COACHING FOR AN INSPIRED FUTURE
Coaches know that success is about asking questions. Questions to enable our clients to move forward towards their desired goals and dreams.
I wonder however if we are asking the right questions about coaching itself: What is the real purpose of coaching? What “does coaching fulfill in today’s world?
Firstly, I think we need to remind ourselves what coaching actually is – and what it is not. To do this, I like to go back to the root of the word to discern how the original meaning influences its current use. Here’s what I found””:
“coach” (noun): a person who trains an athlete or a team of athletes, a private tutor who prepares a person for an examination; a person who instructs an actor or a singer;
“coach” (verb): to give instruction or advice in the capacity of a coach;
As alternatives to the word “coach” the dictionary suggests mentor or preceptor (which I had to look up to discover that it’s another word for teacher, tutor or instructor). Other options offered are handler (like for a dog?), manager, traineror private instructor.
None of these definitions meaningfully convey the intention or real purpose of what I call pure coaching.
I prefer the second definition for “coach” i.e., a vehicle for travelling to a destination. The roots of this definition mean “one who carries.” A pure coach, by my definition “carries” you by listening, questioning and holding space for you to get to where you want to be – to your desired destination.
My own first experience of coaching revealed the purity of this process to me. I experienced my own capacity to move forward with things I wanted to do, have or create in my life – simply by having a coach who asked me questions, helped me listen to myself and trusted my ideas and solutions. Under the personal guidance of Paul Kalinauckis, author of the original text “Coaching for Achievement” (Kogan Page, 1989, now out of print), I also discovered the coaching spectrum: a concept which provokes me to challenge some of the contexts in which coaching is being presented today.
Putting in – At one end of the spectrum, the style of coaching fits with the traditional dictionary definitions i.e., one who teaches, tells and offers solutions and answers based on their own past experience. The majority of parents, teachers, managers or bosses do this all the time!
Pulling out – The surprise – and the real essence of pure coaching – lies at the other end of the spectrum. Here the coach believes the client has the potential and capacity to discover their own learning and their own solutions, and deserves to be trusted to take those forward. Both coach and client are open to the new possibilities that will emerge.
When we ask participants in our workshops which style predominates in their experience of work, they invariably name the “putting in” or teaching/telling end of the spectrum.
When we ask them what style they would prefer to experience from their managers, bosses or even parents, they invariably name the “pulling out” style. They want to be trusted and respected to find their own answers, to explore and take risks with their own learning and to be enabled to try things in new ways.
Similarly, when I ask managers what they want from people in their teams or in their companies, time and again they say they want people to own their own results, to take accountability, to improve things, to come up with new ideas and innovations, to change things and to take risks. And yet those same managers keep putting in what they think are the right answers and solutions to problems.
Where’s the disconnection? Often, the bosses think the people don’t want to do it; the people think the bosses don’t want them to do it. So nothing changes or improves. Until everyone experiences the power of the “pulling out” end of the coaching spectrum, we truly don’t know what the possibilities are. We don’t know what space will open up for bright new ideas, creative solutions or innovation that can be implemented sooner.
Programmed behaviors keep getting in the way, inherited over the years from what Seth Godin(1) calls “factory style” organizations, whether they’re for-profit, not-for-profit, educational institutions or local communities. People are compliant in conforming to, rather than questioning, rules and regulations that stifle their individual voice. As much as the organization or the “boss” is perceived to impose the rules and the regulations, so are the people in these organizations willing accomplices in the system. As Godin, whose blog daily inspires me to look at things in new ways, says: it’s about giving up the “relentless search for tell me what to do.” He suggests that people are primarily begging to be told what to do because: “If you tell me what to do, the responsibility for the outcome is yours, not mine. I’m safe.”
Pure coaching takes us beyond “safe.” It takes us to edgy new possibilities. It takes us beyond our known horizons to experiences we haven’t discovered before. It equips us to step into conversations we never knew we could have. It uncovers solutions that are different from how we’ve always done things. Having witnessed the power of pure coaching with many clients, I agree when Godin says that we must resist.
Resist. Resist. Resist.
Pure coaches know it’s about resisting giving the answers that you think are the right ones; just because they worked for you in a different situation in the past; just because it’s what the rule book says; just because it’ll keep everyone happy; just because it’s quicker; just because you know best, just because…
As leaders, managers or teachers we can always justify the “just because” that makes us feel good about ourselves when we stay at the “putting in” end of the coaching spectrum. Telling people what to do gives us a reason for existing – and helps keep ourselves and others safe. And it keeps us largely doing the same as we’ve always done.
The “putting in” end of the coaching spectrum also holds temptation for other practitioners calling themselves “coaches.” It’s safer to give information or expertise so that your fees get paid. It’s easier and safer to design a prescriptive training course with defined outcomes. It’s safer to make sure the business gets the results it has declared in its annual plan. It’s safer not to challenge the status quo – it’s safer to keep the client happy. It’s safer to sell what you do rather than what you don’t do, whereas as a pure coach I want you to value me for NOT having or giving you the answers.
The resistance points are strongly tempting. As a manager people are saying, “Tell me what to do,” while as a coach you’re regularly asked, “What would you do?”
Resist. Resist. Resist.
But only if you want to bring the power of pure coaching into being! Only if you want to do something other than keeping the world the same as it was in your day.
This, I believe is the real purpose of what I call pure coaching; coaching not tainted by the need to give answers; coaching not tainted by the desire to show you’re right; coaching not tainted by the impulse to control, take charge, counsel or protect. Coaching, rather, which defies the dictionary definition of tell, train, teach, mentor or instruct. Coaching which carries you into a new future.
Pure coaching requires the personal mastery to let go of how you’ve defined yourself as a teacher, manager, leader or even as a parent up to this point. It requires you to trust who you will become when you witness the privilege of asking questions, listening and holding the space for a conversation where someone (your client) may quite literally change their life. The key is that they will step into this new future, not because of you, but because of their own increased vision, awareness, capacity, self-confidence and sense of personal power. Quite often you may not logically see exactly what role you played in their decision. And that piece doesn’t matter. In pure coaching, what happens is often beyond definition – it happens as if by magic.
So what need does coaching in this pure format, serve for us?
In true coaching fashion, let’s open our minds to the possibility that its purpose is inspirational. When I wrote 10 years ago that coaching was “inspirational,” in the sense of breathing new life into our life and our work, I hadn’t anticipated how much a new way of life would be needed. Whether we think of it as the new life that needs to be inspired for our planet to survive; whether we think of the challenges that have come from the way our economy needs new life to take us into the future; whether we think of the new ways of living emerging around us as technology makes huge advances; or whether we consider the new life being faced by the next generation of leaders in our businesses and our communities; I don’t think we can deny that we need to connect with new forms of inspiration and meaning.
For new life to emerge, something has to be seeded. Pure coaches do that with skillful, future-focused and open questions, which create the space for the other person to think deeply, to listen for possibilities and to hear answers they might not have heard before. As a result, the client first of all connects with an inner life – a new idea, a new perspective, a new vision, new goals and new ways of achieving them.
For the individual’s new life to emerge it needs to be carefully nurtured, fed, watered and cocooned until it’s ready to meet the world. Pure coaches hold that nurturing space with trusting, confident and safe silences – in which the other person’s ideas can grow, connect and be tried out.
For the individual’s new life to emerge, there needs to be a safe and supportive way for it to come into the world. Pure coaches gently challenge the client to express their ideas, to take confidence and courage in their choices and to give voice to what they need to say – knowing that it will be met with acceptance, hope and encouragement. Together, coach and client believe in the possibility of something new working in a way that may not have been tried before.
For the individual’s new life to emerge, it needs to be supported to eventually stand on its own two feet, to continue to grow and flourish independently. Pure coaches are ready and willing to detach – to lovingly pull away, knowing that the client has their own capacity to move upwards and onwards.
Pure coaches then stand back and observe the client’s future coming to meet them – and realize that it has happened sooner than it would have if the client had been left struggling to work through their own confusion, or had been hampered by managers or other people telling them what they should do.
Once the individual has made meaningful connection with their new life through pure coaching, the next step is for them to find other people who perhaps share similar meanings – people whose purpose emerges on similar pathways. When those with a similar sense of purpose connect, they start to form groups of possibility for even greater elements of a new life to emerge – creating new elements which together start to build an inspired future! Maybe even new-style organizations which help them deliver on their combined purpose. Who knows where that would take us?
Pure coaches hold the anticipation and possibility that we’ll be surprised by where it takes us and our world. Of course we can’t actually know the answers beyond what’s already familiar to us. When we want to know what’s beyond the familiar, to know what’s waiting over the horizon, pure coaching can take us there!
So what is the word that really describes this pure process of catalytic learning? To breakthrough to that new future, we need to move beyond the word coaching, which obviously still holds meanings which unconsciously keep us trapped in the need to be teacher, teller, expert or boss.
But beyond coaching, what will we call it? I call it futureship – the art of opening up to and stepping into your inspired future. A process which, gently held in the trusting, challenging and wise embrace of pure coaching enables you to realize that what you want, need and yearn for in your life, work or relationships is yours to create.
Along with Sir John Whitmore(2), I look forward to the day “when the word coaching disappears from our language and it simply becomes the way we relate to one another at work and elsewhere.”
Your Inspired Future. It’s closer than you think.
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(1) Seth Godin, Linchpin, 2010
(2) Sir John Whitmore, Performance Consultants, UK
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© Aileen Gibb, www.inspiredfuture.org, 2010
Aileen Gibb is co-founder of www.inspiredfuture.org and is committed to connecting 100,000 people connect to their Inspired Future by the year 2020 through the power of Pure Coaching.
