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 'One hundred tellings are not as good as one seeing.'

          Off the press July 2007...

In 1996 St Luke's Innovative Resources published Scales:Tools for Change as a set of six pads with tear-off sheets. Each pad featured a simple line drawing that could be used as a visual metaphor to record parts of the change process.

The simplicity of the images, the colour and format of the pads had great appeal to many people, especially those with a visual learning style. The Scales pads were readily adopted as a tool by counsellors, therapists, children and family workers, youth workers, teachers, supervisors and others in diverse professional roles because they can be used to plot change very easily and thereby create new possibilities for change.

Scales was followed in 1999 by an additional set of eight pads with new images. Again, the feedback was that this enhanced range of visual prompts gave users more choice in finding a suitable graphic metaphor, thus making scaling accessible to a wider range of people.

As Howard Gardner has consistently argued in his theory of multiple intelligences, many people do not think, learn or interact with the world just through language. While linguistic and mathematical intelligences have traditionally been valued most in western societies, for countless people living both inside and outside these societies there are other learning and thinking preferences.

Gardner's theory made sense of our experience that creative arts in general, and visual imagery in particular, contained profound transformational possibilities. 

While acknowledging that the drawings printed on the pads are incredibly minimalist in their application of creative arts ideas to human services, we became convinced of the efficacy of people creating and using their own art and artifacts to help describe the challenges, joys, struggles and successes in their journeys.

These visual metaphors are very simple ways of ‘doing' art and creating artifacts that will probably never appear on the walls of art galleries. But they can and do appear on kitchen fridges, on notice boards, in client files, in journals, in reflective notes and in many other places.

By mid 2006 the scaling pads had well and truly proved themselves and continued to be popular. Yet the team at Innovative Resources also felt that the time had come for change to the change-recording tool itself! And so began the search for more versatile formats.

The Scaling Kit: visual metaphors for noticing change includes 10 scaling pads, each with 25 tear-off sheets. We selected eight of the most popular and versatile visual metaphors from Scales and Scales II. These have been redrawn and the pads redesigned to enhance their appeal and usability. In addition, two brand new visual metaphors (Ups and Downs and the rating Wheel) have been added. Finally, the user's guide has been extended and enhanced to include a greater array of suggested uses. Some of the suggestions have grown out of St Luke's practice and some have been offered by creative and inventive colleagues from around the world.

For those new to scaling, we hope you find something in The Scaling Kit that gives you the confidence to try scaling in your work with others. For those who have used the images from Scales and Scales II in the past, we hope you rediscover old friends, make new ones and find fresh ways of working with both the old and the new.

View this resource on our website

Scratching the surface  

I was chatting on the phone the other day to a senior secondary school teacher from Melbourne who was ordering some resources to use with her VCE students. Jenny told me a story about a psychology class she'd taught recently where she'd introduced the Deep Speak cards in an attempt to do something 'a little different' and create some conversation among some of the more reluctant students in the group.

'I thought, great,' she said, 'a set of cards with important, maybe even controversial, questions to really get them talking.' What actually transpired was both exciting and, as she puts it, 'a little frightening.'

'I wasn't prepared for the depth to which the questions would plumb, or the degree of honesty with which the students would respond. While it was a quite a bonding experience for the group, a couple of students in particular reacted strongly to individual questions: Have you ever felt things were out of control? and How do you cope when things fall apart?

'I realised how little I knew about the kids in my group. How much suffering can be going on unnoticed behind a calm and quiet exterior. The class spilled over into lunchtime. There were tears in some cases and thankfully the school's counsellor was available to have conversations with some of the students. As a consequence she has had ongoing contact with a number of them.'

Jenny finished by telling me that, above all else, the experience highlighted for her the responsibility that comes, not only with teaching, but with using conversation-building tools.

We feel the same responsibility at Innovative Resources when it comes to publishing materials, like Deep Speak, that have the potential to be life-changing. Our Director, Russell Deal, emphaises in his Travelling Toolshed workshops that when using metaphors, whether they be in the form of words or images, you don't have to scratch very deep or hard for profound meaning and powerful feelings to be let free.

Any hands-on tool needs to be used with care. None of us can predict how an image, a question, a phrase, or a single word for that matter, will effect another individual. How a tool is introduced, the timing of it, the trust and openess that exists, even the tiredness of the participants can have a profound effect on the outcome.

No set of cards is a panacea. None of Innovative Resources' tools come with a guarantee of usefulness. If one of our card sets doesn't work with any perceived success, this in itself could be a useful discovery about the dynamics of the tool, the group, the facilitator or the setting.

There are, however, questions you can consider before introducing any hands-on tool for conversation-building or critical reflection. Here are just a few:

What are the unknowns in this situation?    

Are my goals clear?

Am I relaxed, open and excited by this intervention?

Have I considered people's confidentiality?

Can everyone be respectfully included?

Do I believe in what I'm doing?

Can I imagine this tool making a difference?

John Holton

Read more about Deep Speak on our website

New on Our Shelf List...

John Holton

Choose Your Life

An interview with professional coach, Lindsay Tighe

‘You don't know what you think until you're asked the right question.'

Lindsay Tighe is the founder of Inspirational Coaching and the creator of the new card set, Choose Your Life. I spoke to her recently about what it means to be a coach, the inspiration behind the cards, and the power of questions.

Professional coaching is a relatively new phenominon - what does it mean?

I call myself a ‘professional coach' and this means I work with people in many contexts. I find that most people have some aspect of their life or work that can benefit from coaching. I've found that coaching can work in any context.

As a coach I'm trained to listen, to observe and to customise my approach to the individual client's needs. I seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client. After all, my job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has.

Coaching is a very strengths-based activity. I try to empower people to find their own solutions; their own answers. The results can be quite magical.

What led you to this kind of work?

I love people! Over my career I have consistently worked with people in customer service, human resources, training and, most recently, managing teams. I experience great joy watching others develop, grow and fulfill their potential. When I first heard about coaching I knew it would be a profession I would love. I've always tried to create environments where people feel safe and listened to, so coaching is something I get tremendous pleasure from.

I spent twenty years of my life in the corporate world pursuing a career – the lure of dollars – then one day I stopped to reflect on whether this was what I really wanted to do. I had a sense that I wasn't totally fulfilled and yet I was working hard and being very ‘successful' in the traditional sense. Through stopping and reflecting on my own life I realised that I no longer wanted to do the traditional ‘career' stuff. I walked away from it all to set up Inspirational Coaching. It is one of the best decisions I have ever made.

What was the ‘spark' for the Choose Your Life cards?

I wanted to find a way to reach more people and make a difference in their lives. I was aware that there are lots card sets out there that provide inspiration, but don't necessarily create change. My intention for the cards was to help people create new thoughts, as I know from experience that this can lead to positive change.

As an individual, there are only so many people that I can connect with personally during my lifetime, so the cards are a way of being able to touch lives without the need to meet people in person. I pursued the idea because I am driven to find more ways to inspire people and make a positive difference in the world.

Why do you think questions are so important?

Good questions can create new thoughts and challenge existing ones – in a nutshell, they make you stop and think. As Socrates said, ‘I cannot teach you anything, I can only make you stop and think.' This is what a good coach does.

Typically we have something like 60,000 thoughts every day, and tomorrow we will have something like 95% of the same thoughts again. This suggests that we find it hard to create new thoughts or find quality time for thinking. If we believe that everything starts with a thought, then not much changes in our lives unless we change our thinking. Questions are the most powerful way to do this.

I recently did some coaching with my 15-year-old nephew and afterwards he said to me, ‘You don't know what you think until you are asked the right question.' How right he is!

What is your hope for the card set?

My hope is to make a difference in the lives of as many people as I can.

Coaching is such a powerful way to create change. If I can help people to create new thoughts and generate original ideas then the potential for positive change in their lives is greatly enhanced. I believe that most people live their lives at ‘effect' rather than ‘cause'. I hope the Choose Your Life cards encourage people to take the driver's seat and create new possibilities.

View this resource on our website

I thought I was through. Uncurling from beneath a hard shell. Getting my inner-self into balance. But no, not yet. Three days ago I had a major epileptic seizure.

I was at a friend's birthday party. I left the world of reality – whatever that means – and went into limbo for five to eight minutes. I blacked out.

I feel shame, grief and anger at myself, for turning the screw in my brain that sucks me into its vortex. ‘Nearly four months since my last seizure,' I was going to report happily to my specialist. And now, BANG, begin the countdown again. Let go of the thoughts about reapplying for my licence and buying that car I saw for sale on the other side of town.

Breathe now. Accept that I am still stuck on the square that says ‘disabled due to immobility'. Go back to relying on the generosity of friends and neighbours for simple trips to the shops, drives to the city to visit my daughter, visits to people on the other side of town, outings to gigs, gatherings or parties, trips to the nurseries or my favourite thing of all – going camping.

So I start again. I crawl out of the shell, uncurl a green shoot and write honestly for the first time in a while. This is the way my world begins – first with a bang, then a whisper.

© Susanna Miller 2007