Coaching: Linear or Not to Linear

Smith lives in the suburb of Jersey City and prefers to use a cab to travel around. One Day he called a cab to go the New York City. While on the way, he recalled something and asked the cab driver to move toward Philadelphia. On his way, he stopped at Princeton for a few minutes.

In the 14th century, a small post town in Hungary named Kocs built a passenger-carrying steel vehicle with suspension known as “carts of Kocs.” The purpose of these carts is to help people and take them where they want to go.

Padma is giving an exam and is not sure what she is expecting in the exam. However, she knows very well what is the expectation of the exam. When the question paper came in front of her, she started answering questions she knew first instead of following the order of questions in the exam.

These three seamlessly unrelated stories have one thing in common. The word coach is derived from the Hungary Town Kocs, and as “carts of Kocs,” the coach’s primary goal is to help the coachee and take them where they want to go. It is the coachee’s agenda where they want to go, and changing the goal in between is perfectly fine. Like Smith, it is his agenda where he wants to go, and cab drivers help them. How does it look when one changes their mind for any reason while sitting in the cab, and cab drivers still insist on going to the previously decided destination? As long as the relationship between the passenger and cab driver is honored, passengers can change their mind many times or even choose not to go to the destination.

There is an abstract concept of coaching arc, similar to the story line. In a broad sense, it has two parts, discovery, and accountability-commitment. There are lots of coaching models that follow a similar approach to provide a structure to coaching conversations.

But the most crucial point is that we don’t need to follow them exactly step by step linearly. Our goal is not to complete the steps and get an award for hitting all the checkboxes but to help the coachee move from present performance to future potential. Marcia called it “checklist coaching,” following the coaching model, which may end up frustrating the client more than helpful (Reynolds, 2020). She further says that even close questions can lead to a breakthrough in thinking after reflecting (Reynolds, 2020). She mentioned the Ted Talk RASA formula: receive, appreciate, summarize, and ask to reflect (Reynolds, 2020).

Like Padma is not attempting the exam questions in the order they appeared in the paper, the coaching evaluation does not focus on following any specific model or coaching arc. Marcia, the part of the team who wrote the ICF competencies, also mentioned, “The identified coaching competencies were never intended to be a checklist of behaviors” (Reynolds, 2020). It is acceptable not to complete the coaching arc in one coaching session; remember, Smith may decide not to go to the destination and leave the cab anytime. Exploring the goal during the coaching session or even more than one session is also acceptable. Besides, the next coaching sessions may or may not be an extension of the previous one; let the coachee decide if it is like “Home Alone 3” movie, which has nothing to do with the previous one, or “Frozen 2” follow up the storyline of previous one.

Let’s take a look at the example of one of the most famous coaching models, GROW. So many individuals believe that it is a linear model, and we follow one step after another. Let’s see what John Whitmore, the creator of GROW model, said about it. In chapter 9 of his book, he wrote, “Move around the GROW sequence according to your intuition. Revisiting each step as necessary and in any sequence ensures that coaches remain energized and motivated” (Whitmore, 2017). Bary and Day (2012) also mentioned that their FACTS model is not linear or sequential. Another famous coaching model, Co-Active, didn’t mention any sequence. One of their cornerstones is “Dance in the moment,” which shows the intent of being present with the coachee instead of focusing on the sequence or model (Kimsey-House et al., 2018).

Coaching models, arcs, and other tools help us structure the coaching conversations but not the goal in themselves. It is all about helping by empowering coachees and unlocking their potential ( Michael Bungay Stanier, 2016). Coaches are helping the coachee, and the coachee should come away from the conversation inspired, empowered, engaged, and equipped with the mindset and tools to do better (Simpson et al., 2020).

And why do we even need coaching conversation? Eric Schmidt et al. wrote, “The higher you climb, the more your success depends on making other people successful. By definition, that’s what coaches do” (Schmidt et al., 2019).

If coaching means only asking a series of perfect open-ended powerful questions one after another based on a coaching model, then a chatbot can probably do this mechanical checklist coaching better than us. For chatbots, recalling perfect open-ended powerful questions is much faster than any of us, especially in the AI and chat GPT era.

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?References

Blakey, J., & Day, I. (2012).?Challenging Coaching. Nicholas Brealey.

Kimsey-House, H., Kimsey-House, K., Sandahl, P., & Whitworth, L. (2018).?Co-active coaching : changing business, transforming lives.?Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Michael Bungay Stanier. (2016).?The coaching habit : say less, ask more & change the way you lead forever. Box Of Crayons Press.

Reynolds, M. (2020).?Coach the Person, Not the Problem. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Schmidt, E., Rosenberg, J., & Eagle, A. (2019).?Trillion dollar coach : The leadership playbook of silicon valley’s Bill Campbell. Harperbusiness.

Simpson, M. K., Sullivan, M., & Saddler, K. (2020).?Unlocking potential : 7 coaching skills that transform individuals, teams, and organizations. Amazon Publishing.

Whitmore, J. (2017).?Coaching for Performance : GROWing Human Potential and Purpose : the Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership?(5th ed.). Nicholas Brealey. (Original work published 1992)