One of the skills of coaching questions is “chunking down and chunking up”. Executive coaching also utilizes that skill, but let me introduce the “abstract and concrete skills” as a higher-order perspective.
Kojien defines it as follows
Abstract : the psychological action of grasping a thing or a representation without regard to any aspect or quality of the thing or representation.
Concrete : to have a whole, to have a special form or quality in an individual.
In other words, abstract is to focus on elements of things such as characteristics and attributes, and to represent multiple objects as a single thing, while concrete is to grasp things as entities without grouping them.
For example, consider the case where you are asked, “What is a dog?”.
If you love Shiba-chan and your dog’s name is “Shibachan,” an image of Shibachan itself may come to mind. That is concrete.
However, there may be people who dislike dogs to begin with and cannot think of a specific breed. If you imagine some “dog-like things” for the time being, including wolves, and then use the term “the most obedient animal to humans that is not a cat or something similar,” you can say that this is an abstract.
This difference in perspective can be helpful in a coaching session. What is the client focusing on when he or she thinks? And what are they not noticing?
When eliciting ideas, the flow of thinking can be organized by separating and hierarchizing purpose and means.
Consider sports. Baseball, soccer, volleyball, tennis… you might imagine these sports. Each one is concrete. However, they are all ball games, one group and one abstraction within the larger abstract concept of sports.
Therefore, we can change our point of view to “ball games that do not use a ball…”. As we repeat this discipline of thought, we deepen the abstract and the concrete, or transcend the boundaries of categories. New abstractions and concreteness may come into view.
The mission of the executive level is to develop the company, and they are always thinking about this. By incorporating “abstract and concrete” into the session and thinking about it together with the client as an executive, the possibility of opening up new perspectives will increase.
コーチング情報局を運営する株式会社コーチビジネス研究所では、企業を対象としたコーチング研修、ビジネスパーソンを対象としたビジネスコーチング、個人の方を対象としたライフコーチングを提供しております。その他、コーチングを学びたい方のためのコーチングスクールの運営、経営者やビジネスリーダー向けにセミナーを開催しています。興味や関心がございましたら、お気軽にご相談・お問い合わせください。
This article was written in Japanese and converted into English using a translation tool. We hope you will forgive us for any inadequacies.
Coach Business Laboratory, Inc., which operates the Coaching Information Bureau, provides coaching training for companies, business coaching for business people, and life coaching for individuals. In addition, we operate a coaching school for those who want to learn coaching and hold seminars for executives and business leaders. If you are interested or have any questions, please feel free to contact us for further information and consultation.
