Is Your Coach Doing it Wrong?

Does Anyone Know What Coaching is?

Discussions on what coaching is and isn't most often turn into debates or have open endings; and those are just discussions between coaches!  In my experience, there are many people practising "coaching" who have no formal training, who assume that because they have extensive experience in a particular field they can practice as coaches there, who think that as psychotherapists they can "just" transition to coaching or as layperson feels that they are so caring and compassionate that when they talk to friends they are doing coaching. Some even attend a coaching course and attempt to manipulate and forge the skills and paradigms into their own methodology rather than internalise what is offered. 

There are many different coaching models, philosophies and methodologies and within each a coach may choose from a selection of tools that which is most suited to the client in a session or through the entire coaching work. At the end of the day effective coaching is being done when there is an inner shift within the client which is most often measurable by change in behaviour.
 

Measuring the effectiveness of coaching can be challenging. Coach and client behaviours are useful markers.

Where it Goes Wrong

'Jane Executive', not knowing well enough what coaching is herself, goes on to hire a coach and finds herself repeating the same behaviour which brought her to coaching in the first place. She does everything the coach tells her to but she continues to struggle without the coach's assistance (here's a clue to clients and coaches).

From the coach's perspective, her client seems unable to function autonomously. The client keeps bumping her head in similar scenarios and the coach hears the same modes of thinking and sets of beliefs which frame her client's behaviour (another clue).

What is the Problem?

Largely, we grow up and learn to function within a paradigm of being told and telling people what to do, respectively. When we comply we are rewarded, when we don't we are punished. This punishment may be overt, as in going to jail or it may be subtle, such as being given a disapproving look or a good shouting at or even not given any form of recognition at all. Psychologically these are powerful influences on what we choose to believe, how we think, feel and how we act this out with other people and the world. It is disruptive to our functioning when we are led to believe things which are not true; things about the world (eg "The financial world is dangerous"), about ourselves (eg "I can't be a manager/team leader") or others (eg "People who dress like X are better than me"). We are talking about fundamental beliefs here, those not founded on evidence or fitting to specific circumstances but rather beliefs held to be true regardless of observable reality. They can be called 'contaminated beliefs'. If we were completely conscious of these contaminations we would immediately identify irrelevant beliefs, ways of thinking and feeling which are not useful or relevant to the circumstances. We are however not fully conscious beings.

Here's the crunch, if we were to attempt to change these sub-conscious dynamics by following what others tell us to do, we would fail repeatedly. Firstly, we would be assuming another person's concept of reality. Their reality may not be relevant to us and their reality is likely to have it's own contaminations. Secondly when we comply with another's instructions, regardless of how kindly and gently they are offered, we would not be consciously choosing what is best for our unique inner being or environment. In addition, we may subconsciously sabotage the instructions and again not be aware of why we aren't progressing.

A coaching relationship in which the coach tells the client what to do, offers advice (even subtly) or gives their own opinions, does not serve the client in attaining the inner shifts required to sustain new, relevant and dynamic thinking, feeling and behaviour. Instead what is likely happening is referred to as a symbiotic relationship. It is psychologically symbiotic in that the coach has a compliant client and the client has someone to tell them what to do. The relationship is sustained by this dynamic and is resistant to change (within each party and the coaching relationship) because it relies on the command of the coach and the compliance of the client. The coach does the thinking, telling what and how to think and the client complies. It is merely a mirror of the relational dynamic we grow up with in most societies in the world. We can see it in highly hierarchical systems in which little change and creative thinking occurs because new generations are discouraged from doing so and simply copy previous generations thinking, feeling and behaviour. In South Africa we call this type of organisation a 'wors masjien' or a 'sausage factory'. Everything is based on routine, processes and regulation. Human creativity, energy and freedom are not harnessed. When a coach tells his or her clients what to do and gives them advice, they are merely supporting the dynamic which the client is aiming to escape from. When a client's unhealthy dynamic continues, it is almost certain that the practitioner is supporting it. 

As coaches, our job is to develop new and uncontaminated thinking in our clients so they may reach the goals they set for themselves. That may involve exploring, validating and letting go of antiquated thinking and beliefs.

Regardless of the application or context, coaching is not being done if the coach tells or hints at the client what to do. 

You will know you are being coached if your coach helps you explore your thinking, feeling or behaviour without agenda. 


Through a process of validation, challenge and support you will experience an inner shift which will manifest in a change in your actions. The process is holistic in that the change occurs internally and externally.

This is the difference between skills-transfer/development and relational dynamics development/inner transformation/personal growth (which is what true coaching is). 

What Do We Do About It?

As clients, we bring the observation or feeling to mutual awareness by talking about it with the coach. 

As coaches, we bring the dynamic to supervision and then introduce changes to our practice with the client.

We might imagine the symbiotic dynamic as a fishing line with a hook on both ends. Each party to the relationship takes their hook and respective role. When one hook is let go, the other party may attempt to maintain the connection by inviting the other to retake their role. Learning what other options exist and putting those into practice are part and parcel of the coaching work for both coach and client.

How To Do "Small Talk" with Strangers

Different Strokes

People learn and approach situations differently. Some people like to jump straight in and just do things by gut feel, others spend some more time thinking about the task or activity they’re about to do. Sometimes that energy spent on thinking can get in the way of social engagements which are more enjoyable if they have a natural flow.  “Gut-feel people” are guided more by their intuition and the energy they receive as feedback to their behaviour. “Thinkers” sometimes get a little stuck and break the flow that would make mingling with others seem so natural.

However “thinkers” can use balanced and appropriate thinking to their advantage and “gut-feel” people could use some basic concepts to enhance communication and social engagement.

Time Structuring

The psychiatrist Eric Berne gave structure to the time we spend according to his theory of Transactional Analysis. There are six ways we spend time: 

• Withdrawal- the time a person spends on their own without contact with others. This may be intentional lack of engagement with others which each party feels OK with, or lack of contact due to lack of trust or shyness (as examples where one or both parties do not feel OK).

• Rituals- a familiar social interaction which involves gestures and speech particular to culture and language as if rehearsed. Eg. Shaking hands, exchange of “Hello, how are you?” etc. Matching the ritual particular to the other person is important in building rapport and trust and serves as a gateway to less rehearsed ways of spending time with the other.

• Pastimes- eg.  Talking about weather, sport and interests. People talk about something without actually engaging in action on the topic. This is a safe way for people to exchange light strokes (Transactional Analysis concept) and is a stepping-stone to deeper level interaction.

• Activities- people can engage in activity alone or with someone else. This is another structure in which people exchange strokes.

• Games- psychological games are all played out without awareness. They are not necessarily viewed as helpful in conventional interaction. Game-playing takes place when these destructive/unhelpful patterns of behaviour go on repeatedly and without being addressed. Indications a game is being played is when one/both parties are feeling not OK with themselves or the other.

• Intimacy- when people share authentic feelings without censorship, they are engaged in intimacy. These can be “positive” or “negative” feelings.

So "Pastimes" is another word for small-talk. Some examples of questions you might ask to stimulate small-talk are “So what are your interests?”, “What are you looking forward to most this year?”, “What was the highlight of your week?” and so on. Think of your own ones too. 

Doing It

Looking at how your conversation partner dresses, presents themselves, behaves and the energy they give you all are clues you can use to see what kind of topic you might talk about. Being mindful of (not over-thinking) these things can also provide immediate feedback about how the conversation is going.

And remember, the success and joy of a conversation depends on the energy both people put into it. Go easy on yourself, life is about progressive learning.

Conflict: Getting Mad, Getting Even and a Healthy Option…. Part I

Whether it is dealing with a moody family member, personal trauma or countering a danger to one’s country, we are faced as individuals and communities with many daily risks to our safety, patience, frame of reference and emotional harmony. 

Current global unrest serves to demonstrate continued thinking, feeling and behaviour when dealing with conflict, that if one is threatened one must retaliate. Often our paradigm is one of looking into the past to justify this behaviour, a question of “who started it?”, “who threw the first punch?”, “who didn’t accept an apology?” Often people use illogical beliefs about others which are handed down culturally or from our parents and preceding generations in attempting to cope. Some irrational beliefs about conflict and those who pose a ‘threat’ to us may be so entrenched in our subconscious that we fail to recognise them. This is due to having either accepted these beliefs as truths, from our parents, or having employed contaminated logic when making sense of a lived experience. The psychological lens through which we see the world may thus contaminate our behaviour, which then reinforces the stereotypes we have of others, in a cycle of negative feedback. 

It may firstly be useful to ask “why should I change my worldview or approach to conflict?”, as often we are so sure of our position and ‘comfortable’ in our paradigm that we aren’t aware that our beliefs are not serving us. There are a number of reasons for changing unhelpful conflict behaviour, ranging from improving our experience of life to our impact on humanity as a collective. It is easy to get philosophical on this, and in the interests of pragmatism let us maintain our focus on the real world experience of conflict and our responses to it. Conflict causes stress and prolonged, unresolved conflict causes chronic stress, which we obviously want to avoid. Resolving conflict efficiently and healthily impacts us directly and also feeds back into society in that we model positive and useful behaviour to those we engage with, who are thus invited to employ the same thinking and behaviour, and so on. One might imagine this process being passed from person to person in a positive feedback loop. 

So how do we objectively see those parts of ourselves, which in reality do not serve us? You might imagine this akin to looking in the mirror and seeing yourself differently! A useful start is recognising when we find ourselves facing the same problem repeatedly without change, that we are using out-dated and/or non-relevant thinking. We are then likely using thinking and beliefs which were once useful to us but are now redundant, or which were never useful to us in our lives but were passed to us from our forebears. Our beliefs are not necessarily learned or employed in awareness. Their presence can be noted when we react to stressful situations and use words like “typical”, “always” and “never” in the heat of the moment. It is impossible to cover all flavours of contaminated or irrelevant belief, but if we observe a recurring pattern in our relationships and interactions with others during conflict, it can be a strong clue that we are not thinking or acting from a place of useful awareness. 

A common pattern is reacting critically or angrily when experiencing a threat or making a judgement of someone. Unless the other party responds from a place of awareness and objective thinking, we may enter a negative feedback loop with them, a cycle of punishing and being punished. 

So how do we escape harmful patterns? 

As with many unhelpful behaviours, recognising their existence is a great start. Recognition however is not judgment as this is in itself punitive, merely another form of unhelpful thinking within the same paradigm. Recognition in this sense then is being aware of the dynamic between oneself and the other without judging or assigning meaning and value to it. This non-judged observation of the dynamic is useful in that we are unlikely to employ the same beliefs (in defending our behaviour or criticising the other’s) which we are aiming at shifting. 

In order to invite you to take ample time to observe your dynamic/beliefs/thinking, without judgment, I will address the next step in an upcoming article. You are also welcome to visit www.lifecoachcapetown.com for more info on how coaching can help you.