As financial coaches we see clients seek our services when they are experiencing some or other challenge and/or concerns that they cannot solve or see new possibilities for. For example, they get retrenched or battle to make ends meet.
Alan Sieler quotes psychiatrist R.D. Laing in Coaching to the Human Soul, Ontological Coaching and Deep Change, Volume 1:
“The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.”
As financial coaches, we are curious to help our clients expand their way of observing. This can also mean the expansion of their structure of interpretation. As our clients develop the way they observe the world, new possibilities open up to them.
Let’s explore the above figure and see how it notes how we can support our clients to explore new possibilities through first-order and second-order learning.
First-order learning is where we are observing and how the behaviour influences the results. An example could be that our clients are battling with managing their monthly income and expenses. During a consultation, it is clear that they do not use any form of budgeting. We take them through a process to work through their income and expenses and offer them an app or spreadsheet to help them keep track of it. It is through these steps that they learn the process of budgeting. In First-order learning, the focus is on how to change behaviour. Behavioural change is approached by adopting strategies, tools, techniques, and procedures.
As financial coaches, we are also curious to understand how our clients view the process of managing their money (2nd order learning). What mood or emotion is created by not managing their money? As it could be that their current financial situation or a past financial crisis can cause them shame or anxiety to budget. What assessments are they making around money and budgeting? For example, a client’s response may be, ‘We, in any case, do not have enough! We spend our hard-earned money on what is essential at that moment. Tomorrow will be taken care of.’ By exploring, with the permission of our clients, how their moods, body, and language influence how they see their finances and how they then act, we can help them explore alternative ways of observing and managing their money. Second-Order learning enables the client to observe and see differently.
In most cases, second-order learning also enables our clients to engage more effectively in first-order learning.
“People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.” Blaise Pascal
Challenge yourself for the next week to observe:
- Where you offer advice,
- Where you offer tools, techniques, and processes,
- Where you observe your clients’ way of being and offer coaching to explore how their current moods and language are possibly no longer serving them.
Bibliography
Sieler, A., 2003. Coaching to the Human Soul, Ontological coaching and deep change, Volume 1. 2007 red. Victoria: Publishing Solutions.
