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One
of the most difficult challenges for a business coach is directly related
to the amount of knowledge stored in their experience. Often times
coaching opportunities are created with people whose storehouse of
knowledge and experience may be significantly less than the coach. It’s
tempting to just tell them the answer, isn’t it?
We
learn a lot as we gain knowledge and experience with a variety of clients
over time in a variety of circumstances. However, all of this knowledge
and experience can create blind spots for us when coaching our clients.
How much can a client learn? How far can a client or subordinate shift or
develop at one time? When the coach knows too much, it can be a trap!
The
answers to these questions clearly depend on numerous factors, many of
which are out of our control. The only thing we do have control over is
the coaching interaction and how well we create an environment for
development to occur. The client is where they are because of their
current structure of beliefs. Most of the time, it is not new information
or knowledge that creates development, but experience over time with new
governing variables (beliefs) that are constructed from experience,
reflection, conceptualization and experimentation (Kolb’s Learning
Cycle). Depending on circumstances, this may come easy for some and not so
easy for others.
In
considering how much you know and how much the client is able to
assimilate, it is critical that we coach the client or subordinate from
where they are, not from where we
are. If we focus on the client and not on what we know (or get from
imparting knowledge to people like the “expert” our ego would like us
to be), the knowledge the client needs will be available to them when they
need it from us instead of when we
want to give it.
It
is important to examine the actual experience taking place in the
conversation and not focus so much on what should or needs to happen. This
obviously takes courage in order to restrain ourselves from not
“rescuing” the client. We know that time is of the essence, yet if we
take the easy way and provide the answers, we sub-optimize the development
of capability. Sometimes, the best thing to do is nothing. Sometimes, it
is just better to allow the client to assimilate things befitting their
own structure of learning instead of looking good in the client’s eyes.
Developing
capability is not an easy job.
I have a lot of clients who ask me for answers and I “move off
the solution” by asking what’s important or asking them to tell me
what a good answer might look like to them. This keeps the monkey
where it belongs. The law of
human economy states that humans
seek the most for the least amount of effort. It is a good and just
law, however; if people figure out they can get the answer from you, it
can block development and the formation of increasingly higher levels of
capability. The key is to move off of the solution, find out what’s
important about having the answer [what motivates the client to want the
answer] and to help the client connect with the motivation to gain new
information and knowledge on their own. Continuously guiding them through
the process of experience, reflection, conceptualization and
experimentation is a way to build spiraling levels of ability to think
critically and learn to solve their challenges.
The coach
who knows too much can become a liability for the client’s developmental
journey, if that coach doesn’t understand that building capability is
the most important issue in developmental coaching--not looking good to
the client or feeding one’s ego as an expert. In fact, it may come down
to explaining why we’re not
giving them the answer. Yet, by helping our clients understand that our
role is teach them to fish, rather than give them fish, coaches who know
too much can find the courage to stand firm in the bliss of ignorance.
Author Mike Jay is a practicing business
coach writing and coaching on business issues relevant to
"generati"--generative ideas, people, business and organizations. He is
the author of COACH2 The Bottom Line: An Executive Guide to coaching
performance, change and transformation in organizations--http://www.coach2-the-bottom-line.com.
Mike is the founder of
www.b-coach.com. |
