What Our Clients are Really Telling Us (Method 1)

A summary of this article can be found at the end, if you find yourself pressed for time :) 

Parts of a Whole 

As a coach supervisor and coach, I am aware that I do not only engage with my clients cognitively. It is my job to engage my client as a whole person, with their permission. If the valuable work only happened at the cognitive level, there would be little use for helping professionals, people would solve their problems as soon as they thought about doing so. 

We are useful to our clients because something within them can override their own cognitive abilities. This “something” may take many forms and this something is difficult to observe in oneself. It may be what or how the client is thinking, it may be what lies below the thinking, the sub-conscious. Clients can also get in the way of themselves when thinking is their only space for problem solving and being. Part of being a whole person is the capacity to experience the emotional and physical self and to use this as a tool for problem solving. A powerful means of connecting to other people, animals and the world is through emotional experience. When feeling is entirely or partly excluded from experience, a person will be limited in how they relate to themselves, others and the world. 

Feeling is a magnificent phenomenon and one which can be employed skilfully by the practitioner too! In addition to allowing a complete experience of self, our own feelings can give us a lot of information about what another is experiencing. In practice, paying attention to what our own gut is telling us can give important clues to the client’s inner experience. 

The Nature of Relationship 

Using Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle (Fig 1) as a reference model, one can see that when the practitioner experiences feelings of wanting to Rescue their client for example, it is possible the client has invited this by assuming the psychological role of Victim. This would be conveyed explicitly (on a social level/in the client’s words) or implicitly (on a psychological level/evoking feelings in the practitioner). When these engagements happen between positions of Persecutor, Rescuer or Victim, they are inauthentic, manipulative and disempowering of both parties. These messages are communicated between individuals by means of what Transactional Analysis calls transactions. 

However, being mindful of their own feelings the skilled practitioner may choose to respond to the client in a way which positively complements the inauthentic invitation with one which is truly valuable, in this instance showing authentic care by having a conversation around the practitioner’s and client’s responsibilities within the coaching space as well as regarding the client’s life circumstances. As this is an authentic and empowering response, it is not referenced in the paradigm of the Drama Triangle. Instead we use another model/paradigm to illustrate the transaction not coming from the Rescuer position, but a position of Caring and responsibility as in Acey Choy’s Winner’s Triangle (Fig 2). In this case, from a position of vulnerability, the client can own their experience (without expecting or manipulating a rescue from the practitioner) and design ways of accepting and taking responsibility for themselves. 

This is one way a coaching or supervising practitioner reads between the lines to figure out their client’s authentic need and then responds as such. It may take some time for a client to respond positively to the practitioner’s authentic engagement and it may even happen that the client does not respond authentically, perhaps preventing any progress at this point. When a stickiness or impasse is noticed between practitioner and client, it is useful to seek resolution to these issues in supervision.

In summary:

• Client and practitioner engage with each other explicitly (social level transactions) and implicitly (psychological level transactions)
• It is useful for the practitioner to be mindful of their own experience, as a potential indicator of the client’s experience and the relational dynamic in the session
• The dynamic between client and practitioner in the session often mirrors the dynamic between client and others in their lives (the problem they bring to coaching/supervision)
• The practitioner’s authentic and empowering response in the session invites resolution to the client’s dilemma and models to them how to resolve the same dynamic in their personal/professional lives

Remember, as coaches or supervisors our job is not to provide answers to our client’s problems because we know everything. In a coaching and supervision space we do not train our clients. We are just as human as they are. However, it is our skill in self-awareness, inter-subjectivity and mindfulness of human experience that is itself a vehicle for resolving client issues. 

We use our humanness to transform humanness.

Coaching with Integrity

As a coach and coach supervisor, I sell neither my knowledge, expertise, technical skill nor my opinion directly. When I am most potent as a practitioner, I am employing and selling the integration of all my learning, I am the instrument of the service I provide. Therefore, as an instrument of personal and organisational change, I feel that my integrity and professional efficacy is most valuably measured by the degree to which I take ownership of the principles and philosophies I trust will bring about transformation for my clients. In other words, do I talk the talk and walk the walk? Are my professional and personal conduct in tune?

An illustrative scenario is one in which a coach deals with conflict. Does the coach employ their experience, wisdom, theoretical knowledge and personal integration of these spontaneously in dealing with conflict? If not, how can the coach ensure that they are coaching healthily regarding issues around conflict with their clients? 

"How we work is who we are...and who we are is how we work"

Diana Shmukler, 2010

When we notice that our personal thinking, feeling and behaviour stands in contrast to the principles of our professional/coaching self, we can be sure that the not-so-helpful personal aspects will filter into the work we do with our clients, probably without our being consciously aware of it. Noticing that we have personal points for growth which affect our professional conduct is liberating and empowering! Awareness is the gateway to change.

Another measure of our personal 'stuff' getting in the way of our coaching effectiveness with clients, is a 'stuckness' in the relationship with our clients or a lack of significant movement towards the client's goals. Simply put, if we are not empowering our clients' progress, we may be hindering it by lack of action or lack of appropriate action.

A concept and solution to this which I resonate with is called Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Various professional coaching bodies each have their own structure for CPD and what qualifies for it. I appreciate that there are CPD activities appealing to people's varied learning preferences and professional spheres and that the structure of CPD encourages a healthy balance of each type. For instance amongst others, one may gain recognition for having conducted research, attended certain events or courses.

I would like to draw attention to the use of coaching supervision as a channel for CPD and the reasons why I believe it to be one of, if not the most powerful one.

In a nutshell, supervision equips us with new theoretical knowledge as well as new experiential knowledge. Take a look at David Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle below to see how this happens.

When we bring something we have experienced (Concrete Experience) in our practice to supervision, we are able to make sense of it from both within and outside of a subjective frame of reference. This is helpful in that we can learn to recognise (Reflective Observation) those bits of ourselves which get entangled with our clients' 'stuff', as well as understand (Abstract Conceptualisation) the why and how of that happening. This learning gives us the power to make difference choices (Active Experimentation) in how we approach and respond in the moment to our clients. A supervisor can be trusted to walk this journey with us, providing structure, support, challenge, protection and growth. When we get stuck with our own 'stuff', the supervisor's role becomes crucial in that they encourage us to think in the present, relying on facts relevant to the situation now rather than outdated thinking which may hold us and our clients back.

In addition to providing this platform and process for growth, skilled supervisors will engage in 'double loop learning' with coaches which inherently models that which will nurture growth within the coach and the coach's client.

Supervision is a growth process, not a critical process. The safe space it provides can be used to manage, support and develop both coaches and their clients. Ultimately supervision enhances our effectiveness by providing a process of growth towards integrity and healthy practice.

Coach Supervision Won't Teach You Anything

"What a pity the word 'supervision' is used to name our practice!" I've heard it said in so many conversations on the subject. Supervisors seem to have the common challenges of inviting (some reluctant) coaches to the process. If that is successful, then concertedly working with the relational dynamic resulting from coach expectations of being scrutinised, criticised or taught how to coach and run their practice.

Supervise | verb |  

observe and direct the execution of a task or activity 

(from the Oxford Dictionary of English)

Perhaps these inaccurate expectations are hand-downs from a belief-association with supervision's roots in clinical supervision, or our societal experiences of supervision. My own guess is that some coaches who have not yet had supervision subconsciously associate it with their experiences at school of being taught (sometimes harshly) technical skills and theoretical knowledge, largely in the cognitive domain. Those au fait with the practice thus contend from the outset with some erroneous perceptions of their process. Coaches in fact are likely to encounter this with their own clients, depending on the nature of the envisaged outcomes and the modality they employ in reaching these. It is a familiar dynamic. It can take some time to get into the groove before effective work is happening.

 

I am not daring enough to suggest an alternative name for supervision here, in fact I doubt whether it is worth doing that in any case, it is probably too late to call supervision by any other name. What I do suggest however is a collective intention to provide relevant information and more significantly the experience of supervision, in a strategy to make it attractive, efficient, valuable and part-and-parcel of wholesome coaching (and supervision!) practice.

I love the word 'wholesome' because it encompasses the multidimensional impact supervision has. Arguably, supervision's most important role is in protecting the end client, the person who comes to coaching. In addition to this crucial aspect, supervision enhances the client's experience by inviting the coach to explore their practice in a safe and learning-focused environment. How does my personal stuff impact my professional practice? How do I deal with stuckness in the coaching relationship? How do I deal with this ethical dilemma? How do I respond to having messed up? How might I be keeping my client stuck? How do I respond to the challenges which my client's environment brings to our coaching? What do the patterns in my coaching-client relationships mean?

 

In practice, supervisees use a snapshot of their coaching experience to explore some of these questions. As you will know from coaching, that which the client consciously brings to the work, often has its unseen underlying causes. 

Supervisors are attuned to listen to the story and note in parallel what the relational dynamic is between themselves and their supervision client, thus gaining insight into what that client is not yet seeing for themselves. Using these observations then, both parties are equipped with more information upon which to create options for resolution of the supervision client's challenge. This is no doubt not the length and breadth of supervision but it is one of the most profound processes I have experienced with my own supervisor and which I practice with my own supervision clients.

You will have gathered now, that the supervisor employs and shares their own experience of the relationship with their client in the session, in order for both to become aware of the as-yet-unseen factors currently impacting the coaching practice. 

The relationship is equal and shared; the supervisor acting as a lightning rod for that which is implicitly asking to be learned from and metamorphosed, the client also serving as a responsive and growing conduit of information from their psyche and their own client's environment. 

Supervision is a relationship in which both parties transform and are transformed. The engagement employs and nurtures self-reflection, growth, learning and realisation. 

Coach supervision will not teach you anything, but in it you will learn everything; about yourself, your practice and your client relationships.