Last week, I attended a workshop on coaching on complexity with Michael Cavanagh and David Lane.

As part of one of the activities, we were asked to reflect on our ‘coaching purpose’, i.e. why did we coach.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of work around this over the past few years and I thought my purpose was pretty clear. Short and sweet: I want people to see more. Why? Because as I constantly repeat “you can’t change, what you can’t see”. I feel seeing more is at the heart of self-awareness and at the beginning of every change journey. I want to help people stop coming in the way of themselves by not seeing what they do or what’s happening around themselves.

As we were exchanging notes on our respective purpose, Tim told me he didn’t think my purpose was being enough – his is ‘change the world, one person, one team, one organisation at the time’. Beyond my initial defensive reaction, I started giving this comment a bit more thoughts.

Why do I want people to see more? Sure, it’s because I want them to change and stop being in the way of themselves. But why do I want them to change? What are the assumptions and inferences behind this motivation?

First, this purpose implies that something needs changing, that things aren’t right the way they are. Although probably true in most situations, it doesn’t allow much acknowledgement and appreciation of current situations, it pushes for change.

Second, it implies that by seeing more, people can change or make different choices. Although valid again, it’s not necessarily true. There are many things we see and yet we can’t change sometimes because it’s too hard or sometimes because it’s not up to us to change these things. In these situations, seeing more can actually be quite frustrating and disempowering!

Third, it also somewhat implies that the solution will come from the seeing, that seeing is enough to understand and to act differently, that there is a linear relationship between the two, “when I see, I change”. Again, interesting but not necessarily true either as what we know from complexity theory is that in many situations, we are not governed by linearity, i.e. there isn’t necessarily a causality explaining a situation.

My purpose is now starting to feel shaken!

Why do I care so much about people changing? What do I think is wrong that I so badly want to fix?

And then the penny dropped!

I want people to see more because I want them to stop hurting…

I want them to better understand what’s happening around them so that they can see things in lights that are more conducive to harmony in their life. Too often we misread situations, we deem intentions to others that are wrong, we create beautiful stories that make us miserable and keep us stuck. I want people to open their eyes to see that behind a negative outcome, there might have been a beautiful intention that got derailed. By seeing more, we understand better and only when we understand better can we then tap into compassion. Compassion for ourselves, compassion for others.

So I guess, I want people to see more because I want to create more harmony in this world, more love I guess…

Now that feels like a big enough purpose, don’t you think?