"Walk the ball" for a Different Perspective

"Walk the Ball" By Dr Tim Williams

Sometimes the people we support, get stuck.  This can be due to untrue assumptions they’re making about a situation, which are getting in the way (see March 2025 newsletter) and in the context of good rapport, we might invite them to challenge these. It can also be useful for people to look a fresh at a situation from a different perspective and that’s where the beach ball comes in!

You’ll notice in the picture that the ball has different coloured strips, so it will look different depending on which side you’re looking at.  If you held the ball up and asked different people standing at different positions around it to describe it.  One might say “it’s white and blue stripes”, another that “it’s red and white stripes” and yet a third would say “it’s definitely yellow and white stripes.” These are all correct from their perspective. Asking those same people to take step back and walk around the ball, would give them a different view and therefore perspective of the same ball. 

In coaching we know that people need good information for them to think at their best.  Good information, takes account of the whole situation (all the relevant facts - Nancy Kline calls it), not just the bit we can see in the first instance. Of course, we need to do this gently, as some of us have become accustomed to seeing a situation, from a particular perspective, for a long time and have got quite comfortable doing that.  However, we also know that welcoming ‘difference’ (another of Nancy Kline’s 10 components of a Thinking Environment), is key to thinking brilliantly.

This is therefore an encouraging invitation to “walk the ball”, not a demand that people see another point of view.  Once people have examined the situation afresh, the follow-up question might then be “Now that you have seen this situation from all these different perspectives, what do you think now?”

This is technique that people can use for themselves. Next time they get stuck, that can remind themselves to “walk the ball”.