How to Coach Yourself and Others Popular Models for Coaching | Page 151

Stage Two – Relation Mapping
In the coachee’s story, the coach attempts to identify his or her
coachee’s aspirations, values, hopes and dreams, which give
them a sense of purposes that is more consistent with their
desirable self-identity. However, the evidence that appeared in
the story told might very often be in thin traces. Borrowed from
the anthropological theory of Geertz (1973) Michael White
(1997) spoke about „thin description‟ as in contrast to the
foreground dominant storyline („thick description‟).
The coach needs to identify any „unique outcomes‟ that might
have been neglected by the coachee, and yet these neglected
events and their unique outcomes may help the coach and
coachee to co-construct the alternative story lines. The coachee
may give many examples of failure (thick description) to
support their negative story line. The coach may ask the coachee
to think about any exceptions in their experience that constitute
a successful outcome (counterplot).
This counterplot provides „a poi