COACHING THE PERSON, NOT THE PROBLEM
The client always knows more than you do about what to do next.
—MARCIA REYNOLDS
MOST PROBLEM-SOLVING FORMULAS, and even some coaching models, focus on finding a solution to a problem. Coaching sessions generally start with clients describing a dilemma they are facing or naming a topic they want to discuss. It’s a good place to start. However, once clients share their stories and define what they believe to be the problem, it’s the wrong place to focus the rest of the conversation.
If you believe the person you are coaching has some experiences to draw from in seeking a resolution to the issue presented, then the focus needs to move away from the external problem and onto the person. Remember, your clients are smart and resourceful. They need you to help them discern what is getting in the way of their knowing or committing to what needs to happen next. Is it a pattern of thinking, a fear hidden behind cynicism, or an inherited belief that hasn’t been examined? Your job is to expand your clients’ awareness to see how they might relate to the situation differently.
Using masterful coaching techniques that challenge and disturb habitual thought patterns is developmental (expanding clients’ perspective) instead of operational (exploring what didn’t work and how to fix it). The conversations may feel uncomfortable, but the outcomes are remarkable. You spark more activity in your clients’ brains. The changes in their beliefs and behaviors that occur when you focus on their thinking instead of just options and consequences are enduring yet adaptable. The changes that occur today are accessible to expand or change again in the future as circumstances shift around them. In chapter 8, you will learn more about how to hold a safe space for clients to be vulnerable with you while keeping them focused on the outcomes.
Many coaches struggle with shifting focus from the problem to the human. Both coaches and clients are more comfortable focusing on the external problem. Coaches might ask important questions to help clients analyze their perception of the situation, including what factors are making the dilemma difficult for them to resolve. Some may even coach clients to focus on their strengths to help find a solution, dipping into the realm of coaching the person instead of the problem.
These approaches are useful, but they are not enough. They allow coaches to avoid challenging clients’ beliefs and thought patterns. This may keep the conversation comfortable, but it prolongs self-denial, especially when dealing with a strong ego.
Clients with years of experience in their roles like to fall back on what they know, protecting their ideas instead of opening up to new ones. Intelligent people know their strength is in how well they think. They wholeheartedly believe their rationalizations are truths. They protect their opinions as solid facts.
To be open to learning, clients must experience a moment of uncertainty. Doubt prompts people to contemplate their beliefs and motivations. Clients may get defensive, even angry, as they teeter on the edge of a cliff, hanging on to their perceptions. If you calmly maintain the balance between caring and patiently staying with the inquiry, they might let go. They will often pause in the space of not knowing what is true anymore. Generally, this break in knowing is short-lived as the fresh perspective becomes clear.
Most strong-willed clients respect someone who stands up to their resistance. Even when my clients describe me as pushy and relentless, they always end by saying I make them do what’s right. I’m not happy with their saying I make them do anything, but I appreciate their way of accepting their minds being changed in the process. I also think they are acknowledging we are partners on this journey. My willingness to challenge my clients’ thinking, knowing they can cut through the clutter and see the way to a solution with coaching, creates relationships of mutual respect.
You can’t avoid causing unease with your observations and questions if you want people to see the world around them in a more expansive way. When you coach people to see their blocks and biases instead of sorting through problems and options, discomfort is likely to occur before the breakthrough awareness comes to light. Clients’ anxiety or embarrassment is often a result of realizing they avoided a truth that was in their face all along. This tension means the coaching is working! Keep coaching the person, not the problem, and the right criteria for making critical decisions and next-step actions will become clear.
Novelist Paul Murray said, “If it’s a choice between a difficult truth and a simple lie, people will take the lie every time.”1 The truth often hurts before it sets you free. In part III, you will learn the mental habits needed to gracefully hold the space for transformational coaching to transpire regardless of your clients’ emotional reactions.
Coaching the person instead of the problem can be called awareness-based coaching to differentiate it from solution-focused coaching. The focus of coaching is on identifying beliefs behind opinions and actions and on fears and conflicting values causing dissonance and confusion. You want the shifts to be made at the identity level instead of just trying to alter activity.
Coaching is often supportive and encouraging; it can also be uncomfortably disruptive. You must be willing to challenge interpretations, test assumptions, and notice emotional shifts so your clients learn something new instead of just reordering the thoughts they already had.
Sometimes clients feel you are more annoying than helpful when trying to shift from the problem to the person. You might also need more than one session to establish the trust necessary for clients to let you in. Use the following tips to establish the rapport necessary to effectively shift from focusing on the external problem to coaching the person to find a way forward:
When clients know you believe in their capabilities and you are there to help them discover their best answers, they will be willing to accept the discomfort of vulnerability when admitting to their gaps, biases, and fears. Your beliefs about your clients create the conditions for learning to occur.