The real power of coaching is in transformation over knowing.
From a very young age we are taught to defer to authority, “mother knows best.” AND for many years this is right! Because we are learning and we never really stop learning, in fact, there can be room in our lives for experts until the day we die.
However, I was reminded just yesterday in one of my coaching sessions of the real power of a coach vs. a mentor, advisor, consultant or expert. Many times people hire me as a coach because I’m a professional psychologist, I worked in VC, I started a business, or I’ve worked with 100s of founders; they think they work with me because I know something that they don’t. In some cases this may be true however, in my experience my greatest value to a client is something completely different.
Just yesterday I was sitting with a client and I was tired. The kind of tired that had me wanting to take a shortcut in coaching and tell the client what to do. But I caught myself (not perfectly), and offered the client a choice. “I’m having the urge to share my experience with you right now but alternatively we can take more time to explore what you’re noticing in the situation.” A savvy client, he chose to explore his own observations more deeply.
I asked, “What is your hunch?”, “What do you believe to be possible?”, “What risks do you see?” We twisted and turned through his astute observations of the people and systems around him, each turn picking up more complexity, more detail. Then he arrived at the end of his exploring and the energy changed. He noticed his own experience coming up, “I’ve seen this go both ways, usually letting the person go is the best answer but sometimes they can level up.”
At this moment, he asked for my experience, and I was humbled. I hadn’t had the experience of someone being able to level up in this situation, I would have shared my experience with termination. I wouldn’t have known the complexities he was sitting with or the personality of the person in question. It is possible that I might have been right in my advice, but better than me being right (and certainly if I missed the mark) was the quick elevation of confidence in my client’s decision making, and the discovery of a new process by which to hone his intuition and wrap facts and observations around his hunches. He left this session with an elevated way to lead rather than one piece of stale and simplistic advice.
If you are a coach, remember, we play for transformation not for answers.
If you are a leader looking for a coach, remember your best coaching partner is not the one who knows more than you but the coach who can guide you to your own knowing.
Try out some of these questions on your own,
What am I aware of contributing to the situation? (noticing)
What’s the greatest detail and depth I can articulate about where I’m stuck? (diagnosis)
If I believed that I knew what to do, what would my answer be? (intuition)
What stops me from moving forward? (your work)