderline, paranoid, narcissistic, sociopathic, or psychotic personalities.
The psychologists Mary Smith and Gene Glass carried out research into the effectiveness of different types of psychotherapy.4 The results of nearly 400 controlled evaluations of psychotherapy and counseling were coded and integrated statistically. Generally speaking, the findings provided convincing evidence of the efficacy of psychotherapy. On average they concluded that the typical therapy client was better off than 75% of untreated individuals. More interestingly, they found that the type of therapy received by the client had a limited bearing on the rate of success. Their conclusions support the idea that the relationship between the client and the therapist will be the deciding factor for a successful outcome.
The Rhythm of Change
There is a rhythm to my interventions with clients. They increasingly learn more about their feelings and patterns of thinking and behaving. Although I cannot engineer dramatic “Aha!” moments, I can create an environment conducive to some kind of transformation. There tends to be a specific pathway to getting where they want to be.
First, the client needs to experience a feeling of concern about their current situation. Setting the process of change in motion usually requires a strong inducement in the form of pain or distress—discomfort that outweighs the pleasure of the secondary gains (like sympathy and attention) that create an immunity to change. The trigger could be family tensions, health problems, negative social sanctions, an accident, feelings of isolation leading to a sense of helplessness and insecurity, problem behavior, distressing incidents happening to someone close, or simply daily hassles and frustrations. When isolated incidents of discontent become a steady pattern of unhappiness it becomes difficult to deny that something is wrong. These emotions signal that there will be serious negative consequences of continuing dysfunctional behavior. They set the stage for a tipping point, the preparedness to finally break the status quo.
The insight that drastic measures are required does not automatically compel someone to take action, but it could set in motion a mental process of visualizing alternative scenarios. Having made the transition from denying to realizing that all is not well, a person might be able to move on to a position where they are ready for a reappraisal process. They may come to the point when they realize that neither the passage of time nor minor changes in behavior will improve their situation—indeed, it is likely to become even worse if nothing substantial is done about it.
For Elise, an owner of a luxury goods company, divorce from her husband of many years became her focal event. The divorce made her relatively comfortable life fall apart and served as a wake-up call for her to re-evaluate her lifestyle. Elise made changes at home, for example, deciding to spend more time with her children, and becoming involved in leisure activities that she really enjoyed. But the divorce triggered changes at work, as well. As various repressed feelings came to the surface, she realized that she had been quite unhappy at work. Consequently, her company had been stagnating. She had been on automatic pilot, suppressing her creativity. The divorce crystallized her discontent and provided the impetus for change, helping her to take her organization in new directions.
The third step of the individual change process is some kind of public declaration of intent, which research suggests is a sound indicator of someone having a high degree of commitment to change. Recognizing the language of change is important. Telling others, in a more or less social context, what they plan to do, indicates that someone has reached a certain degree of acceptance of their problem. It shows that traditional defense mechanisms (such as splitting, repression, denial, projection, and rationalization) have largely run their course. In many of my workshops, I have seen how making a public commitment is crucial, because it doubles momentum: it influences not only the person making the commitment, but also to the people in that person’s environment. A dialog is set in motion that will lead to further insights, and others will put pressure on the participant to follow-up on his or her commitments. If someone states the intention to give up alcohol, for example, acquaintances who approve of that decision are less likely to offer them a drink and will probably comment if they take one. A public declaration of intent means the willingness to assume a more vulnerable position and to move the problem from a private to a public stage. Someone making a public declaration is expressing a wish to establish a different way of behaving, and to establish a distance from their former, less desirable self.
Eventually, the client may be prepared to take action. Their resistance to change starts to down. Their habitual immune system stops working. They may have acquired new insights about their situation and see new possibilities. Instead of helplessness and hopelessness, their emotional energy has been transferred from the concerns of the past (which contributed to their dysfunctional behavior patterns) to concerns about the present and future. They may feel as if a heavy burden has been lifted. Mentally, they become ready to work toward a more constructive future. And as they progress through the various phases of successful personal change, they may demonstrate a growing ability to give up their old identities and roles and adopt new ones. They begin to reorganize the world in which they live in a significant way. They re-evaluate their life’s goals and meanings, let go of the old and accept the new.
I try to help people leave their comfort zones. I try to align people’s actions with their desires. I try to help people recognize that they are worthy of respect and love. I try to help them to eliminate the lies from their lives to live more authentically. I try to get them to accept the insanity that comes with being human. I try to improve their social skills. And I try to stimulate the altruistic motive by having them give to others.
As a coach and psychotherapist, I also try to track patterns in the flow of these interactions, with their uneven phases and shifts, their stabilities and instabilities, their progressions and regressions, their repetition and novelty, and their often substantial uncertainty. Multiple ideas, fantasies, representations, relationship patterns, and feelings all merge, changing and transforming each other over time, and transforming their interrelations as well. I need to be constantly aware of the slightest transformations and calibrate them properly. I need to nudge my clients forward.
As a leader whisperer, I coax my clients to examine their lives in order to release their capabilities and help them function at their true potential. Too many people, however, cruise through their life without much reflection about their destination or purpose. I strongly believe that without reflection, these people are just stumbling in the dark, groping for a black cat in a dark room. It is here that leader whisperers can make a real difference, helping their clients to see things as they are, not as they wish them to be.