Coaching and its side effects

In the Sunday Times bestseller, ‘The Thursday Murder Club’, author Richard Osman has penned a great line that for me sums up what coaching is all about. He says, “It’s great to be the fastest runner, but not when you’re running in the wrong direction." Coaching for me is divided into two things

• Enabling you to run faster and faster incrementally till the time you are the fastest possible.
• Ensuring that you are running in the correct direction.

On the other hand, coaching results can broadly be classified into

The Direction: A coach asks you questions, which helps the clients introspect and have a conversation facilitated by the coach. By asking open-ended non-leading questions, the Coach enables the clients to get into a thought providing a creative process that inspires them. The questions are simple – but the answers given are impactful allowing the clients to take control of their lives. By ensuring that the client is the one giving the answers, the coach guides them through a transformative process that enables the client to own the conversation and creates a larger buy into whatever the content of the conversation was.

Conversations such as these enable clients to see clearly and understand if the direction or path that they are on is correct or if any course correction is needed. This leads to the first A - Awareness aspect of Coaching. The awareness that what they are doing is correct, incorrect, or maybe they are clueless about the direction itself. Running in the wrong direction or directionless is very dangerous but not knowing that one is doing so can compound the effect of this incorrect behaviour. Knowing that one is wrong can help course-correct before the damage becomes irreparable and causes a shutdown.

?Running faster each day: In today’s competitive world, leaders, and everyone else in the organisation is expected to run a lot faster than the previous day. We all know that without practice competing in the Olympics is not going to result in a gold medal. Practising with a great coach can help the athlete aim for the gold medal. Similarly, working with the coach can make you accountable and give you clear goals to run faster each day. This is where the second A of coaching comes into play – Action. The client through conversations can figure out solutions that result in actions that help increase their pace in various areas.

A sense of clarity: What happens if one knows the direction and is running at a good pace. This is the third A that comes into play in the form of Acceptance. The third A is the result of intense conversation with us, facilitated by the coach that helps in reaching clarity of the fact that one is doing as best as one can and further increment of pace will only happen if some external circumstances change. This sense of clarity is very important as without this one can keep running and never reach the goal for the goal continues to progress further.

A hunt for answers: In life – both personal and professional, we are often intrigued by personal questions that we cannot seem to find the answers to. In these times having a conversation along with a coach helps open doors that we did not know even existed. One of these new doors can often lead to answers to the erstwhile unanswered questions. Coaches follow a policy of never suggesting any solutions. It is this approach that makes it different from mentoring and training. By virtue of the fact that the coach while being involved in the whole conversation is yet merely a facilitator, makes sure that all solutions that the client comes up with are their own. This ensures the client takes ownership of the discussion and any solutions that come out of the coaching session.

Coaching is not for those looking for a quick fix: While each session of coaching will result in Awareness, Acceptance or Action, it needs to be clearly understood that coaching is not a quick fix solution to any problem or issue. While actions taken out as part of the exercise might result in solutions being discovered, Coaching is more of a long-term approach activity. An ideal Coaching engagement lasts between 7-10 sessions or more and requires commitment from the client to both be open during the conversation and act upon the insights that are arrived at as part of the sessions.

Coaching has no rear-view mirrors: Coaching is a forward-facing activity. What this means, is unlike in Therapy, it does not dwell on the past but looks forward. While some of the discussion does have elements for the client to go over what happened in the past, the majority is on actions for the future. The coach enables the client to think about their capabilities and use them to get clarity or overcome the challenges. It is the process of discovery that makes coaching like a car where the rear-view mirrors do not exist.

Incremental improvements: There are few places in life where drastic changes happen. These are major milestones accompanied by events that change the course or direction of our life. Most other improvements are incremental in nature – small changes that have a compounding effect. Working with a Coach helps the client discover these improvement areas thus contributing to incremental changes via SMART goals.

All about the client: As a coach, everything we do is for the client and based on the client needs. The sessions are all around the client. The discussions revolve around the client needs and the entire engagement is focused on the clients needs. These could be the long terms goals of the engagement, or the immediate issues as outlined by the client at the beginning of the session on the day. The key understanding that the client is most important sets the scene for the entire engagement.

Find you AHA moments: Coaching is a very revealing and introspective process which at times leads to an AHA moment for the client. While a big AHA moment may not happen in each session, in my experience both as a client and as a coach is that there are always some aha moments for the client during the session. These aha moments lead to self-realisation which enable improvements.

Going into deeper self: In our day to day lives, we are surrounded by a cacophony of stimuli – sound, smell, visuals. These stimuli sometimes do not allow us time to introspect, reflect and connect with our subconscious mind. Coaching is a process where the client can detach from such external stimuli and try and delve deeper into the subconscious mind to look for indicators, answers, etc. The exercises that coaches use help this connection and guided by the coach, the client can reach places of his subconscious mind that were erstwhile closed for direct access. Going into the subconscious mind also helps the client conclude about certain kind of reasonings that they might have to certain subjects.

Power or repetition: As a coach, one of the key things taught to us to repeat what the client has said verbatim. This means we are taught not to paraphrase and use the client’s exact words. In doing so, the client gets to listen what he/she has said and there is no chance of distorting the meaning of the what the client has said. This constant repetition forms an important of coaching as it keeps the client and coach connected with the conversation. This is also a great way to show to the client that we are actively listening to their every word.

Concept of neutrality: Coaches work in neutral territory. This means they neither agree not disagree to anything the client says. This is important to ensure that every time the client concludes on anything – be it action, awareness, or acceptance, it based on what the client thinks and not based on the judgement of the coach. This is important to ensure accountability and ownership on the part of the client. By not approving or disapproving the coach ensures that they do not influence the client’s thought process.

Confidentiality: One of the key aspects of a coaching engagement is the confidentiality aspect. Any information shared by the client during the session is privileged information which cannot be shared with anyone else. This client confidentiality can be a signed document or a verbal commitment on the part of the coach.

SMART ways to progress: Once the client has a set of solutions the coach works with the client to make those solutions SMART. The idea is to create goals and structures in such a way that it becomes almost auto pilot for the client to execute them. Add to it the fact that the client is measuring the outcomes means the client can understand how close or far they are from the goal. SMART actions also mean that before the client leaves the session, they know clearly what steps they need to take to achieve the outcome. While not all sessions may have SMART goals, the ones that have are smart in nature.

Coaching is an empowering process. To gain the most, the client needs to be open and trust the process and the Coach. The coaching process results in gain for the client, sometimes it is a game changer, other times it is incremental in nature. However, each session results in the client deriving value for the time they have invested and helps clearing the mind and touching the subconscious via the power of conversation. By arriving at the conclusions, themselves clients believe in them and thus more open to proceed in the direction suggested as an outcome of the session.