At Seven Stones we have developed a highly relational way of getting paid that we view is inside of sufficiency. Gina invented the Fee Narrative, which describes the different levels our clients can pay us, which includes the possibility of exchange, where we and our client create a way to feel good about services rendered, and it’s usually outside of the system of currency.
Exchange as a form of payment has lovely attributes – it’s a way to explore relationship, to stay in a conversation of what is working and even more than currency exchange, I believe, keeps the door open for evaluating the services themselves. With money, we can fall asleep to attending to the relationship aspect because “it’s been handled” with the cash.
In an exchange I am currently in with a client, the aspect of the giving back for coaching had begun to fall away. My project had changed focus and I did not offer a new project for this person to contribute to. Time went on, and so did the coaching, and then I reached a threshold for the exchange and invited us to do an evaluation – both on the coaching itself and the aspect of the exchange.
Our client felt emotionally stimulated by this invitation. She recognized our being out of balance, that she too had let the exchange slide and was now “in debt”. Our conversation explored Right Exchange and Right Relationship (click the link to read her journal writing about these). I presented the idea that inside of exchange experimentation is the context, and we were having to adjust our experiment. No one was wrong! No one was in debt.I had noticed the balance tilted too far for me and that was the inspiration for the conversation that I intended would re-balance us.
We continue to explore Exchange 2.0 – going beyond the simple an-hour-for-an-hour or a sense of obligation, but also getting real about value and energy. So far, this has been stimulating too, evoking new coaching themes on which to focus. I appreciate this category of payment for its innovation, intimacy, deep trust and honesty.