We thus find a constructivism that is static and a process of restricted and restrictive professional coach that focuses on surfacing these stable, but often unacknowledged and very powerful, societal assumptions and beliefs. It is the role of the effective professional coach to challenge these assumptions and beliefs and to help clients trace out the implications of economically focused societal constructions for their own actions as members and even leaders of these societies and cultures.
As anthropologists and sociologists, professional coaches should understand something about the culture of their society—or of a specific organization. Along with Vikki Brock (Bergquist and Brock, 2008), I wrote about six unique cultures that exist in most contemporary organizations. Each of these cultures has its own stable construction of reality and is resistant to change. Professional coaches themselves dwell in one or more of these six cultures. Hence, they have their own biased perspectives that are created by and reinforced within these cultures. Thus, it is critical for professional coaches to not only help their clients become aware of their social constructions but also become aware of the ways in which they, as professional coaches, construct their own realities.
Static Constructivism: Contextual Interactions
While the objectivist perspective was prevalent during the modern era, and is still influencing our notions about “being,” the static constructivist perspective often played a role as counterpoint in 20th century social discourse. This static constructivism has been a source of many challenges that have upset the modernist stance on epistemology and ethics. Static constructivists have encouraged or even forced many of us to move from an absolute set of principles to a more situation-based relativism. The emergence of a constructivist perspective represents a revolutionary change in the true sense of the term
Language, narratives and self
Story and performance are hallmarks of dynamic constructivism. We live in a world of constructed realities that are constantly shifting. We live in a world of language, semiotics and narratives. Language is no longer considered simply a handmaiden for reality, as the objectivist would suggest, nor does it construct a permanent or at least resistant reality as the traditional social constructivists would argue. Furthermore, language is not a secondary vehicle we must employ when commenting on the reality that underlies and is the reference point for this language.
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