CHAPTER 3

FOCUS

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.

You want your clients to think more broadly for themselves. You facilitate this process.

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.

SUPPORTING VERSUS CHALLENGING CLIENTS

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.

Case Study

I was coaching the leader of a division in a multinational corporation composed of an administrative base and service divisions. Many of the divisions were once separate companies, acquired by and merged into the parent company. My client’s division was one of the acquired companies. He led his team well through the transition. The following year, his division was the top revenue producer for the corporation. Two years later, after a series of decisions by the parent organization, my client’s division was struggling to meet its goals.

Our third session started with my client telling me his division was for sale. He started with his usual report of how the members of his leadership team were behaving and who was causing him the most trouble. I asked if he wanted to dig deeper into the motivations of his most difficult leader because not much had changed since the last session.

With some irritation, he said, “I’m doing my best here, but they’ve put me out on a limb and keep sawing away at the branch.”

I said, “I get you are doing your best to keep your limb from crashing. You’re committed to leading your organization through this transition no matter the difficulties you face. Persistence is one of your strongest values; it’s who you are even when your parent company doesn’t include you in the bigger decisions.”

“Right, and I’m trying to protect what we have so there is something left to sell.”

I asked him if he was doing everything in his control that he could do, including managing the members of his team.

He said, “I am, but—” he paused before speaking barely above a whisper—“my best leaders keep asking me if they should move on. It’s difficult for me to answer that when I haven’t answered it for myself.”

“I understand,” I said. “Sounds like you have a conflict about what you should advise them to do as their leader when you don’t know what you will do for yourself. You are committed to being a good leader for them. Would it help to spend time getting clarity on your personal choices?”

With a sigh of relief, he agreed. He said that would help him be more resolute instead of reactive in his conversations.

We further clarified that he wanted to define the circumstances that would indicate it was time for him to go so he could quit speculating about “what if” scenarios. I said it sounded like he wanted to define the tipping point. the session shifted from external dilemmas he had already thought through to his own ambivalence around resigning, which was causing him more tension than he needed in this critical time.

My next question was, “What is making you stay other than your loyalty to your team and your desire to beat the odds?”

He went silent for a long time before he said, “I’m not sure there is anywhere I can go.” Again, our session shifted to focus on his beliefs about his future. He admitted thinking he was too old for anyone to consider him to lead a company. This revelation opened the door to some possibilities he hadn’t considered because he was stuck in his story about his age. Once we uncovered the belief that was causing his anxiety about pushing his team to produce, his tension subsided. He was then better able to define the tipping point that would indicate it was time to move on. He also knew what he needed to do until the tipping point occurred.

I wasn’t coaching my client to leave his company. I was coaching him to be more resolute instead of reactive. At the end of the session, he said being clear about his tipping point helped him feel more confident about his decisions and interactions.

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.

Three Tips for Focusing on the Person, Not the Problem

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:

  1. Set the expectation for coaching. You and your clients need to have similar expectations for what coaching sessions will look like. When you first agree with clients to be their coach, let them know you will not be their advisor. You are there to be their thinking partner to sort through what is creating uncertainty around handling an issue or deciding a way forward. You might provide facts or remind them of past issues they faced that could relate to the moment, but you will act as a confidant to help them explore perceptions and alternatives in the present. You might give reading homework or tasks to complete to aid them between sessions, but they shouldn’t expect you to tell them what to do with what they learn.
  2. Maintain your belief in the client’s capabilities. Your intention for coaching must start with your belief about your clients’ potential to solve the problem. You are there to help people see a way forward they couldn’t see on their own. You are curious about what they want to achieve and what is stopping them from realizing this outcome. You wonder what is getting in the way and what they need to move forward. You recognize your urge to give advice when you judge their pool of knowledge and experience as inadequate. You breathe and let go of this urge as you remember your clients are creative and resourceful.

    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.

  3. Know the right time to shift from clarifying the problem to coaching the person in front of you. Once you clarify a possible outcome for the coaching session—what clients want to achieve in your time together—you may ease into coaching by seeking to discover what options are possible, what they have already tried, and what they have considered doing but didn’t. Often, exploring what they didn’t do will reveal what is at the source of their hesitation. Most likely, the competent people you are speaking to need to expand their limiting views of what is right and wrong and what “shoulds” are directing their behavior based on what others expect or judge. They might need to unearth how a fear of failure or a skewed sense of obligation is limiting their perspective. They might also need a boost in confidence to do what they have already decided to do. If they are willing to explore what they personally need to resolve, you can shift the focus from the problem to the person. This is when they realize that without the mental distractions, they knew the right thing to do all along.
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