Why Do We Coach?

And how do we know if it’s working?

This article was written by Richard E. Boyatzis, PhD, Melvin L. Smith, PhD, BCC & Ellen Van Oosten, PhD, PCC and originally appeared in choice, the magazine of professional coaching. Click here to receive a FREE digital issue.

We coach to help others. We want to help them discover and live better lives and enhance their contribution at work, at home and in society. While the same could be said of a good bartender, teacher, cleric or parent, how would someone coaching another person know or suspect that what they are doing is working?

Our research on coaching impact and process over the last 30 years shines a light on three desirable outcomes of coaching. First, we want to help someone discover, articulate and/or reaffirm their commitment to a personal vision and sense of purpose. Second, we want to help someone learn or change their behavior in ways that will bring them closer to their personal vision and sense of purpose. Third, we want to help someone create or maintain resonant relationships with others to assist in their change efforts. Achievement of any or some combination of these should be considered effective coaching.

By now readers may be wondering, what happened to the “presenting problem” that the client proposes at the beginning of the coaching process? The resolution of a problem is either a key part of the personal vision and better ways to get there, or it is irrelevant to the client finding a better life and more effective work.

Some coach certification associations and coach training programs claim that coaching ONLY occurs when the coach takes the client’s presenting problem as the purpose and process for their time together. However, problem-centered coaching suggests that the coach has the answers. This approach is fundamentally flawed, as people are not simply problems to be diagnosed and resolved.

It’s like a person feeling ill, checking Web MD and diagnosing their disease, checking the internet further and determining the best treatment and appropriate drugs. Then the person visits their internist and tells them what they are suffering from and how to treat it. We would label that process as unethical and irresponsible medicine. Why does anyone think that this approach would result in coaching a person to change in a sustainable way?

Our behavioral, neurological and hormonal research and publications have shown that people are open to new ideas and others when they are in the Parasympathetic Nervous System arousal and Default Mode Network neural activation. We call the combination of these states the Positive Emotional Attractor (PEA).

We have gone even further to show and explain how coaching to the PEA is called “coaching with compassion.” All other approaches that impose an intended outcome fall into what we call coaching to the Negative Emotional Attractor (NEA) and coaching for compliance. Coaching within the context of a problem or to a specific goal also arouses the NEA state and dramatically limits the sustainability of the client’s efforts.

Two examples of executives who benefited from coaching to these various outcomes will help illustrate. These stories are brief versions of those appearing in our forthcoming book, Helping People Change (Harvard Business School Press, Summer, 2019).

Case Study 1

Darryl Gresham was a vice president of IT at a mid-sized company. When asked to discuss his personal vision or dream for the future, he told of promoting Promise Keepers (a Christian-based organization for African-American men).

When pushed further about work in his desired future, he gave what the coach thought was an escape fantasy – driving a long-distance truck. It was an odd dream for a highly active and successful executive who had an IT placement service consulting company on the side.

Through a variety of exercises and questions, the coach helped Darryl articulate his dream of helping inner-city teenagers to see computers and IT as a way out of their life of limited options. Without jeopardizing his regular job and consulting business, Darryl began offering special workshops in the local high school and community college for youth from a local city that had some of the highest poverty and lowest literacy rates in the U.S. He felt energized and reawakened in life.

Darryl pursued his two jobs and avocation with a passion and enhanced his performance in all arenas. Helping him to articulate his personal vision was the most potent help his coach could provide Darryl.

Case Study 2

Another highly successful executive, Bob Schaffer, was the top compliance and audit executive at a major bank. But he had grown to be obese and it was threatening his life.

Working with his coach, Bob reiterated his desire to lose weight. His coach asked him to place this goal in the context of a personal vision. He began to see himself running marathons with his wife, looking forward to his daughters’ weddings and spending vacations playing with future grandchildren.

Once his vision was in place for a revitalizing context of his goal, he began to examine different ways to work on the goal. One change in his typical behavior was to hire a personal trainer and begin working out three times a week with the trainer.

Bob lost over 100 pounds, began running with his wife and has kept fit for over 10 years. Meanwhile, his excitement at work grew and he took over a major function within which he is setting new performance standards.

In both cases, Darryl and Bob had developed a mutually caring and resonant relationship with their coach. Developing the competencies to create and foster such relationships was a new boost to their sense of efficacy. Along with their renewed personal vision, their sense of efficacy enabled them to sustain their efforts toward the new vision. The coaching was effective because each had shown progress on all three major desired outcomes of coaching.

The three types of desired outcomes of coaching are more than just a research agenda. They are at the heart of the integrity of the coach and coaching. The detailed psycho-physiological research has shown us the internal mechanisms that this approach to coaching invokes and provides a basis for sustaining efforts at change. Monitoring progress on all three outcomes following or during the coaching is essential to good coaching!

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

Since this approach may not seem easy for coaches, further reading, reflection or study may help. But if you have an active learning style and want to try something with clients, the first step is to ask your new client, before any feedback or significant time spent discussing their problems or goals: “If your life were perfect in 10 to 15 years, what would your life and work be?”

Ask them to describe the image they see in their mind. If they get stuck, ask them to elaborate. If the person has trouble dreaming, ask them a more playful starter question: “If you won $50,000,000 after tax in the lottery, how would your work or life change?”

Share your stories about using the Positive Emotional Attractor with us today by commenting on the post about this article on Garry's LinkedIn page. We also really want to know how YOUR work or life would change if YOU won $50,000,000 after tax in the lottery! Share today!

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