Being helpful vs being useful

 I was reminded last week by the wonderful systemic facilitator, John Whittington, about the difference between being useful and being helpful.   Lots of people (including myself) got drawn to coaching because of a desire to make a difference in the lives of others, and to be of service to others. This positive intention can then get translated into a wide range of behaviours, some of which are not useful to the client even if they are helpful.

The coach that takes too much responsibility for the client's change process ultimately does the client no service. For example, I was recently talking to one of my coaching supervisees, who had got into the habit of taking the actions for her client after coaching sessions and was wondering why the client wasn't taking much responsibility or action between session. The simple signal of taking the action list unintentionally said to the client that the responsibility sat with coach not with herself. While the coaches intent was to be entirely helpful it wasn't useful

If the client does not take full responsibility in their lives, then a coach who props this up or colludes with this might be giving the client what they want but not necessarily what they need. Being helpful is all too often about pleasing others and being liked, rather having the difficult or courageous conversations about what is really going on. Speaking the truth to a client isn't easy but it is always useful.

Coaching as a sticking plaster?

Don't get me wrong, but sometimes I wonder about the motivation of some organisations when they buy in coaching services. Are they genuinely using coaching as a way of growing their people, or as a sop to mask other problems?

I was recently asked to work with several leaders in a rapidly expanding organisation, however it be rapidly apparent that all of them were working seriously crazy hours and seeing too little of friends and family to be healthy. I guess if I had been working with just one of them this pattern wouldn't have been so apparent. As it was I began to suspect that the development agenda extended beyond working with these individuals and starting to point at more structural issues. The company had survived a traumatic start-up where it had nearly gone bust but now, several years on, was still working flat out just as if it was about go under. Resource levels still reflected the old way of operating, despite the fact that the organisation was now highly successful and very profitable. Endemic workaholism and stress was the net result.

In coaching, the focus is very much on the person sitting in front of you. As  result I've been working with my coachees on the way they are working and helping them to find a more functional work/life balance. However a bigger conversation is needed with the Exec about their style of managing, the strategy of the organisation and the resources required to deliver it. Yes, coaching can help individuals to work differently and take responsibility for how they show up, but it also needs to support individuals to have the difficult conversation required in the broader organisation. It is all to easy for coaching to be non-systemic and fall into the trap of being a sticking plaster on broader organisational issues.

Awkward triangles

I've been caught a few times in my coaching career in an 'awkward triangle'. By this I mean situations where the commissioning client and the coaching client have relationship problems. Both sides try to enrol you in their point of view and expect you to side with them against the offending party. It is not often clear where the 'truth' of the matter lies (usually somewhere in the middle), and it is easy for a coach to get trapped between the warring factions. This triangle can be doubly awkward when it is a boss-subordinate relationship, and there is the assumption that the boss has the total 'truth' of the situation

I find the Karpman 'drama' triangle' a useful way of explaining, at least to myself, what is going on. Both parties see each other as the 'persecutor' and themselves as the 'victim'. The coach is cast into the role of 'rescuer', a role they are bound to fail at particularly if they get seduced into taking sides.

I've found that the only way of escaping this triangle, is to refuse to enter into it in the first place. Both clients have to know that you are not there to play 'agony aunt' and that your concern is for the overall functioning of the individuals and the organisations they get paid by. The work is therefore to help the clients have direct and open conversations and step out of the picture. Now that is not necessarily as easy to achieve as to say....

Here's a link to some background on the drama triangle in coaching relationships

Who shouldn't coach?

Now this is a tricky question! As you probably know, i) everyone seems to want to be a coach these days and ii) there are absolutely no barriers, other than those self-imposed, to becoming one. So it is perfectly possible to set yourself up in business with no qualifications, experience, supervision, or talent for the work.

It's also not an unknown phenomena for people in need of help themselves being attracted to the role of supporter /developer/ rescuer. There seems to be a sort of unconscious logic that says 'If I can help someone fill a whole in their life, that will fill a gap in mine'. And of course it doesn't work, as the agenda becomes about the 'coach' and their needs, not the client. Our clients often don't know what 'good looks like', and there just isn't enough feedback on practice from robust reliable and experienced sources.

Coaching has a long way to go to become a recognised profession, however we can all start by insisting on professional and ethical practice. Next time, for example, you speak to a coach who doesn't think they need supervision ask them what makes them so special.

Coaching in different cultures

I've been asked to speak at a conference on London in March on the topic of coaching across different cultures. This always seems to a bit of a hot topic for many coaches and my guess is that this might speak to our sensitivities and uncertainties about working with people who are (very) different from ourselves.

I think is very easy to reduce the discussion of culture to a discussion of crude stereotypes.... Italians are voluble and excitable... Americans are loud... and all Brits have stiff upper lips.  A much more useful characterisation of culture is Hofstede's work on cultural dimensions and it can be eye-opening to compare ourselves with other nationalities. Have a look at the Hofstede website to see what I mean.

And of course any description of national culture obscures a whole load of variation. Just because I'm a Brit doesn't mean I'm reserved .. at least not all the time. To understand the individual sat in front of us for coaching means considering a whole pile of factors including their personality type, their organisational culture as well as their national culture.. and that is just for starters. However underneath that complexity, strangely the more you get to understand an individual the more you see their similarities not their differences.

Vive la difference!

Getting the shift - using pivot points

What does it take to 'get the shift'. Coaching clients all to often show up for coaching with best intentions of making changes in their lives and relations, but somehow never making them. The change becomes overwelmingly difficult - "If it wasn't for my difficult boss... I'm not the sort of person .. my unrelenting workload" - and the conversation stops being about bringing about change so much as justifying why any change is impossible.

Getting the client to the point where they make a real and sustainable change is therefore a challenge and a dilemma for a coach. Some coaches in their anxiety to make a difference, resort to using their personal energies to get the client over the line, forgetting that once they leave them they are likely to fall back to their habitual ways of being.

Dr David Drake  (Centre for Narrative Coaching) has an interesting technique that helps here. He talks about the notion of 'pivot points', effectively choice points in a clients life where they have to two possible course of of action - one aligned with their desires and one aligned with their status quo. Change is then about recognising and choosing a particular path in the moment . For example "I can give my opinion or I can keep quiet" when I'm faced with a threatening situation. What's great about this approach is it reduces what might seem an overwelmingly impossible change into a series of small and simple in the moment choices... which is what life is composed of anyway.

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

Breaking the seal

Confidentiality is a central tenet of the coaching relationship - without belief in confidentiality the client is unlikely to open up and talk about what is really going on for them.  If they find we have blabbed to the HR department about what has been said in a coaching session they are unlikely to come back for another session, never mind trust us again! Confidentiality is therefore key to effective working.

Yet confidentiality cannot be an absolute and I don't think we should guarantee it to clients. For example, like most professional coaches I have my own coaching supervisor and sometimes I need to talk about my cases with her - its part of the deal of keeping me working at my best. Clients therefore need to know that I might be talking about them - or at least my response to them - to someone else. Usually this is not a problem as long as I explicitly let them know that this might be a possibility as part of the up front contracting process. Clients often seem less bothered by confidentiality issues than I do!

However there are times and eventualities that cannot be foreseen and pre-empted by the initial contract  e.g questions of legality, safety, health, impact on others etc. In such (unusual) circumstances I would always encourage my client to 'break the seal' themselves and have the outside conversations that need to be had. Fortunately in 20+years of working with clients this has always been enough to move the situation on and I've never had to break confidence myself.

Coaching in the East

I have the pleasure of working with leaders from around the world and am always struck how conceptions of leadership vary depending on cultural background. I've just come back from a week's stint in Singapore working with a cross-section of leaders from across Asia and noticed how much we assume Western European notions of coaching and leadership are shared and understood globally.

Coaching, at least non-directive coaching, is predicated on the idea that boss and subordinate can have adult-adult conversations, in which the ideas of the subordinate are valued and encouraged. However in East, the relationship between leader and subordinate is much more deferential (and respectful) ... did you know that a subordinate in Japan would never initiate a handshake but must wait for the boss ? This means, for example, that open coaching questions can be met with incomprehension and anxiety rather than as an invitation to creative thought.

Does this mean that coaching won't work in the East? While these cultural impediments exist, the organisational culture and expectations are also hugely important in shaping leadership behaviours. It is just not as simple as saying one cultural group is ripe for coaching and another isn't. The group last week while initially mystified were ultimately keen to give coaching a go with their teams.

Outstaying our welcome

In my recent travels around the coaching world, I heard two stories from client organisations that troubled me. Both stories concerned external coaches who were still working with the same clients some years on from the original contract

To my mind as a coach supervisor, this sort of issue is potentially unethical and could give the rest of the coaching industry a bad name. The whole premise of coaching is that we are supposed to be helping our clients to be come more autonomous and capable, rather than creating a potentially dependent relationship between coach and client. Yes, I get that not all coaching issues 'fit' neatly into the typical 6x 2hour formula and that occasional extensions are required, however to be working with the same client years later is very questionable.

Cynically you might say that this is just coaches' driving up their billable hours.  I also think that clients can too grow to fond of their coaches and the time away from the fray that these sessions represent. However in the long run we do neither our clients, ourselves or our industry any good, and we must all take care not to stay beyond our welcome. If in doubt, talk to your coaching supervisor!

Habits of mind and action

It is a curious phenomena that the act of talking out our problems with someone else (eg. a coach) often seems also to shift the problem - ' a problem shared is a problem halved' as the old saying goes. However it appears that this phenomena is more that just unburdening ourselves of a problem. Recent developments in neuroscience are starting to help us understand a lot more about the structure of 'thinking' and what it takes to change our thinking.

Neuroscientists  are suggesting that a 'thought' is merely a pathway of neural connections that have been forged in the brain. A bit like a ski path in the snow, the more we think in a particular way, the deeper that pathway gets, and consequently the harder it is to shift. We develop habits of mind as well as of action. If you've ever been stuck with a problem you will probably know the feeling of being stuck in a rut you can't get out of.

Talking out a problem with someone else literally can jump start our thinking process, forcing us to think down different pathways and come up with new possibilities. Great coaches are skilled at testing for habitual ways of thinking and catalysing new thought processes. While research suggests it can very difficult to shift old habits (of thought or action), forming new habits  is a whole lot easier. Overall good news I thought!

Paradox of feedback

I spend a fair amount of time taking to leaders about how they and others see themselves on the back of 360 degree feedback (aka multi-rater feedback). In general terms people seem to fall into three broad comps: firstly there are those who have an over-inflated view of themselves relative to others, secondly, the 'under-inflaters', and lastly, those whose self image aligns pretty closely to others.

The 'over' and 'under-inflaters 'give coaches different challenges:  'over-inflaters' often selectively pick up on positive messages that confirm their self-perception, rationalising away contrary messages. The coaching role is therefore to 'hold up the mirror' squarely and robustly to let a more balanced message in. For 'under-inflaters ' the coaches role is reverse, helping the client see a more positive and rounded view of themselves even if they cling to a negative view.

These reactions can be neatly explained with an understanding of the 'self-consistency' and 'self-enhancement' motives - terms coined by social psychologist Dr Roy Baumeister. We all need a consistent or enduring sense of ourselves, and some of us need to feel we are better than the next man (or woman). For those with inflated self-esteem both motives apply, whereas for those with low self-esteem the consistency motive wins out - its less anxiety provoking to believe bad things as long as it is the same things!.

So as coaches we have an interesting paradox to contend with when debriefing 360 feedback - instead of increasing self knowledge and awareness we may inadvertently help people confirm their existing (erroneous) self-image rather than challenging it. Coaches need to have their wits about them to spot the give away signs and be prepared for some challenging conversations!

Being 'triggered'

In an ideal world, we would all get on with our coaching clients, however, frankly, there are times when the 'chemistry' just doesn't work. Clearly, if this happens we shouldn't even consider taking on the relationship in the first place. Tough I know for those of us whose livelihood depends on billing coaching hours and it can be tempting to try to give life to a working relationship in the hope that it will come good. On the whole my advice is simple -- 'don't' - a poor relationship at the start is unlikely to get any better without major surgery.

However there are times in an established relationship when we can find ourselves strongly and negatively reacting to the client - I like the term 'triggered'. It is as if something in the relationship has shifted substantially. This may be as simple as a clash of values - the client holds a perspective that we can't , or it may be something more subtle or ill defined. At one level this may be useful data that is worth putting (sensitively) on the table for discussion, at another it may indicate we can no longer operate from an appropriately emotionally detached stance.

So if you suddenly find your self reacting to your client, or interpreting their words/deeds in a consistently negative light, it is probably time to take it to your coaching supervisor to sort out what exactly is going on.. and what you can do about it.

The gap between deciding and doing

Too often I find with coaching clients that the hard part is not deciding what to do (although this can be hard enough), the really hard part is taking that decision and translating it into a change. Just think of the number of New Year's Resolutions that are dust within a matter of days* and you'll know what I'm talking about!

It's easy to get into self-damming when we see yet another resolution falter - "I'm not determined enough" or "I have no will power or "We are rubbish at change management around here". However Robert Kegan (Harvard professor of Adult Learning and Education) prefers to talk about our in-built  resistance to change. Kegan reckons that we all have a change 'immune system' that helps us to repel change... even change we deeply and sincerely want for ourselves

Kegan's work has explored the idea of competing commitments. These are the (often unconscious) beliefs and assumptions that work against changes we might want to make. Kegan believes that unless we can surface and test these competing commitments changes we make in our lives are likely to be superficial or short lived at best. Food for thought for anyone serious about helping individuals and organisations to change.

He's a great speaker so here he is talking about his ideas (starts at 46secs):

* On average our New's Year's Resolutions last just 24 days

Leaving it in the past - issues in coaching

I'm very clear as a coach that I am not a counsellor or therapist. I don't have permission, training or  expertise to go delving about in someone's past. However I'm equally aware that sometimes the roots of present day issues brought into coaching conversations lie in the past.

Take Peter as an example (obviously all specifics are changed!). He is way too nice for his own good - he ends up taking on too much work for others and usually puts his own needs last. He's come to coaching to work on his assertion skills. He's also very aware that this stems from his difficult childhood where pleasing his parents was his default strategy. Knowing this however doesn't help him show up differently at work. He sighs and says something along the lines of 'That is who I am...'.

This is a conundrum for a coach. To what extent is a difficult past a rationalisation for not talking responsibility in the present? Do you take the conversation into discussion of the past in an attempt to undo past wrongs? Or is the work more about acceptance and looking to the future?  To my mind the only legitimate choice is to help the coachee recognise the impact of past experience on the present and help them work out if they want different choices for the future. Do they want keep re-reading the last chapter or start writing the next?

The either/or trap

I'm sitting today with a new coaching client - a likeable man in a demanding job, but stuck in the 'either/or trap'.  On one hand he wants to move on in his career but isn't sure he's got what it takes, but on the other hand he feels a sense of duty to his team, but loathes the culture of his organisation. He's in the 'either/or trap' - stuck between two equally unpalatable choices, expending massive mental energy but not getting anywhere or making any decisions.

The 'either/or trap' is a classic dilemma that often presents itself in coaching conversations. Curiously enough the client will often show you this dilemma with their body language as well as their verbal descriptions - literally holding the two halves of their problem in their hands. This is a tip-off that the client has made the assumption that they only two choices, and the trick (if indeed it is a trick) is to help them step outside of this self-created mental limitation. This could be looking for a third way forward, or perhaps a compromise between their choices or... or...

Listening for the assumption - skills of coaching

One of the least useful pieces of advice I was given in my early career as a manager was 'Don't assume". Surely if I'd know I was assuming I wouldn't have done it! Assumptions are almost by definition outside of our awareness - they are simply the water we swim in. We develop habits of mind as well as habits of action, as a way of short cutting life's routines. After all, if we had to re-decide all our decisions everyday, including which side of the bed to get of, we really wouldn't get much done. However many of our assumptions - our habits of mind -  as well as being invisible, are simply outdated, have ceased to serve us and need revision.

On our own it is often very difficult to see what is an assumption and what is fact, so one of the more useful ways a coach can serve us is to help us see our assumptions afresh and give us the chance to do a bit of much needed rewriting.

We've all probably been taught about active or deep listening - and many of us have got very good at this. However an under-developed skill in coaching I believe is 'listening for the assumption'. I have been surprised how many times in my coaching practice the real shift often comes when we can surface and explore the nature of the assumptions that are being made by the client.

Taking our own medicine?

If you move in coaching circles it can't have escaped your attention that coaching supervision is considered the 'done thing'. All the professional bodies speak of it as an essential element of good practice, and (rightly) refuse accreditation if a coach hasn't adequate support. Possibly more importantly, purchasers are increasingly insisting on it and see it as a hall mark differentiating the professional coach from the amateur.

So how come the up take of coaching supervision is so poor (if admittedly slowly improving)? Maybe it is the cost, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there is more to it than that and wonder if it is about revealing our practice to another who will potentially find us wanting. (The term 'supervision' doesn't help here! ) So much of coaching happens behind 'closed doors' and to let another in can be daunting. Or perhaps it about 'problematisation' - I notice many supervisees report 'nothing to talk about' when what they actually mean is 'I'm not stuck with anything' at the moment and therefore don' t want take up my time. Interestingly whenever they start to talk about their practice it is always a rich and often developmental conversation that ensues.

I value my time with my own coaching supervisor hugely and find our conversations a vital source of support and continued challenge to my practice as a coach. However, more than that, I feel that if I ask my clients to reveal themselves to me it is only fair that I am prepared to do the same. Perhaps if we called it 'coaching the coach' we would be more prepared to take our own medicine?