Reflections on Couples Coaching with the Grip/Birkman Blueprint

By Steve Potter, GBB Trainer who has started Coaching for Change

During the mid-April Grip/Birkman Users Group meeting, Lois Hoogeveen presented a model for using the GBB as coaching tool for couples.  She provided a description of her process and a guide which she put together as a result of her experiences with couples.  It contained both preparation questions for the couple and coaching questions for each section of the Grip/Birkman Blueprint which focus on the marriage relationship. 

Lois’ presentation and tool gave me the confidence to venture into coaching a couple very close to me, a great chance to test out Lois’ guide. I knew there were limits to what I might accomplish as a coach, yet I also knew there was power in the GBB which could make a start for them in growing their marriage.  So I offered them a gift of the GBB.  Little did I realize how much of a gift it would be.

COUPLE #1.  My first insight in this experience was that the GBB provides an objective and non-threatening picture of the differences among us, and it enables a constructive conversation about those differences.  As the WE begins to honor the differences which each I brings to the WE, the I’s can build strategies for stewarding the differences into a stronger WE.

But what about differences that are so far apart and completely unappreciated, even discounted as valid behaviors?  When coaching this couple through the Lifestyle Grid, they discovered that her lower right-corner Blue and his upper left-corner Red interests were unappreciated by the other.  They realized that these were strengths and could provide a basis for contributing to the success of their life and work together.  They are now building strategies around expanding both their home business and new weekend activities in which they each can express their diverse interests.  What now seems amazingly simple to do, they were blind to before seeing distinctive pieces from their Birkman Foursome.

A second major insight came in comparing their eleven Birkman Components. They were able to build some very useful planning tools in their daily routine which satisfied their need for structure and time for managing the unplanned changes to their full routine containing home schooling and home businesses.  The insights gained into their needs revealed both similarities and differences they had not previously understood with the clarity needed to develop behaviors that supported each other’s most effective style.  They were so excited by this that they created a document containing all the actions they planned in order to provide the best needs environment for each other’s most effective style.  They really got the idea that their best would come out when they effectively created an environment supportive of each other instead of trying to fix each other.

COUPLE #2.  Gaining confidence, I offered to do GBB coaching for a pastor friend and his wife.  After exploring their Gifts Triangles, I asked them to also look at their Birkman Organizational Focus.  In the resulting dialogue, it became clear that they had a significant ministry calling together, beyond being a couple with the wife supporting the husband’s vocational ministry calling.  Their most powerful insight came when they saw their gift mooshing move their Dotted Diamonds into overlapping fans in the green quadrant.  Approaching retirement in a few years, they realized that the mission field where they met would become their calling in retirement from their current vocations.  This insight was a powerful moment to watch as they previewed their future in ministry together.

Through this new arena of working with couples, I have experienced a new depth of understanding the power of the GBB in our growth from I to WE through being obedient to God’s prompting to coach a couple very close to me.  That experience and the guiding Lois provided at the User Group have been a blessing as I now coach other couples through their GBB and to new depths in their relationship.