INSTITUTE OF CONTINUING EDUCATION Course of Study: Interpersonal dynamics of executive coaching Name of Emma Jennings Desiqnated|Rerson| Director of Programmes authorising scanning: Titl Psychological dimensions of executive coaching a Bluckert, P. Publisher: McGraw Hill Pages: 77-86 ISBN/ISSN Number: | ISBN 10 0335 220 616 Copyright Notice Staff and students of the University of Cambridge are reminded that copyright ‘subsists in this extract and the work from which it was taken. This Digital Copy has been made under the terms of a CLA Licence which allows you to: * access and download a copy; * print out a copy. This Digital Copy and any digital or printed copy supplied to or made by you under the terms of this Licence are for use in connection with this Course of Study. You may retain such copies after the end of the course, but strictly for your own personal use. All copies (including electronic copies) shall include this Copyright Notice and shall be destroyed and/or deleted if and when required by the University of Cambridge. Except as provided for by copyright law, no further copying, storage or distribution (including by e-mail) is permitted without the consent of the copyright holder. The author (which term includes artists and other visual creators) has moral rights in the work and neither staff nor students may cause, or permit, the distortion, mutilation or other modification of the work, or any derogatory treatment of it, which would be prejudicial to the honour or reputation of the author.8 The key dimensions of a coaching session The key dimensions of a coaching session are: ‘The client's story. The emotional level - the client’ feeling, ‘The cognitive level ~ the client's thinking, ‘The coach's use of self. 1 The client's story In reviewing my own coaching experience over the years, and having wit- nessed many hundreds of hours of practice sessions conducted by coaches in training, I find that there is invariably a story the client wishes to tell. It may simply be background for a performance issue or a complex and intricate tale that the client thinks you must understand in order to be helpful. Experi- ‘enced coaches tend to manage the storytelling as they know that they need fewer facts than the client tends to believe. Less experienced coaches can fall into the trap of believing they must understand all aspects of the story and sometimes become worried about losing elements of it. It is important that aspiring coaches learn the skill of tracking issues, but getting hooked and hypnotised by the story is something to avoid. The coach can also be prone to other self-interference such as being anxious to ask good questions and keep the session moving at a good pace. This can lead to the danger of rehearsing the next question instead of really listening to what is being said now. Good coaching is a dialogue rather than an interview, with a looser and ‘more flexible rhythm. This requires the coach to relax, let go of fixed Ideas of ‘where the session should go and work more with emerging needs and process. Part of the emerging process is the impact that clients and indeed the session are having on the coaches, and this is what is known as using the self as instrument of change.7B PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF EXECUTIVE COACHING The importance of the client's story Although you should be careful not to get lost in the story it is nevertheless important to remember how significant it is to the client. This may be especially true where clients are unable to share difficult issues with anyone ‘else in the workplace due to their leadership role. Other clients may have an intolerable situation at home or problems at work that cannot be addressed elsewhere, These issues may have been split off, unable to be addressed and sapping energy, yet with no outlet. Just having the opportunity to talk it out with good attention from the coach can be therapeutic in itself. It meets a deep psychological need to be heard. Listening to their own story as they tell it can also enable clients to see their issues in a different light. Many people are starved of opportunities to get things off their chest with someone listening well to them. As a coach you should never underestimate the value of simply hearing someone out. If you can do that without judge- ment, better still, Clients may only recognise the burden they have been carrying once they have shared their story with an accepting listener. ‘Coaching and counselling experience over the years has shown that there is not just a therapeutic value from being deeply listened to. Very often people resolve their problems, Issues and conflicts through this process without significant intervention. This Is the basis of the client-centred philosophy. ‘A large part of the role that a coach undertakes is to listen and reflect, not to attempt to answer questions that they are not qualified to answer. My coach knew me very well from the work he had been involved with In the business, He also was well aware of the people and the issues. It must have been tempting for him to jump straight to what he perceived to be the core problem. But he knew, and I came to know, that what was important to me was to realise the core issue for myself and develop a solution to take matters forward. Mostly I was able to do this. (jim) The dangers of only working with the client's story. ‘Working at the level of the client's story will often be enough. However, this ‘won't always be the case. Clients may find themselves going round the same old thinking that they have already done inside their own heads or spoken. about before and there may be a sense of stuckness or impasse. The clients may be bored hearing themselves say the same old things and may experience the listening and support of the coach as only mildly useful. In this situation there is a need for something else to happen. If it doesn’t, then the clients can lose interest, ‘good to talk ar the session did: place. ‘Another di lose your own and clients hav situation, then can then set 0 ‘things, an urg feeling of help When you experience you a highly produ the answer is t and interventit But before process that & clients’ cogniti view of the wo Going beyond Working with think, especial success. Peltier should) tell yo Your spouse ca However t thinking is anc of sound and t Clearly it imposing theit ‘Their task is nc to the client h ates the potent thinking. Ultin (or inaction) br He with the cli can be the sour here to illustraless ¥ be ‘sed the obe > see with nate dge- een ere fren cess tred ect, ito vple ght Pa aid, his xen nts THE KEY DIMENSIONS OF A COACHING SESSION 79 Jose interest, energy and commitment to the process. They may say it was good to talk and that the coach was friendly, supportive and empathetic but the session didn’t crack the important issues, or even identify them in the first place. Another danger of being story-focused is that you can get sucked in and lose your own sense of perspective. Worse stl, if the story Is a negative one and clients have little optimism about being able to improve or change theit situation, then you can get dragged down into a sense of hopelessness. This can then set off the following sorts of reaction in the coach: a desire to fix things, an urgency to get a result before it has really presented itself, or @ feeling of helplessness and inadequacy. ‘When you feel these things you have probably lost your ground and may experience yourself as thrashing around for a while. Interestingly, this can be ‘ highly productive place to be, although it rarely feels that way. Sometimes the answer is to use these experiences, your inner process, as @ source of data and intervention - the use of self. But before exploring that, there are two further levels to the coaching process that enable the coach to get beyond the client's story. These are clients’ cognitive and emotional processes ~ how they are constructing their view of the world and how they are feeling about it. Going beyond the story Working with clients’ thinking processes is about examining the way they think, especially when it might be limiting their wellbeing, fulfilment and success. Peltier (2001) makes the important point that a ‘coach can (and should) tell you that you are thinking poorly, while few others can do this. Your spouse can’t, your colleagues can’t, and your boss can’t either.” However this raises some uncomfortable questions such as what faulty thinking is and who is to judge. Is this placing the coach in the role of arbiter of sound and unsound thinking? Clearly it is not. Coaches always need to be aware of the danger of imposing their own world views, values and judgements on their clients. Their task is not to pass opinion on the rights and wrongs but to reflect back to the client how they are seeing and experiencing their situation. This cre- ates the potentiality for clients to assess more clearly the quality of their own thinking. Ultimately the choice and decision-making, not only about action {or inaction) but also about what meaning to derive from the situation, must lie with the client. Very often clients know that thetr own thinking patterns ‘can be the source of problems. A number of client perspectives may be helpful here to illustrate the point:80 PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF EXECUTIVE COACHING. I get a lot of feedback about being too laid-back. | need to be more assertive and challenging as a manager because my performance is. not what it should be but I really don’t like conflict. | try to be Mr Nice all the time because I think being challenging will inevitably lead to conflict. I know, deep down, that I won't necessarily be seen. as Mr Nasty if I challenge but that’s my fear so | avoid it. (Danny) When | see the world as threatening, which I often do, I get into ‘Dattler’ mode. Then I invarlably get into a fight with someone, usually my boss. It often happens when I think something is unfair. ‘Then I think to myself that someone has to stand up for what's right and it may as well be me. I believe that I’m not being authentic unless I take a stand, Later I usually find that I've built something up ‘too much and it wasn't as serious as I'd first thought. But it's too late, the damage is done. I really have got to get my thinking straightened out earlier. It’s all just too tiring. (Sarah) I feel as ifI must succeed all the time so I spend far more energy and time on things than they need or is good for me. I've realised that, ‘beneath all this I have a core belief which Is that you're only as good. {as your last achievement. I'm always feeling insecure yet I know that actually people rate me very highly. They'd probably tell me to calm down and relax if they only knew. I would, if it was one of my staff. (Barry) 2 The cognitive level - the client's thinking processes We all see the world in our own way. How often do we use the phrase ‘the reality is' when we are really talking about our view of reality. We can then be shocked, dismayed, confused or angry when others don’t act in accord with our expectations. Despite life experience demonstrating to us that our own thinking can be as faulty as the next person's we sometimes act as if our perspective is the only true one. How to challenge thinking Self-evidently, clients may experience a challenge to their thinking as criti- cism or an attack, particularly if it is delivered ineptly. Challenging someone on their thinking needs to be done thoughtfully and skilfully if it is to have the desired effect and not simply push that individual into defensiveness. ‘This is where it Is Important to gauge your client’s desire and tolerance for challenge. Sor impertinent, e A good st other words 5 wanting to un, their own uni client, which but more from If, as aco ‘outcome or re: will surely be interested anc awareness. Th better by actir Returning productive to called faulty may feel over! probably feel ‘will probably have implicat staying in the Building psycl ‘One of the gi made by Kega ‘Modern Life. T formation tak something thi in a way tha Kegan’s view : the state whe are the very ‘rue ~ they ar ‘Object’, awareness anc new way. Thi relationship i: An exam brought up encouraged t stantly toldto be more ‘ormance is "y to be Mr inevitably sily be seen (Danny) 1 get into someone, gis unfair. shat’s right authentic sething up ''s too late, raightened snergy and allsed that yas good know that sses dhrase ‘the xn then be ‘cord with + our own, 2s if our gas criti. someone 's to have asiveness. srance for ‘THE KEY DIMENSIONS OF A COACHING SESSION 81 challenge. Some clients expect it, even demand it. Others may see it as impertinent, even outrageous. A good starting point is to act from a stance of interested curiosity. In other words you adopt a slightly detached, non-judgemental position of ‘wanting to understand more about how the client comes to see the world in their own unique way. This is not with the intent of trying to change the client, which will most certainly produce resistance or shallow compliance, but more from the spirit of genuine enquiry. If, as a coach, you have too much investment in achieving a particular ‘outcome or result then you may be in danger of leading too strongly and this will surely be picked up by your client. Your job is to get your clients more interested and curious about their own Inner process through raising self- awareness. The objective is to encourage them to see and hear themselves better by acting as a sounding board for them. Returning to the question of resistance, it will generally be more productive to acknowledge the positive as well as negative aspects of any so- called faulty thinking. Busy managers who soak up their staff's problems ‘may feel overloaded but there will usually be a positive side. Their staff will probably feel well looked after, cared for and genuinely helped. This will probably result in the manager being seen very positively and in turn will have implications for attempts to change behaviour as there is a payoff from staying in the same pattern. Building psychological muscle ‘One of the great contributions to working at the cognitive level has been made by Kegan (1994) in his book In Over Our Heads ~ The Mental Demands of Modern Life. The particular relevance of his theory for coaches Is that trans- formation takes place when we develop the ability to step back and reflect on something that used to be taken for granted yet now enters our consciousness in a way that allows us to make new decisions about it. This requires in Kegan’s view a movement from what he calls ‘Subject’ to ‘Object’. ‘Subject’ Is the state where things are experienced as unquestioned simply because they are the very lenses through which we see life. They are taken for granted as true - they are our reality. ‘Object’, on the other hand, refers to things that are now in fuller awareness and can be seen, thought about, questioned and acted upon in a new way. This enables individuals to appreciate their beliefs, assumptions, relationship issues, and aspects of their personality in a more objective light. ‘An example of the Subject/Object change would be Jane, a woman brought up in a family where her brother was expected and actively encouraged to go to university and follow a career path and she was con- stantly told ‘just do your best - you can always get a job as a secretary.’{82 PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF EXECUTIVE COACHING This message left a deep and lasting impact on Jane to the point where she simply didn’t ever really consider herself as capable of achieving a manage- ‘ment position. It just became her unquestioned reality. Later when she was given the opportunity to go on a personal development course she discovered that she had never even realised that she had been seeing her life in this way. ‘She was shocked at how she had taken on set of expectations and lived them out. She then had to decide whether to remain as a secretary or to go for promotion and start to build a long-term career. What mattered to her was that she finally felt that she was deciding the course of her life. Personal growth and development is about moving more and more from ‘Subject’ to ‘Object’ and, as we increasingly do this, our capacity for dealing with complexity and change grows. We can see, reflect on, be responsible for, and act on more things. Kegan refers to this as building greater ‘psychological muscle’. In a rapidly changing and ever more complex world this can be seen as.a critical goal for executive coaching. Relevance to the coach It is common for executives and sentor managers to assume unquestioningly that their worldview is accurate and largely shared by others. This is often revealed in failed change management initiatives, which fall on the rocks of resistance to change. From the so-called resistors’ viewpoint they simply do not share the same view of reality. At the individual level this can happen in developmental processes such as 360-degree feedback when managers’ own views of themselves contrast sharply with those working around them. In this case, recipients of the feedback may be unprepared or unable to take on board the messages coming from colleagues as they do not conform to their own self-assessment. Conversely, these sorts of processes can help someone to get a new per- spective though it may not endure unless sufficient effective support and challenge continues into the future. Initially, individuals may open up to what is being said and grapple with a perspective which is not their own. Out of this they may gain new insights and make decisions and commitments to address developmental issues. However, if they don’t build that ‘psycholo- gical muscle’ then there can be a tendency to stray back to previously held beliefs and assumptions and, in so doing, continue to evoke and elicit the same responses in others. For the coach there are some clear messages here. Firstly, people do not ‘change something until they first become aware of it - ie. they move from being in it to being able to see and understand it. This is the movement from ‘Subject’ to ‘Object’. So one of the key aspects of your role as coach is to facilitate heightened awareness in clients of the lenses through which they see the world and themselves. Beyond this lies views and assumptic individual thinks. TI your part and is so coach. Taking the di mean two things. F involved in helping contributed to why Secondly, you r questions about ho with your clients. S: reject their challeng’ trust and rapport. 1 supportive role and growth may be lost. ‘Sometimes thes arises from that mo lenging your client hhaps at the end of moments of truth ‘experiences. 3 The emotion When clients arrive emotional dimensic whether to go ther seem like counsellit the boundary lies. simply uncomfortal try to shut it down Facilitating express Itis entirely approp coaching context. needed in order fo think and feel abot into the room fror client arrives at a derailment. More commowhere she ‘manage- 1 she was ‘scovered this way. ved them to go for > heer was core from + dealing sible for, ological 12 be seen, ioningly is often rocks of mply do ses such, contrast + of the coming ew per- vort and n up to wn. Out nents to ‘ycholo- sly held fit the do not ve from nt from ch is to ch they ‘THE KEY DIMENSIONS OF A COACHING SESSION 83. Beyond this lies the somewhat daunting task of confronting those fixed views and assumptions to build greater flexibility and creativity into how the individual thinks. This requires courage as well as skill and understanding on your part and is something many executives want and expect from their ‘coach, Taking the decision to grasp more strongly this aspect of the role can mean two things. Firstly, you may need to learn more about what is really involved in helping others to let go of assumptions and beliefs that may have contributed to why they have been successful Secondly, you may need to go back to yourself and ask some important ‘questions about how comfortable you are with raising the level of challenge with your clients. Some coaches are wary of this, fearing their clients might reject their challenge and get defensive. They also worry that this may weaken ‘rust and rapport. The danger Is that if you stay too safe, adopt an overly supportive role and avoid taking risks then opportunities for new insight and growth may be lost. Sometimes the most significant learning from the entire coaching process arises from that moment when you as the coach take the risk of really chal- lenging your client on something that matters. When you reflect later, per- hhaps at the end of the process on your work together, it can be just these ‘moments of truth that stand out as the transformative and pivotal experiences. 3 The emotional level - the client’s feelings ‘When clients arrive at the key issues concerning them there will usually be an emotional dimension. Coaches can sometimes miss this or be unsure about whether to go there. One aspect of this confusion is that feelings work can seem like counselling or therapy and many coaches are not clear about where the boundary Iles. For some coaches it is more personal than this. They are simply uncomfortable themselves with emotional expression and consciously try to shut it down, Facilitating expression of emotion It is entirely appropriate on occasions to facilitate emotional expression in the coaching context. Sometimes it is the very breakthrough that Is urgently needed in order for the client to get unstuck and move on. Whatever you think and feel about this, itis inevitable that clients will bring their feelings into the room from time to time. This will certainly be the case when the client arrives at a session in a crisis situation such as career anxiety or derailment. ‘More common are those sessions that focus on confidence and|84 PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF EXECUTIVE COACHING self-esteem issues, which can typically feature clients taking an overly self- critical view of themselves. Strong feelings of fear, anger, disappointment, hhurt and frustration are commonplace in organisations and managers reg- ularly bring these to their coaching. Recognising these feelings and hay the opportunity to ventilate them can be enormously important for clients, particularly those who typically bottle things up or who have nowhere else safe enough to express them, Nevertheless the message here Is not to go ‘hunting’ emotions. Allowing and supporting the discharge of feelings when they naturally arise is all that may be necessary or appropriate. Itis worth noting that if every session is dominated by strong emotional discharge then that would be an indication that the client’s needs are more suited to the counselling situation and it may be necessary to discuss the possibility of seeing a counsellor or therapist in the short term. 4 The coach's use of self ‘Though little discussed in the coaching literature to date I regard the use of self as the highest order coaching skill. It can be the key difference between good and great coaching. An elusive concept and very often difficult to communicate both to students and more experienced coaches, it is none- theless a crucial aspect of any coaching professional’s potency and wisdom. Why is it so elusive, so difficult to distil Into a few easy phrases? Possibly because we are now in the territory of being able to say what it is you know and put words around those intuitive moments when you believe you know something but struggle to describe it. We all have these moments, although. ‘we may not always trust them enough to risk articulation, Later we might say to ourselves ‘I knew there was something. I was picking it up ... I wish I'd said something.’ So you might simply feel at a loss to describe your inner experience and hold back. Other times you might put your thought into ‘words but feel clumsy at descriptions that somehow still miss the mark and don’t seem quite right. Finally, you may feel disempowered by your own reactions as demonstrated in the case notes of this trainee coach describing a practice session on her advanced coach training programme: When I found out that I would be coaching Dave, my heart sank! Having chatted to him socially and having observed him being coached in another session, | felt there was little or no chance of me being able to penetrate his defences. 1 knew I would have to work really hard to get anywhere and was apprehensive about how the session would go ~ not a good place to start from! My fears were realised. During the session, we ‘danced’ around each other - me trying to g session fin changes te Trealis had challe back in sc something profession. have toler: lisation of all too we impact he ‘would hav sion was i people wh. how Iwas, the light’! valuable Ic ‘The learning 1 relationship may b relationships ~ anc ‘The key questi internal data. Skilf most profound of A source of yo cover whether you hijacking the clier helpful? For you te awareness of your reason why self-dt ment. Knowing, fe challenge, compli: response in the he ‘The whole area of, and is an ongoing Summary For the client, the reflect, get cleare effective action. Itverly self- intment, agers reg id having or clients, ‘ere else Allowing is all that motional are more scuss the ne use of between, ficult to 1s none- swisdom, Possibly ou know ou know though night say Vd said ht into vark and sribing a st sank! a being of me to work ow the us were x-me ‘THE KEY DIMENSIONS OF A COACHING SESSION 85: trying to get Dave to open up and him blocking my every move - the session finished with little prospect, I felt, of Dave making any changes to his work/life balance. I felt frustrated. realised afterwards, when I was receiving feedback, that when had challenged Dave, it actually felt wrong to do so. I felt like I was back in school and I was telling my teacher that he was wrong ~ something you didn’t do. And yet, here I was a mature, assertive, professional person who, in my everyday working life, would not have tolerated the lack of response to my direct questions. My rea- lisation of the effect that Dave had had on me, made me understand, all too well, how valuable it would have been to tell him of the impact he was having on me and what a powerful tool the use of self would have been in that situation. My feeling about the whole ses- sion was if he was having that effect on me, what effect he has on people who are less mature, less assertive and so on. If I had offered, how I was feeling at the time, perhaps Dave would have begun to ‘see the light’! Tt was a session I shall not forget in a hurry and will be a valuable learning experience for future coaching sessions, ‘The learning here is that the very dynamics occurring in the coaching relationship may be a mirror image of clients’ experiences in their workplace relationships ~ and they may be completely unaware of ‘The key questions for the coach are about how, if and when to use these internal data, Skilfully delivered, at the right time, these insights can be the ‘most profound of all coaching interactions. ‘A source of your own self interference as a coach can be your confusion over whether you are saying more about yourself than the client. Are you hijacking the client’s agenda rather than offering something that may be helpful? For you to trust your internal radar you need to have a high degree of awareness of your own personal material, patterns and issues. This is the reason why self-development is such a crucial aspect of coaching develop- ment. Knowing, for example, whether your typical response to authority is challenge, compliance or avoidance of contact alerts you to whether your response in the here and now may be more to do with you than your client. ‘The whole area of use of self as instrument is a complex yet fascinating one and Is an ongoing theme of this book. Summary For the client, the coaching space is often a thinking space. It’s a time to reflect, get clearer about issues and make decisions that feed into more effective action. It can be the time, perhaps the only time, when some clients= [86 PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF EXECUTIVE COACHING feel able to tell their story and express their worries without fear of judgement and criticism. It can also be a time to celebrate successes and have someone recognise and validate hard-won achievements, For the coach, the capacity to work at all four levels ~ the story, the client's thought processes and feelings, and the use of self ~ is undoubtedly a challenging proposition. If you are a newer coach then it may seem aspira- tional. Even experienced coaches often struggle to rise above the story and do what Gallwey (2000) refers to as ‘eavesdropping’ on someone's thinking and feeling processes. To do these and then add the fourth dimension of the skilful use of self requires a good deal of practice, personal examination and sense of timing. If you are still practising the art of coaching the story and have yet to move to the other levels, take heart. The very fact that the client is heard and accepted is like being placed in sunlight. A crucial aspect of coaching from the client's perspective is to feel respected, understood and acknowledged. 9 Psyck the fi psyct Psychological 1 ‘Whether executive and arguably they < require a certain | effectively across th foundation stone c Psychological r so many of coachin case psychotherap: recently through L. fan increasing use + tency categories of see psychological ‘executive coaches, Its meaning is nc umbrella concept t and the relationship and why we behay ppast in the preser happened previou: In essence it behaviour, though Is a significant dif relationships and gical processes. Th nitely alienate mar gazing’ Asa trainer of, psychological com logical mindednes niques before but