Happy Christmas!

Taking risks in coaching

I was recently sitting with a coaching client who was giving me an update on how he had been doing since our last session - at some considerable length. He seemed to have lost the thread of his original story and he was now on the third sub-branch of his 4th point. Part of me was loosing the will to live, part of me was valiantly trying to follow his thread, but part of me was also curious.... is this what he is like with others?

Taking courage in both hands, this is more or less what I asked him. Do others struggle to follow his argument, had he noticed others disengaging as he speaks? And of course the answer was 'Yes'  and the door opened up to a richer and much more vital conversation between us.

When I work with developing coaches this is often one of the most challenging and risky aspects of coaching - using your own immediate experience of the client as part of the work. Firstly you have to be aware in the moment of how you are reacting to the client, secondly you have to get curious rather than judgmental about it, third, you have to get past your fears of being rude or impolite and lastly, take the risk and find a constructive way of calling it out.

Step 3 - getting past our fears, is often the most difficult. Being a 'talking by helping' profession, coaches like to frame themselves as supporters and helpers. Saying something potentially disruptive can work against our own self image. However my experience is that being 'useful' rather than 'helpful' can in the end be more valuable to the client.

Mastery in coaching (or anything)

I've been asked to speak at a conference this month in London on the topic of growing mastery in coaches, so have been reflecting on my own development as a coach and the work I do supporting coaches development as a coach supervisor.

In short, I find the topic of 'mastery' a slippery concept and difficult to pin down definitively. There is seems to be an assumption that mastery is achieved through accumulation - more experience, more tools,  more models ... just more. However, as big a danger for me, are coaches who fail to inspect their practice regularly enough. Over time we all develop habits of practice and habits of mind and we settle into a way of working which is familiar for us but not necessarily bringing all we can to our clients.

Dr. David Drake (Center for Narrative Coaching) suggest that mastery comes from four 'A's:

• Awareness - expanding our capacity to be be aware of ourselves, our clients, our relationship and the wider systems and organisations they come from
• Attention - knowing what to focus on in the coaching session and why. This comes from experience and the ability to spot the emergent patterns
• Adaptability - too many coaches over rely on one model/theory/tool, adaptability implies a genuine openness to re-examine the basis of our practice and work with feedback
• Accountability - coaches have a duty of care to their clients and a duty of performance to their organisations. Accountability means developing ethical and practice maturity.

In essence this is about about staying awake as a coach and holding our habits lightly.  Masters are not masters because they practice more, masters practice more consciously.

Join us at the Coaching Focus Knowledge Sharing event, 12th December 2014, at the Herbert Smith Freehills - City Gate House 39 - 45 Finsbury Square, London, 10.00-16.00. The booking link is here