Opinion: Is There Really Less to Coaching Than Meets the Eye?
Leadership consultant and executive coach Olivia Stefanino tests conventional wisdom to tease out whether current practice is in fact best practice.
As hot debate continues to rage over the thorny issue of what actually comes under the umbrella of coaching and what falls outside its remit, it's time to start being honest with ourselves.
But before we do, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it's only coaches who actually care about the semantics. Our clients, in the main, couldn't give a damn – they just know that they want someone to help them move from where they are to where they want to be.
Business development guru Peter Thomson neatly summed up the difference between what people think they want, and what they actually want when he once pointed out that: "When someone buys a drill, it's not a drill they really want. What they really want is a hole!"
And I guess it's the same with coaching. Clients aren't actually that bothered over whether the right coaching questions are asked – or even whether they're asked in the right order – all they really want is a mechanism that helps them achieve their goals.
"If coaching were only about 'asking the right questions and letting the client come up with all the answers' then a robot could do the job!"
Some – but not all - coaches pride themselves on the fact that they allow their clients to come up with all the answers. The idea is that the coach simply asks good questions and the client searches within himself for those responses that will help him best.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for using intuition and inner creativity, but for my money, this approach is simply abdicating the coach from any responsibility. It would, however, explain why there are so many people on the scene who – having completed a single weekend’s coaching course – now sport business cards boasting that they too are bona fide members of the coaching fraternity.
Don't you have more to offer your client than a list of questions? If coaching were only about 'asking the right questions and letting the client come up with all the answers', then a robot could do the job!
Within the industry, we encourage clients to feel comfortable with the coach they choose. While part of the comfort factor comes from a sense of rapport and knowing that the coach is there to act as a 'personal conscience' (reminding the coachee of their personal objectives and commitments), knowing that the coach has at least a smattering of understanding about the challenges facing them is also of high importance to the client.
Surely, the point is to bring to your clients the wealth of expertise you have – and by applying previous experience (and of course encouraging your client to do the same) to the current situation, the learning & development process for your client is streamlined. It's this level of expertise that corporate clients expect – and pay for.
To those coaches who would argue that this approach is actually better described as consultancy, I would simply say "nonsense"! When you’re brought into an organisation as a consultant, you’re there to do the work itself, or to bring specific advice to a particular project. When you’re brought into an organisation as a coach, you're there to work with the people who are there to do the work. It's an important distinction.
When we refuse to share our knowledge because 'we’re coaches not consultants', then everyone loses: the corporate paymaster, the individual coachee and ultimately the coach himself - whose credibility is soon diminished.
Of course, the focus of every coaching session must remain on the client. And when the client doesn't have direct experience of a particular situation, then the imagination becomes a powerful tool in the coach’s arsenal.
"Clients aren't actually that bothered over whether the right coaching questions are asked – all they really want is a mechanism that helps them achieve their goals."
While much can be learned from the past (isn't it interesting just how many CEOs rely on the oldest military treatise in the world: Sun Tzu’s 'Art of War'), it also worth inviting the imagination to play out a number of likely scenarios, just as Edward de Bono would encourage with his 'six hats' exercise. Engaging the imagination in this way once again enables a streamlined learning process.
Their life is in their hands – not yours! Of course, the client remains the final arbiter and decision maker – and it’s absolutely about helping him achieve what’s right for him. It goes without saying that it’s never about persuading your client to do what you’d do in his circumstances!
But refusing to let him benefit from a wider perspective is not only cruel but bordering on the criminal. If we apply the same logic to children, while we know that kids (and indeed adults) learn from their mistakes, it’s a rare parent who would be prepared to stand back and watch a child let his hand sizzle in a naked flame. In the same way that we have a responsibility to our children, we also have a responsibility to our clients – while of course not making the mistake of treating clients as though they were children.
When we get hung up on the debate about coaching v consultancy, we allow ourselves to be distracted from the outcome – and indeed the process – instead choosing to hang our hat on semantics.
And when we get distracted in this way, we're short changing our clients. Isn’t it time instead to start focusing on delivering all of our best stuff?
Author of the internationally acclaimed book, 'Be Your Own Guru', Olivia has proven her innovative leadership and coaching programmes within both blue chip organisations and SME’s over the last ten years. To download your free tips booklet, '127 ways to harness your personal power', visit www.beyourownguru.com
rus slater , 11 January 2008 @ 07:32 AM confuseddotcom!
a Quotation from Olivia's article says...
"To those coaches who would argue that this approach is actually better described as consultancy, I would simply say "nonsense"! When you’re brought into an organisation as a consultant, you’re there to do the work itself, or to bring specific advice to a particular project. When you’re brought into an organisation as a coach, you're there to work with the people who are there to do the work. It's an important distinction."
So a "consultant" is there to "provide specific advice"... ..whereas a "coach" "works with the people who are there to do the work"..
Olivia provides specific advice and insists that she is "coaching"
Sorry, I can't get my head around this "important distinction".
Wayne Mullen , 09 January 2008 @ 10:45 AM More than semantics
Olivia's articles describe her solving others' problems with her own advice and insights - based on her own frames of reference, assumptions and experience. This not coaching. Her method is not generative nor does it build the client's capacity to self-coach. Rarely does she encourage the client to consider the systemic.
In the following article http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=172163&d=680&h=608&f=626&dateformat=%25e-%25h-%25y she uses emotional blackmail to force her client into telling her daughters about her sexual abuse - "How will you feel if you discover that one of your daughters has been abused by your father – knowing that you could have prevented the situation by being honest?”. What about the clients other options? Confronting the father? Telling the police? Seeking professional help? Implying that the client would be dishonest if she didn't tell her daughters about her abuse isn't coaching - it's manipulating a vulnerable human being. Her articles demonstrate a lack of moral and ethical code in her 'coaching' practice. The client's shoulder pain has eased (a coaching assignment??) but an emotional can of worms may have been opened without the right support and intervention.
"As soon as Patricia had walked through the door, I felt an immense sadness – coupled with the feeling that something traumatic had happened in her past"
"Suddenly I began to understand the real message from her shoulder. Patricia was shouldering the responsibility for protecting her daughters – and her father. But she had left herself out of the equation and now her mind was asking her – through her shoulder pain – to deal with the situation."
“In reality, their lack of engagement has little to do with you and a lot to do with them” Olivia's comments wouldn't be out of place coming from a seaside psychic.
Whilst Olivia may be keen to share her 'wealth of experience' she might consider whether her clients have more wealth of experience in their own situations/lives/work than her and should be given credit for, and time to explore, their own creativity and resources. What Olivia describes is so ethically, morally, practically and theoretically removed from professional coaching, that I would question whether the column should be entitled 'Coach's Diary'. Wayne Mullen
rus slater , 08 January 2008 @ 16:55 PM knowing the drill!
"Business development guru Peter Thomson neatly summed up the difference between what people think they want, and what they actually want when he once pointed out that: "When someone buys a drill, it's not a drill they really want. What they really want is a hole!"
Not so....whan I BUY a drill I want the capability to make lots of holes, over a long and unspecified period of time. If I really only wanted A hole I'd HIRE a drill.. or a PERSON with a drill.
Yes, I know it was only an analogy but, being a man who owns (perhaps sadly) lots of drills, I couldn't resist being a pedant!
Garry Platt , 08 January 2008 @ 09:48 AM Coaching Standards?
An interesting development in relation to coaching (about which I am completely ambivalent) is the introduction of coaching standards which are now on the horizon and the possibility of regulation. The CIPD conference in London on the 17 and 18 October outlined the developing competency framework in this field. Mike Hurley, the chairperson for the UK’s standards committee and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council made the following observation: “Accreditation is a way of assuring that the services are meeting standards and that they are authentic.” David Lane the co creator of the Global Convention on Coaching and professor at Middlesex University predicts a single body in due course to represent the profession. This information was found in the ‘Coaching at Work’ magazine, Vol 3 issue 1.
Matthew Jennings , 08 January 2008 @ 09:35 AM What am I thinking?
This is a fair, strong article by Olivia. In my opinion coaches fall into two main categories. Those who have done a weekend course and treat coaching as part of a personal journey to their own enlightenment(having previously 'studied' Feng Shui, Reiki Healing, Hopi Ear Candles, Tarot, Stone Therapy etc) and those who have chosen coaching as a career, usually following a corporate career. The problem I have with the former is that they often don't have a clear agenda of their own for each coaching session, or even a fee structure (if they charge at all) becaus ethey are following their own agenda of self development - so there is confusion from the beginning. There is a slight element of 'guess what I am thinking?' For example they pose a question and wait for you to give an answer that matches the one in their mind (the 'correct' one). This doesn't really help much for my own goals. The corporate coaches strike me as either excellent or appaling, depending on whether they know how to really listen. I have experienced lots of coaching styles and have found that the most effective coaches are the ones that look for clear, defined results. If I have to spend a session explaining to my coach why I didn't call scary client number one, I find it is easier just to call the client instead. This is why coaching works - accountability for a course of action that has been chosen by the individual. The skilled coaches are the ones who find out what the course of action is that best suits the individual. Robotic questioning doesn't work for this. As Olivia says in her article 'It is absolutely about finding out what is right for him'. Coaches with their own agendas won't be able to do this effectively. 'Guess what I'm thinking?' just doesn't work. Overall I think coaching is an excellent addition to a training package and if the right coach is employed can work wonders. Matthew Jennings
Garry Platt , 08 January 2008 @ 07:39 AM Is the eye shut?
Olivia Stefanino wrote: “My point is that to be effective, we must ensure that we're CLIENT focused rather than coaching focused. Surely, no one can argue with that?”
I certainly wouldn’t argue with this. What I was aware of however when commenting on the author’s previous articles; ‘Coach’s Diary’ was the absence of virtually any explanation of how the ‘coaching’ techniques employed were achieved. The methods described appeared to be a mixture of mind reading, omniscient understanding of situations and directive instruction which resulted in relatively instantaneous positive outcomes. Examples of these techniques and results have already been referenced by me in this discussion thread.
It is these issues which principally don’t relate to any known form of coaching I am familiar with, hence my previous observations.
John Pope , 07 January 2008 @ 23:50 PM Great article
At last, an article an coaching which I can understand. I have coached senior managers and directors for over 30 years in the course of my work as a managwement consultant and what Olivia writes is all good common down-to-earth sense. No fancy concepts, no pseudo-pshchology, just plain sense - a rarity. Only point I would make is that the sort of consultancy I and many others do involves helping the clients do a better job, and if that isn't coaching I don't know what is. Thanks. John Pope
Juliet LeFevre , 07 January 2008 @ 19:21 PM Life coaching v therapy
Interesting definition in this piece about the difference between life coaching and therapy. I saw a recent article on London news about a life coach or was it a therapist who had been fined or jailed for crossing the line, befriending clients, invading their lives and taking over. He's then set up again as there was nothing to prevent him from doing so, much to the chagrin of this ex-clients.
I do think there is more to it than semantics and certainly a need for the 'legalistic' approach when ethics and psychology is at work.
Olivia Stefanino , 07 January 2008 @ 18:02 PM Maybe we have more in common that you'd want to believe!
It's very reassuring to discover that there are indeed coaches out there who DO believe that there's more to great coaching than simply asking great questions!
Sadly, I have come across a lot of people who do call themselves coaches (while, to be fair, not following the discipline as a full time career)who take a very "legalistic" approach about what is, and what is not, acceptable within the parameters of coaching.
My point is that to be effective, we must ensure that we're CLIENT focused rather than coaching focused.
Alistair McIntosh , 07 January 2008 @ 16:52 PM Scales fall from eyes in elightenment shock
Oo-er!
Garry, thanks so much for drawing my attention to these references. Had I been a more frequent visitor to these pages of late I might have understood the context better.
I used to contribute to this forum a few years ago but one of the reasons I stopped was that the debate seemed to have gone stale. I shall have to reconsider my position!
Even so, none of the articles you pointed me to cause me to change my opinion of the one I have commented on. I still think the so-called problem is a storm in a teacup and, while there are a few differences of opinion in the posts discussing the articles,it's not the earth-shattering crisis confronting coaching that the article suggests.
I agree that there is a difference between leading the client in a manipulative way and offering to give them ideas in an open manner but I still don't see anyone saying that the coach should never ever do anything other than ask questions. Methinks the lady (the author) doth therefore protest too much and it is still a weak excuse for an article. And, it is what is legitimate food for thought that seems to be the challenge to this particular author.
Alistair McIntosh , 07 January 2008 @ 12:32 PM Who says there IS less to coaching than meets the eye?
If this article was intended to stir us from our Christmas hibernation, it has worked very well on me!
But it feels like one of those articles the press are fond of where they invent a controversy and then proceed to systematically debunk it. It provides entertainment, it fills column inches but, in the end, it is not a real argument.
Who is actually saying that Caoching is only about asking questions and is never about the coach providing any of their own insights? I don't think anyone who has got as far as the GROW model, a fairly basic coaching concept, let alone beyond it, would defend that principle to the death. Even the GROW model, in its suggested list of questions a coach can ask includes 'would you like a suggestion from me?'. And then what about the use of psychometrics, feedback and so on that are tried and trusted coaching tools? I don't see the evidence for the argument being made. Calling it 'conventional wisdom'(as in the summary) doesn't give it any more weight.
Like many techniques, coaching approaches have to be tailored to the needs of the client and the situation so dogma such as 'Ask, don't tell' becomes a guide rather than an absolute.
So again, where are all these experienced coaches who are saying one can't go beyond asking questions? If the comparison being made is between experienced, qualified coaches and those who are not, then what is the actual problem? Alistair McIntosh
Leadership consultant and executive coach Olivia Stefanino tests conventional wisdom to tease out whether current practice is in fact best practice.
