Using the Dialogic Orientation Quadrant (DOQ) as a Listening Compass
Did you catch Haesun Moon's engaging and informative Coaching.com talk, "Mastering the Craft: Coaching Supervision and Metacognition" on Jun 13, 2024?
In it she introduced her 2x2 listening compass called the Dialogic Orientation Quadrant (DOQ).
Quick breakdown:
The compass is a 2x2 matrix for noting the language people use in describing events.
✨ Top Right: The Preferred Future (positive, future-focused)
✨ Top Left: The Resourceful Past (positive, past-focused)
✨ Bottom Left: The Troubled Past (negative, past-focused)
✨ Bottom Right: The Fearful Future (negative, future-focused)
I love this framework and how it helps highlight time spent in positive and negative narratives. Haesun walked us through how she uses it as a supervision tool mapping coaching responses across the quadrants. I had a client right after her session and used it while taking notes.
The DOQ allowed me to gain deeper insights and have a graphical representation of the session. My client's narrative fell mostly in the future quadrants, with one item in the Troubled Past. Since then, I've used it with two other clients and was excited to not only see different patterns but also to start playing with the types of questions I was asking.
Below is a condensed example of mapping a narrative about a business challenge.
✨ The Preferred Future: wants the next project to go well, planning positive next steps, planning communications
✨ The Resourceful Past: learnings from past projects, learnings from positive past collaborations
✨ The Troubled Past: challenging previous project with one team member
✨ The Fearful Future: X won’t listen, X won’t collaborate
It’s been interesting to notice how much time a client spends on a particular part of the narrative and time spent in the different quadrants.
I recommend Haesun's book, "Coaching A to Z: The Extraordinary Use of Ordinary Words." She provides a concept, story, and reflection questions for each letter. For example, “Already - what are you already doing to move in that direction?” I love this concept of focusing on the progress made. It aligns perfectly with my positive coaching style.
I have also started to adopt preferred future instead of ideal future in my coaching. Preferred feels more proactive to me whereas ideal feels more directive.
Self reflection: What narratives are you telling yourself? What narratives do you tell about yourself? If you breakdown your narratives, where do most of the pieces fall in the DOQ? How do you feel about it? Do you want to make any changes to any of your narratives?
I'd love to hear your thoughts!
