How Can I Avoid The Teaching Trap?

Ouch! I caught myself falling into the teaching trap yet again this week.

What’s the teaching trap? It’s a bit like the heffalump trap in Winnie The Pooh: a deep hole into which a passing heffalump is intended to fall, but which ends up trapping Pooh himself.

It’s a trap I first learned about in NLP training… then fell into again when I came across Clean Language… and again as I started doing lots of coaching… and again… and again… and again…

The teaching trap works like this. In most “problemy” situations, I’m sure you’ll agree, the best solution is the one which originates from the person or people who are affected. When people come up with their own solutions, they fit perfectly. The process of coming up with those solutions is empowering, develops capability and enhances relationships. It forces people to step outside of the Drama Triangle of victim, persecutor and rescuer, and to take adult responsibility for the whole situation.

But people affected by problems usually don’t think that’s what they need. What they say they want is a rescuer – someone who can come in and sort it all out for them; someone to tell them what to do and how to do it; a teacher. They’ve got a budget for that. And anyway, if they could solve their own problems, wouldn’t they have done it already?

And, as I’ve seen over and over as I’ve trained scores of Clean Language facilitators, most coaches, consultants etc initially think that the advice they give is where their value comes from. “How can I possibly charge money just for asking questions?” new facilitators ask. “Isn’t it like borrowing someone’s watch to tell them the time?”

It often takes a while, but with enough client feedback they realise that facilitation which helps people to find their own solution often provides many times the value of any advice. None of us is as smart as all of us.

And then a new situation appears; perhaps a lovely new client has money to spend on advice (but not facilitation). And… whoops! They’re back in the teaching trap.

Now I’m working with groups, helping them to develop their collaboration skills using approaches from Caitlin Walker’s book From Contempt To Curiosity. Being Clean-based, it’s a facilitative, rather than a taught, approach. Time and again, Caitlin flags up the teaching trap and offers ways to avoid it.

And yet, as I worked with a group who are beta-testing an online version, I tumbled into the teaching trap again – stepping out of my facilitator role and allowing myself to be invited into a “leader” position.

“Just because we’re using video-conference rather than being face-to-face, it would be helpful if Judy would take a stronger leadership position and say who should speak next…”

And I was caught! Curses – foiled again!

• What’s your view of the teaching trap? How does it catch you? And what helps you to escape? Please comment below.