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Coaches, what’s your attention on right now when you coach? Often clients come to us because either they want to solve a problem or create something new. How you and the client frame the issue together in your coaching session can be key to that new perspective and movement towards the bigger picture goal.
If I take the GROW Model for instance, it focuses on Goal, Reality, Options, Wrap Up. Ever feel in the Reality mode that you are focusing with your client on what the problems are, rather than what is already going well?
I think part of this is the fact that clients come to us because they want that outer level of support. Otherwise, they’d already have this sorted. I heard a great way of describing it once – your client is already an expert on their problem.
Turn it around and focus on what will happen after they’ve achieved what they want, after they have worked with you, after they’ve reached that target goal, then you can add to that sense of excitement and possibility. All of a sudden you can explode the potential and free the mind of the client to what can be done. And the reality can be what is already going well, even in teeny, tiny footsteps, to help them achieve that goal.
So – next time you are coaching, help your client catch themselves with what is going right for them, and what they need to do to get more of it.
Let me know how this resonates with you – or if you have other perspectives?
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There are 8 Responses so far...
Dear Claire Chapman:
I understand your point of view, and I believe that I share it. I say “believe” because I’m not sure if I understood all of your arguments.
My point of view is as follows.
In coaching to ‚Äúsolve problems” or to ‚Äúcreate something new” is the same. Evidently, is clearly preferable to speak of objectives (in positive terms) and not of problems (in negative terms), but in essence we are talking about the same thing.
Coaching, always creates something new from the coachee. I offer you this example that I usually use in my classes for training coaches, where I explain why the coaching is essentially creative (and how works the process of coaching).
SEE IT, HERE: http://leoravier.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/coaching_process_p.jpg
In coaching, through the development of consciousness and self-belief, basically through reflection, creates (always) a new knowledge (unique and unrepeatable), that is translated, basically, in its self-motivation, and that will help the coachee to act coherent and responsibly towards achieving their goal (through the action plan).
The result, finally, will be the feedback that will help the client to become aware again, and create a new, unique and unrepeateable knowledge (essentially creative)… and so on, entering on the “virtuous circle” of coaching.
The GROW model (SEE THIS POST: http://www.coachingcommons.org/guest-contributors/how-effective-is-the-grow-model/) begins with an analysis of the objective, leaving the reality in the “second phase”. In fact, this one, does not condition the possibilities of the coachee. Basically, analyzing the reality, is possible to discover and separate the ‚Äújudgments” of the ‚Äúobjective descriptions”, all this in favor of the achievement of objectives.
So, GROW Model, in its totality, is focused on finding solutions. Even, it allows that the ‚Äúproblems” are transformed into ‚Äúpositive objectives”.
Focus on what coachees already do well is valid, necessary and efficient, but it is a complementary factor to the used model.
Hi, Claire
Interesting post. To me the biggest challenge as a coach is to get the individual being coached to “own” responsibility for the issues identified. Once that is done, it becomes much more easy to construct the context for the issue, the problems faced, the desired outcomes and actions to achieve those outcomes.
I agree that building on their strengths is valid while making them conscious of what they need to change to reach their goals.
Thanks for the insights,
Prem Rao
[...] de coaching y su esencia creativa Publicado el Febrero 8, 2009 por Ravier, L. Answer to ‚ÄúAre you Coaching-Problems or Solutions?” By Claire Chapman February 5th, 2009 The Coaching [...]
Hi there!
Thanks for some great points raised in return to my posting. I’d say one of the keys is a matter of the perspective that the client is coming from, and listening to the language can help with seeing if the client feels that they are bringing a “problem” or an opportunity to enhance their life. I guess I am coming from the perspective that whilst recognising the problem/ reality is a great starting point, understanding what they want instead, and what the solution looks like, can help give the coaching a powerful motivator as the client focuses on successes and what they do want. In the strengths / solutions model (which I am myself in the process of learning more about), part of the “what they need to change to reach their goals” can be focusing on that solutions and creating more of the opportunities of “what already works” as well as creating new solutions.
Claire
Hi Claire
The Psychosynthesis training I did in the early and mid eighties to become a professional still holds excellently. In a nutshell, it’s the pain which brings people to us which, in turn, is just a clue to the potential which is trying to emerge!
Keep all the senses and all the intelligences listening and your client will be telling you what they need to do in coaching and where they need to go. Follow their organic wisdom, obviously checking things out as you go along, et voila. Consider the greater wisdom always is the client’s.
Warmly… Sharon
Hi Sharon
Great to hear you here! It’s always a great sign when you learn skills and they run tested and true over time and different situations. Absolutely – it’s like the symptoms and then the true cause in pain language.
Listening – it’s just SO important, isn’t it? Both for the what’s already there, that may be the shoot that wants to pop it’s head above the ground for the first time, and also about what the pain is and what they want instead. I’m very open now to listening to my intuition about what the client most needs and wants in coaching.
I’m absolutely acknowledging the challenges/ situations which may bring clients to coaching and honouring that. I’m also celebrating the solutions and successes that clients are already putting into progress that can be nurtued, in the same way that first shoot above ground benefits from loving care and attention.
Warmly
Claire
I subscribe to the idea of “homeostasis” that has been a thread from Lewin’s Field Theory, through (I believe) Motivational Interviewing, to Kegan and Lahey’s Immunity to Change.
I believe that there are 2 conflicting forces – one toward change and one resisting change. If the force resisting change weren’t as strong, the force toward change would already have led to change.
It seems to me that it makes sense to work with both sides of the equation (or balance). We can increase the sense of possibility and expand the list of possible solutions, but the fears and assumptions that have gotten in the way of change may still need to be tested, adjusted, and diminished.
Here is one example I remember reading. A woman came in for help losing weight. Nothing had worked. After some exploration, it became clear that she had a potentially correct belief that her family’s focus on her weight was almost the only attention they paid to her, and that by losing weight they might pay even less attention to her. Without addressing that belief and either giving up the belief or accepting the consequences, how much progress was she likely to make?
It sounds like we come at the problem (solution?) from quite different perspectives and I believe that each can be helpful.
Do we agree that there is a distinction between staying stuck in an existing problem, in exploring the fears and anxiety that might get in the way of potential solutions, and in jumping straight to the solution? Are there cases where you would also focus on the fears and beliefs that might get in the way of solutions?
Hi Jonathan
Absolutely!
It’s great to see what a good debate this has raised. I wanted to come from the fact that sometimes it is easy to focus on the “what’s going wrong” and then move straight into creating new actions. Focusing on current strengths (as well as acknowledging things that need to shift) give the client an opportunity to recognise for themselves progress they are already making and start to get creative about how they can do more of that.
Thanks for the references to change – it’s not a field I know in depth about so appreciate some resources.
Claire