The Mystery of Coaching Mastery - Part 1

The Essence of Coaching

I’ve been called a Master Coach; and from the mid 1990’s through 2011, I held the credential of Master Certified Coach (MCC) awarded by the International Coach Federation (ICF). In 2012, through a series of circumstances and confusions, I neglected to renew my ICF credential. By the time I realized what had happened, I found myself in the awkward position of reapplying and needing to, once again; prove my “mastery” by submitting two recorded coaching sessions for review by ICF assessors. What I thought would be a simple process became a large challenge: a challenge that created the opportunity for me to reflect more deeply on my experience and perspectives related to the essence of coaching, the nature of the professional coach, the coaching relationship, coaching mastery, and the role of coaching in the world. This article and the three that follow are records of my reflections.

As I went about the task of making my required recordings of coaching sessions, I had great supporters: a past president and vice-president of the ICF and colleagues who specialize in teaching classes about the credentialing process.   In addition I have personally mentored hundreds of coaches and lead practicum sessions for an ICF-approved coaching school that uses the ICF competencies as a template for giving feedback to students. So perhaps you can imagine my surprise and dismay when I was repeatedly told that, although the recordings demonstrated my skill and mastery in coaching, I failed to demonstrate the required competencies in a way that would allow me to pass the test and regain my credential.

I tried to learn from each experience but continued to miss the mark. In fact, the more I tried to follow the competencies, the worse my coaching became. I had trouble being present with my clients, became self-conscious, and felt exhausted at the end of a session. I began some serious self-examination to understand why I was having so much trouble “getting with the program.” I went through periods of angry righteousness, of self-doubt, and even resignation. How could it be that Jay Perry, one of the founders of the ICF and recognized leader in the profession for twenty-five years couldn’t pass the most basic of tests? I began feeling emotions I associate with guilt; perhaps even shame. I didn’t like those feelings and, since masochism is not one of my key values, I was unwilling to continue down a path that stimulated that kind of pain.

 I know that I have a propensity to be a rebel so it never occurred to me that this was anything other than my personal problem. But when I shared my credentialing story with a large group of experienced coaches, I was shocked to receive communications from more than forty people (fully 25% of the people present) who were experiencing similar emotions and troubled thoughts around the ICF MCC credentialing process. A number of them had decided to turn away from the ICF entirely. I fully admit that it was comforting to know that I was not alone in this experience, but also distressing to see that so many distinguished and dedicated coaches no longer felt accepted in the ICF embrace.

 I want to underscore that I am personally grateful to the dedicated people who have worked, and continue to work, incredibly hard to create and refine the coaching competencies and current ICF credentialing process. These creations have contributed mightily to the proliferation and international acceptance of the coaching profession and the contribution it can make to the world. And yet, like all creations, they come with a shadow side. To me, the shadow side is related to the extent that those competencies can become a zealous orthodoxy that too rigidly defines coaching. At this point we risk obscuring our view of, and our access to, coaching mastery.

 My purpose in this series is to explore, from my own experience, the fundamental nature of coaching and to illuminate a possible view of coaching mastery. We have created a profession that is, in large part, about encouraging people to think for themselves. So, my intention is not to convince anyone that my views are correct and that theirs are wrong. But rather to share my process in the hopes that others will also engage in a personal exploration of the nature, purpose, and value of coaching.

 To begin that exploration I chose to ask myself the most fundamental question I could imagine about the coaching process as I have experienced it and practiced it for more than twenty-five years.

 What is the Essence of Coaching

Philosophy begins in wonder... Plato

 As I began to explore the mystery of coaching mastery, I found myself wondering anew about the essence of coaching.

 The Greek philosopher Plato argued that there is a world of natural forms, a world of perfection or ideas that are distinct from those things that exist in the external, “real” world. For instance, in the “real” world, there are all kinds of chairs that look and behave very differently. Some chairs wobble, some recline, some swivel, but in each case there is a natural form or “chair-ness” to a chair. When someone invites you to take a seat, it is this idea or essence of a chair that you use as a way to know where to sit even though there may be many kinds of chairs to choose from. This is the power of the idea of a chair. Even if you choose to sit on a bench, or a table, or a floor, you can only do so if you get the essence of chair.

So is there an essence of coaching that exists in a world of natural forms; a “coach-ness” that gives us real world access to its power, just like the “chair-ness” of a chair gives us the awareness of where we can sit?

The ICF defines coaching as:

…partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential, which is particularly important in today’s uncertain and complex environment. Coaches honor the client as the expert in his or her life and work and believe every client is creative, resourceful and whole. Standing on this foundation, the coach's responsibility is to:

• Discover, clarify, and align with what the client wants to achieve
• Encourage client self-discovery
• Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies
• Hold the client responsible and accountable

This process helps clients dramatically improve their outlook on work and life, while improving their leadership skills and unlocking their potential.

Wow! That’s a lot of powerful language. I can see how it could be useful as a marketing statement, especially to a corporate audience. But when I attempt to use it as lens for an investigation into the essence of coaching, I find it obscures rather than illuminates. In its attempt to capture what coaching is, the definition uses so many qualifiers that it is difficult to find the essence of coaching without running into the definition’s own limitations.

 It is as if in investigating the essence of a chair we were to start with a definition like:

A chair is an object with four legs and a back that is capable of supporting a human being’s full weight when sat upon. The legs must be of equal length that allows the person sitting to place their feet firmly on the floor. The back must be of sufficient height to allow the seated person to support the entirety of the spine…

It seems to me that when we get caught up in the form of a thing, it is more difficult to find its essence.

 So I set out to create my own definition of coaching that would be more helpful to my investigation. I began by swinging to the far end of the continuum; the least constraining definition I could imagine.

 Coaching is love.

 Hmm. I could actually make a case for this, but just as I found the ICF definition too constraining, this one seemed too vague. So after a number of trials I finally came to a definition that I liked for its simplicity and utility.

 …coaching is a thought-provoking and creative dialogue that inspires people to expand the limits of their thinking, being, and doing (TBD) in order to support more wonderful lives and a more wonderful world.

 The notion of expanding the limits of our TBD is rooted in the egocentric predicament of a knowing mind which, confined to the circle of its own ideas, finds it difficult, if not impossible, to escape to a knowledge of an external world.

 The ‘more wonderful lives’ phrase may seem like fluff to coaches who mainly support people in creating concrete results. But if those concrete results aren’t supporting more wonderful lives and a more wonderful world, what is the point?

 As you are reading this I would assume that you are a thoughtful person and may already be putting this definition to the test and questioning its validity. Since my hope is more to excite a conversation than to prove a point, I hope you are. I encourage you to discover whatever works best for you. But this is my exploration and I’m going to use this definition as my jumping off place.

 For now I invite you to expand the limits of your own thinking and reflect on times in your life when you have engaged in a thought-provoking and creative dialogue that inspired you to expand the limits of your TBD.  (TBD is shorthand for thinking, being, and doing.)

 This dialogue may have been with a teacher, a spiritual figure, an author (alive or dead), a piece of music, a sunset, or even with your self. The dialogue may have been verbal, physical, visual, or even energetic. But what resulted, in your experience, was an expansion that left you thinking thoughts that were not available just moments before; being in ways that left you feeling more capable, creative, or powerful; and taking actions that moved your life forward.

 I can recall many such dialogues. Here’s one I remember very clearly.

 It was June of 1969 and I was back home in Cleveland between my sophomore and junior years of college, working as a truck driver for a plumbing company. One evening I went out for a burger with some friends who were sharing about all the amazing adventures they were going to have that summer: one was leaving for Paris, one was crewing on a sail boat, and another was returning to Martha’s Vineyard to live in the woods with a hippy commune. I pretended to enjoy the conversation, but found myself getting increasingly depressed and angry. Although I had some great romantic, adventure-filled notions in my head, I had always been afraid to act on them.

 I left the restaurant and went down to a small lake with my friend Brian. Reflecting back it was a highly unlikely event. Brian was rather a new friend that I didn’t really know very well. But as we walked around the lake, I found myself sharing my thoughts and feelings of frustration with him. The dialogue took an eventful turn when he began telling me this story.

 Brian: I’ve written a play.

Jay: Really? What’s it about?

Brian: It opens with the stage completely dark. And then very slowly a small spot of light appears. And as the spot of light gets bigger you can see the face of a man. And as the spot of light gets even bigger you can see that the man is hanging onto a rope…just hanging on for dear life. And as the light gets wider still, you begin to see the shadows of other people walking by the desperate man. And as the light begins to fill the stage you can tell that the people walking by are nearly the same height as the man on the rope. In fact it becomes clear that the man’s feet are only inches from the ground.

(He paused. I found myself truly engaged in this unexpected story; wondering what this was all about.)

Jay: And what happens then?

Brian: He lets go of the rope.

 Almost instantly something shifted in my body. I began to wonder about what would happen if I let go of the metaphorical rope that I was clinging to. I felt lighter. I laughed. And then I had a thought that hadn’t existed a moment before.

'There’s nothing really keeping me here. I could go on my own adventure. “ 

With that thought my being shifted. I suddenly discovered a courage that I didn’t know I possessed. I knew immediately that my adventure had begun. I quit my job the next day, hitchhiked 600 miles to Martha’s Vineyard, lived in the woods with the hippie commune, worked as a roustabout for a traveling carnival, and in the middle of August, found myself sitting in the mud at the Woodstock Music Festival listening to Sly and the Family Stone. “Different Strokes for Different Folks…”

 Brian’s story expanded my thinking, being, and doing, setting me on a trajectory that has included more life adventures than I could have imagined. It was one of the most impactful bits of coaching I’ve ever had, and yet, Brian was not a professional, credentialed coach. To this day I don’t think he was ever involved with the theater in any way. In fact, as an adult, he became a very successful bankruptcy attorney.

 When you reflect on a time in your life when you have engaged in a thought-provoking and creative dialogue that inspired you to expand the limits of your TBD, what occurs to you?

 When I look at life through the lens of this definition, it seems clear to me that coaching does exist in nature. I recognize coaching, not because it has one particular form, but because of the expansion of thought, being, and action that it leaves in its wake. And as I immersed myself in memories of other life shifting experiences, the only thing that seems to be essential in all of them was the presence of wonder.

 Could it be that wonder is a critical part of the essence of coaching?

 My conclusion is that the essence of coaching has been alive for millennia. It has lived in dialogues with teachers, friends, spiritual leaders, artists, philosophers, the oceans, the stars and even our internal voices. If this is true coaching can’t be the sole province of the professional coach.

Then what is a professional coach? I wonder.

Next – The Emergence of the Professional Coach

The Mystery of Coaching Mastery - Part 2

The Emergence of the Professional Coach

In my last article, The Essence of Coaching, I asserted that the experience of coaching has been alive for millennia and that an essential aspect of coaching is wonder. Coaching has long lived in dialogues with teachers, friends, spiritual leaders, artists, philosophers, the oceans, the stars and even our internal voices. I concluded that, if this is true, coaching couldn’t be the sole province of the professional coach.

In 1995 I was part of a group, lead by my mentor Thomas Leonard, which founded the International Coach Federation. At that point in time, coaching as a concept and as a profession was in its infancy. We were used to the common verbal exchange:

What do you do?

I’m a coach.

Oh really, what sport?

Our hope was to legitimize the profession by creating standards, credentials, and a code of ethics that would make it easier to spread the word about coaching, increase our perceived value in the world and protect us from legal actions based on the common misconception that we were charlatans: advisors and pseudo-therapists who lacked real knowledge and education.

From the very beginning there were many questions about who a professional coach is and who gets to call themselves a professional coach. As it stands now, even though anyone can legally call himself or herself a professional coach, some dedicated individuals in the ICF went beyond the mere definition of coaching and took the lead in defining the core competencies of the profession. As the merit of these competencies took hold, coaching schools began to align with them and today they form the backbone of the credentialing process for a professional coach. As coaching became increasingly international in scope, a growing number of countries and cultures where professional bona fides are required adopted the ICF standards and these coaching competencies became even more widely embraced and more deeply rooted in the culture of professional coaching.

Then what is a professional coach? And why has the role emerged in the world at this time in history? I wonder.

Like the computer programmer, the behavioral economist, or the social media consultant, the role of the professional coach is in fact a job description that has been recently invented. Not only has it been invented, WE INVENTED IT! And, as the inventors, we have had the ability to shape it, improve it, and distinguish it from all other professions. How cool is that?

Who is a professional coach?

Building on the definition of coaching I created, here’s my effort at defining the role of the professional coach:

A professional coach is someone who professes that she or he is a qualified/ethical practitioner consistently capable of engaging in thought-provoking and creative dialogues that inspire people to expand the limits of their thinking, being, and doing (TBD) in order to support more wonderful lives and a more wonderful world.

 Although, it may be possible for anyone to receive coaching from anyone at any time, professional coaches profess that they can deliver the promise of the coaching experience on a consistent basis. In addition, professional coaches have the chutzpah to claim that this experience is of such value that clients ought to pay for the privilege. And, miracle of miracles, the market has proven to value what the professional coach has to offer. There are now thousands of professional coaches around the world who make part or all of their living by fulfilling this promise.

It is important to recognize that this particular promise is more than just a marketing statement; it has profound implications that are both outward and inward facing.

As an outward manifestation it describes the core of the business relationship. Just as the implied promise of a restaurant is to meet the needs of its customers when they are hungry for food, the coach promises to meet the clients’ needs when they are hungry to think more clearly and creatively, to be powerful and authentic versions of themselves, and to take actions that build the lives they want personally and for the world around them.

Turned inward this promise creates an obvious, but powerful question that professional coaches can consistently use to true both their own actions and ways of being:

Am I consistently engaged in thought-provoking and creative dialogues that inspire people to expand the limits of their thinking, being, and doing (TBD) to support more wonderful lives and a more wonderful world?

As the role of the professional coach has taken hold, there has been a proliferation of coaching schools, coaching theories, and coaching organizations that have, in good conscience, attempted to elevate the profession. As a result the profession has achieved a certain amount of complexity and a mini economy with a growing number of people who have a stake in continuing that level of complexity. Just as the accounting profession has a stake in the continuation of complex tax codes and attorneys have a stake in maintaining the mumbo jumbo of legalese are we, with all our good intentions, running the danger of doing something similar?  At a time when coaching can be a powerful tool throughout the world, do we want coaching to be overly complex, overly expensive, and largely available to only the elite on the planet. Why is it that in the last twenty-five years, I’ve observed too many bright, caring, and creative coaching students get bogged down in fears and doubts related to whether they are doing coaching correctly; even whether what they are doing is coaching at all?

Just as medical professionals true to the age old Hippocratic urging “to do good or to do no harm,” the professional coach might do well to have a simple principle like this that can serve as a similar guide:

Am I consistently engaged in thought-provoking and creative dialogues that inspire people to expand the limits of their thinking, being, and doing (TBD) to support more wonderful lives and a more wonderful world?

My hope is that a question like this could provide a way to pursue coaching development and eventually mastery that is not encumbered by fear, too many limiting beliefs, or too many rules about what you can and can’t do when you call yourself a professional coach.

The Qualifications of a Professional Coach

Anyone can claim to be a professional coach. The qualified professional coach has proof points to accompany the promise. Training, testimonials, accomplishments, credentials and an ethical code are all recognized as ways to prove to a doubting public that we can deliver on our professed value.

One qualification that is not often used in marketing statements and almost never used in professional associations is love.

I am not referring to romance, but rather a willing, enthusiastic embrace of “what is.” It is of critical importance that coaching conversations come from love and focus on love: love of ideas, language, stories, work, self-expression, creativity and more.

As I was recently preparing to lead a workshop for graduates of a recognized coach-training program, I was cautioned that too much attention to this notion of love might alienate the professionals in the room. I understand that professionals are generally thought of as people who are worthy of respect, highly skilled, well paid, and who comport themselves with a certain decorum. Unpolished, under skilled, unpaid, want-to-be's are called amateurs.

How strange that many have adopted this distinction when “amateur” is the only word in the English language that is derived from the Latin word “amare:” to love.

So I assert, for your consideration, that the master coach needs to be both a professional and an amateur.

 This is not some claim I am making because I came of age in the 1960s. Love is critical to professional coaches being able to deliver on their promise because our clients have brains?

Yes, brains; those complex, multi-purpose organs that allow us to think, move, have emotions, and even dream; they allow us to learn, play, create, remember and assign meaning; and they have sophisticated survival mechanisms that keep our heart and lungs doing their jobs while alerting us to perceived threats with chemical reactions.

People, much more informed of current thinking in neuroscience than I am, tell me that, when the brain is experiencing a threat, all available energy is channeled to its protective mechanisms. That means that, when in a state of fear or stress, the parts of the brain that we use for growth, learning, and expansion are generally not available. In those situations, we rely on what we know… or think we know.

The primitive fight, flight, or freeze reactions generated by our autonomic nervous system may have been helpful to our ancestors trying to survive in the wilds. But when emergency room doctors, fire fighters, and front line military personnel experience the rush of adrenaline that comes in the course of performing their duties, they can’t afford to be impulsive, freeze or run away. In order to operate in these stressful situations they need to be assiduously retrained to override their primitive guidance systems and think clearly in the moment.

We might not be operating on the front lines of life and death situations, but all of us have fear mechanisms that are easily triggered by more subtle situations that we encounter every day. And in similar ways we rely on our past training (the things we know, or think we know) to protect ourselves.

A friend who was recently traveling in Europe observed an American woman in a restaurant say to the waiter, “Bring me a cheeseburger.” Evidently there was no cheeseburger on the menu. When she saw that the waiter didn’t understand, the woman, who only spoke English, instinctively used her go-to strategy to make sure that he did. She repeated, “Bring me a cheeseburger!” Only this time she said it in a much louder voice.

It is easy to ridicule this ugly American’s behavior, but that would be missing the point. The reality is that, when any of us have our protective mechanisms triggered, our brains instinctively access some old solution that may or may not be the best response to our current situation.

 These experiences of perceived threat are ubiquitous. They include fears associated with what we don’t understand (ignorance), fears associated with unmet needs or expectations (loss), and fears associated with physical threats or revealing personal secrets (vulnerability). Even when these perceived threats are not life threatening, our protective mechanisms are still aroused and we use our old, habitual solutions in attempts to keep us safe.

Some of these old solutions may be quite efficient and benign. But other adaptations may be quite costly: lying to ourselves and others, seeking power or giving up power, pushing others away, or forming systems of limiting beliefs. Imagine any of the great problems that exist in the world, and you are likely to find the source in at least one of these adaptations to fear.

Professional coaches implicitly profess to be able to engage the brain of a person in ways that allow for expansion. Simply put, coaches are able to avoid stimulating the brain’s protective mechanisms while engaging brain functions that include learning and creativity.

And the most honest, transparent way to do that is through love. This is one way to distinguish the coaching profession from all others. Although love can enhance the practice of medicine, law, or accounting, it is not a prerequisite for any of these professions to deliver on their promises.   I am clear that the masterful coaching I’ve received has been from people who were both professional and amateur.

I am reminded of a person I consider a master coach: author, teacher, and symphony orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander. Maestro Zander is well over six feet tall with an enormous wingspan and a large expressive face. When his protective mechanism is engaged by something he experiences as a disappointment or a frustration, he, with a blend of love and wonder, throws his long arms out into space and declares, “How fascinating!” I imagine his brain responds much differently to that behavior than it would to a tirade against the world or the “stupid people” around him.

So I’m going to take the liberty of expanding my view on the essence of coaching from simply “wonder” to “love and wonder.”

It seems to me that a growing number of people in the world are no longer satisfied with old, habitual solutions to fear. They long to express themselves fully, to see their lives as purposeful, and to experience fulfillment, not just safety. Is that one of the reasons that coaching has emerged as a profession in the 21st century?

The Emergence of the Professional Coach

Perhaps by trying to understand why coaching resonates at this time in history and in so many places around the globe, we’ll be able to discover some insight into coaching mastery. I’m sure there will be several dissertations written on this topic in years to come. But until all the academics have weighed in, I’m going to take a shot.

My theory is that, in many cultures where the professional coach has emerged, we are experiencing a confluence of at least four relevant and significant trends:

• An unprecedented and rapidly increasing rate of technological change
• An explosion of connectedness coupled with an epidemic of loneliness
• An increase in the value we place on authenticity
• A paradox between planetary abundance and the real threat of the extinction of our species

Let me attempt to make the connection between these trends and the emergence of the professional coach.

• We are living with an unprecedented and rapidly increasing rate of technological change. Never before in history has the rate of change been so rapid; in fact the pace is picking up. Core products, services, and strategies of many companies, even industries, can become obsolete in a matter of years. Innovation drives huge segments of our economy. Ironically, even though technology has freed us from certain tasks, people are working harder and harder to do their present jobs while dealing with the adaptions, learning, and fear associated with constant change. Because things move so quickly we must be able to expand our TBD quickly just to keep up.   We need a way to stop, unhook, and reflect; an approach to engaging the most expansive parts of our being; something that a professional coach can provide.

• We are living with an explosion of connectedness coupled with an epidemic of loneliness. Never before in history have we been more “linked in” to news and information. We email, we text, we tweet, we Skype, and we Instagram. We are kept in the loop with round the clock news and social media. Yet all of the connectedness we derive from these technologies has not resulted in relationships that are deeply connected. A study in 2006 published in the American Sociological Reviewreported more than a quarter of the respondents — one in four — said that they have no one with whom they can talk about their personal troubles or triumphs. If family members are not counted, the number doubles to more than half of Americans who have no one outside their immediate family with whom they can share confidences. Sadly, the researchers noted that the number of “socially isolated” Americans has doubled since 1985. Professional coaches can provide the kind of listening and connection that many people need. (In the next article in this series, The Coaching Relationship, I’ll make a case for this being one of the most important things a coach can offer.)

• We are living with an increase in the value we place on authenticity. Never before in history have we been in a position to see so many individual and cultural differences as assets and not threats. It is no longer a painful necessity to view our uniqueness as heretical, sick, or fodder for humiliation. And yet cultural prejudices survive. The professional coach is someone who supports and celebrates the unique self-expression of every individual and is a champion for his or her success.

• We are living with a paradox between abundance and the threat of extinction. Never before in history has so much of the world’s population had their basic survival needs met. A significant percentage of the population is able to occupy itself with the higher levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: love and belonging, esteem, and even self-actualization are all coaching themes. At the same time, the very survival of great swaths of our bio system are threatened. Increases in population, climate change, energy needs, scarcity of clean water, and weapons of mass destruction are all part of our current reality. At a time when many people in the world are living with famine, drought, disease, and the horrifying realities of war, there is a growing urgency for those on the planet who enjoy abundance to expand their TBD so that all the humans, plants, and animals on earth can survive and thrive. Professional coaches are playing an ever-expanding role in support of these initiatives.

And so I believe that, given the stress, gravity, and opportunities of these trends, we’ve come to a time in history when being able to expand our TBD is no longer optional. The role of the professional/amateur coach has emerged now because it is addressing critical needs.

The focus of this piece has been on the individual role of the professional coach. But to focus solely on the coach is to miss something rather important. Coaching is a relationship and, I believe, it is the relationship itself that holds the most promise for us as individuals and as a global society.

Next – The Coaching Relationship

The Mystery of Coaching Mastery - Part 3

The Coaching Relationship

I told a story with the E Street Band that was, and is, bigger than I ever could have told on my own. Bruce Springsteen

As I continue my search for coaching mastery, I’ve found this definition of a professional coach to be quite useful.

A professional coach is someone who professes that she or he is a qualified/ethical practitioner consistently capable of engaging in thought-provoking and creative dialogues that inspire people to expand the limits of their thinking, being, and doing (TBD) in order to support more wonderful lives and a more wonderful world.

But to focus solely on the coach is to miss something rather important. Coaching occurs in a relationship and it may be that it is the relationship itself that holds the most promise for us as individuals and as a global society.

So what is a relationship? In most cases we think of a relationship as the way in which two or more people or things are connected. In coaching it is also important to consider the relationship individuals have with themselves. When you consider the multiple permutations of the people and things within the coaching universe there is a constellation of relationships to explore:

• How is a client related to him/herself? Whether this question is openly discussed with a client or not, coaches know that this relationship is critical to the client’s success. The relationship the client has with her/himself is a strong filter. Often the coach is engaged to deepen and expand that personal connection so that the client can experience her/himself as more worthy, more capable, and more creative.

• How is a coach related to him/herself? The connection we have with ourselves shapes the way we are able to be with a client, how we are able to listen, how free we are to speak our truth, and what we are able to ask of our clients. If our relationship with ourselves is dominated by fear, frustration, doubt, and drama, we’ll be bringing all of that to a coaching relationship. This is why I believe that self-love, the ability to embrace the entirety of our own perfectly, imperfect humanity, is the only absolute prerequisite for a professional coach.

• How are coach and client related to each other? The way we answer this question is central to our views of the profession. The clearer we are about this, the easier it is to educate incoming clients about the unique qualities of this kind of relationship. I’ll do a deeper dive into this relationship in the next section.

• How are each related to other individuals? How many coaching conversations are dedicated to challenges and opportunities that exist with bosses, co-workers, spouses, and children? A successful coaching relationship can serve as a model for the client to use to succeed in all relationships.

• How are each related to groups or even the world as a whole? My definition of coaching includes “supporting more wonderful lives and a more wonderful world” and that requires expanded TBD with others. Part of the promise of coaching is that we are able to go beyond individual problems and opportunities to see how each of us can best contribute to the kind of world we want for ourselves and for future generations.

Each of these relationships is worthy of further exploration, but for the purposes of my current investigation, I’m choosing to focus primarily on the relationship between coach and client.

Coaching Relationships from Different Perspectives

The way a coach relates to a client is one of the chief drivers of a coaching conversation. There are many possible ways for a coach to relate to a client that are ethical and effective. These relationships include, but are not limited to, servant, partner, trainer, model, champion, rug puller, activist, teacher, resource, and even leader.

• As a servant – I am here to serve my client’s agenda. This is one of the first ways we learn to relate to clients in coach training. We are taught that we are not to bring our own agenda or to lead the client in any way. This is an important step in freeing ourselves from old habits of problem solving, fixing, and advising. We want to make sure that clients are expanding and becoming more powerful in ways that are important to them.

• As a partner – We are using our combined strengths, abilities, and wisdom to pursue the same end. In a partnership both parties are clearly aligned on the same objective. Coach and client stand shoulder-to-shoulder looking at challenges and opportunities. This can be evident in a brainstorm and mastermind where either or both coach and client are empowered, and expected, to initiate and follow.

• As a champion – I am standing for the client’s ability to expand and succeed. There are times when the client’s confidence flags, when the connection she has with herself turns negative, contraction replaces expansion, and old stories of blame and explanation replace exploration of possibilities. At times the client, more than anything else, needs someone who believes in him and stands for his right to full self-expression and believes in his ability to succeed.

• As a trainer – I am teaching a specific skill set that supports the objectives of coaching. Many of my new clients have never worked with a coach before. No matter how I try to inform them with a welcome packet and other materials, they often first relate to me as some other relationship that they are familiar with: friend, therapist, manager, consultant, counselor, advisor, sounding board, teacher, or parent. They sometimes need training in how to be a successful client.

• As a rug puller – I am challenging the client’s belief systems and assumptions that are hindering expansion. I am the supportive skeptic, the devil’s advocate, the boy who asks, “Why does the emperor have no clothes?” I am not all knowing, but neither is the client. We are two blind people trying to describe an elephant from a particular perspective; with one possible exception: the coach is always aware that there are multiple perspectives and brings that awareness to the relationship.

• As an activist – I am being a catalyst to spur the client into action. I am asking them to feel the fear and do it anyway, to find the time for their highest priorities, to seek the support they need, and to go beyond their perceived limits. I am making strong requests, inviting clients to create games and objectives that they find interesting and inspiring and to build structures that make it possible for them to go beyond their own limitations.

• As a teacher – I am sharing knowledge, practices, and strategies that have been useful in the past. Although, as a coach, this is not my primary responsibility, there are times when I have knowledge and experience that are relevant to the client’s situation and to withhold access to it because “it’s not coaching” would dis-empower the honest and free nature of the relationship.

• As a resource – I am sharing resources like information, books, movies, music, web sites, applications, and connections with other people for the client to use as raw materials in their creative process. Everything anyone has ever accomplished has been through the use of resources. The coach’s life experience adds value to the relationship.

• As a leader – I am providing direction when the client is lost and has given me permission to temporarily point the way. At the beginning of coach training we are frequently reminded not to ask leading questions. That is because leading questions often include the answer, seek to point the recipient in, what we think, is the right direction or imply that there is a 'right' answer. Yes, AND, there is a distinction between the leading question asked by the lawyer in a courtroom or a salesperson who are both attempting to influence an outcome in their favor and the coach who may be asking a leading question as part of an exploration in search of expanded TBD.

• As a model – I am being the change I want to see for my client. I have a growth mindset and embrace rapid rates of change. I find ways to be deeply connected with others and myself. I live with a belief in abundance and use that mindset to address the largest challenges the world faces today. I free myself from behavioral adaptations to fear so that I can embrace authenticity in others and myself.

Most coach training that I’m aware of, focus on developing competence in only a few or even one of these kinds of relationships. This certainly makes sense when the objective of the training is to build a strong coaching foundation and to distinguish coaching from other professions. But is the master coach limited to only one kind of relationship? Or is the ability to shift the nature of relationships with clients, in order to blend with what is needed in the moment, an aspect of coaching mastery? Certainly some of the ways I’m suggesting a coach can relate to a client lay outside the ICF definition of coaching and the competencies that serve as the spine of ICF awarded credentials. But if I must choose between adhering to proscribed coaching competencies or being true to the essence of coaching, I will choose the essence every time.

So, how does a master coach know what kind of relationship is needed in the moment?

Perhaps an interesting approach to this question lies in another question.

What does it mean to know?

Remember that the egocentric predicament tells us that the knowing mind is confined to the circle of its own ideas. This is actually the sine qua non of coaching. The idea that a second voice in a dialogue can break the inherent limits of an individual mind.

The ICF definition of coaching includes the phrase:

Coaches honor the client as the expert in his or her life and work…

How can we know if this statement is true? I don’t think we can. It is not a provable fact. Like many other things we claim to know, it is a belief, not a scientific truth. That doesn’t make it a bad thing. In many ways we are what we believe in. And when we created the coaching profession we clearly believed that there was human potential beyond the hierarchical, societal, and parental belief systems that prescribed, and proscribed, who we ought to be and how we ought to act. We wanted to create a profession where nobody was telling us what to do. And so it is, that in a healthy coaching relationship, both parties are clear that the client is the one making her or his own life choices, being responsible for those choices, and living with the consequences of those choices.

But that is different from being an expert. Clients cannot be the experts in making choices in the same predictable ways that someone can be an expert auto mechanic or computer programmer. In coaching we need a different way to relate to knowing other than expertise.

Perhaps coach and client are both storytellers, expanding stories in dialogue until the client chooses one to act upon. Hopefully this is a story chosen, out of love, to create a more wonderful life and a more wonderful world. But once chosen and acted upon, there is no going back; no real way of knowing if that choice was good or bad; right or wrong.

In 1991 I hired Thomas Leonard to coach me through a difficult period in my life. I had started a business that enjoyed success for ten years, but it had begun to take a nosedive. I was married with a young son and a mortgage and was struggling just to pay my expenses. I was in such emotional pain that I had handed the reins of the business off to other people and took a small office downtown where I was attempting to build a personal management company. Thomas and I were meeting twice a week and the following are short excerpts from three successive coaching sessions.

Session #1:
Thomas
Jay, I have a request. Either take back the reins of your business so I can support you in turning it around or close the business down.
Jay
Thomas, I can’t go back there. It’s too painful. And I can’t close it down, because I’d have to go bankrupt.

Session #2
Thomas
Jay, I have a request. Either take back the reins of your business so I can support you in turning it around or close the business down.
Jay
Thomas, I can’t go back there. It’s too painful. And I can’t close it down, because I’d have to go bankrupt.

Seeing a pattern here?

Session #3
Thomas
Jay, I have a request. Either take back the reins of your business so I can support you in turning it around or close it down.
Jay
Thomas, I can’t go back there. It’s too painful. And I can’t close it down, because I’d have to go bankrupt.
(Pause)
Thomas
Jay, you are bankrupt!

That one message, “you are bankrupt,” may seem harsh in print, but I experienced it as a loving, laser message that left me with expanded TBD. The next day I took the necessary steps to close the business and declare personal bankruptcy. It was the beginning of a personal renewal that has given me a more wonderful life and, I hope, has helped to create a more wonderful world.

From that one coaching session I made the choice to embrace bankruptcy in all its manifestations: financial, energetic, emotional, and spiritual? Was this choice based on personal expertise? No. It was in an area where I had no experience at all. Was it based on the expertise of the coach? No. In fact, months later, when I was beginning to regain some personal strength, Thomas shared that, from his perspective, he had known what I should do and that making those requests of me were, for him, acts of courage. Where was the expertise in this coaching exchange? Did I make the right choice? How would things have transpired if I had made another choice? There is no way to know. And since there was, and is, no way to know with certainty, this was not a matter of expertise.
If neither Thomas nor I were an expert then, in this particular coaching relationship, what was our relationship to knowing?

Although neither of us had access to any absolute knowing, both of us were engaged in a dialogue of possible knowing. He didn’t have “the answer” and I certainly did not have “the answer.” It wasn’t even that I was granting power to the coach or that he was granting power to me; I rather believe that we were granting power to the conversation; to the relationship.

The fact that nobody is an expert in a coaching relationship is one of its foundational strengths. Paradoxically the less we know (expertise) and the more we are able to share possible knowing (wonder), with absolutely no attachment to being right, the more powerful the coaching relationship can become. If love and wonder are present, “who” knows “what” becomes irrelevant.

Coaching Essence Update

I need to pause from this through-line for a moment to note that as I retold this story I saw the need to add one more aspect to my essence of coaching statement:

Coaching is love and wonder that leads to effective action.

It is this action step that completes the essential cycle of the coaching relationship.

Coaching Superstitions

I'm considering just about anything we know and believe, no matter how mundane, no matter how profane, no matter how sacred, has the potential ultimately to harden into, to congeal into, to endarken into, to devolve into a blind rote concept no longer alive with any light of inquiry ... in other words, into a superstition.

Without ongoingly inquiring into what we know to be true, without holding up to the light beliefs, which will, without inquiry, inevitably crystalize into blind, rote concepts, we inexorably become superstitious. That's when the trouble begins. That's when we get righteous and positional, both of which are evidence of superstitions not recognized as superstitions driving the machinery.
...Laurence Platt

To a great degree the coaching profession is based on the assumption that the individual, and not relationship, is the source of possibility and fulfillment. Is that assumption the most powerful way to approach coaching or is it an illusion that keeps us mired in a limited paradigm? Has the belief that a client is the expert in his own life become a coaching superstition?

Thomas Leonard once suggested that what he and I were trying to do together, as coach and client, was to discover how to have a powerful relationship and have that relationship be a model we could take with us into the world. Those who knew Thomas recognized him to be a person with tremendous intellectual bandwidth. And when I first met him, by his own admission, he didn’t know how to have successful relationships. From his perspective, for us to survive and thrive in the world we didn’t just need more brilliant, accomplished individuals; we needed people who were able to have great relationships.

We all experience ourselves as individual beings. We share a long history of telling and retelling stories of the victories, achievements, and creations of singular heroes (or villains). We struggle with existential questions of our personal place in the universe and long to know that our footprint on the planet has made a difference. So it makes sense that the focus of coaching is on the individual. And to that end, we have developed wonderful skills and tools that are aligned with that focus.

But perhaps the coaching profession holds another promise as well: the promise that we are a profession that focuses, not only, on individual achievement and fulfillment; but that we, with our clients, can create relationship models of how to be in the world. Ways of being that may be able to effectively deal with the largest challenges facing us today. If we are to do this, we may be required to discard some of the superstitions we cling to about the nature of the individual and the mythology of individual achievement.

At this point in my exploration I am left with more questions than answers:

Is the master coach limited to only one kind of relationship? Or is the ability to shift the nature of relationships with clients, in order to blend with what is needed in the moment, an aspect of coaching mastery? Is a coach’s focus on individual growth and achievement rife with superstitions? Are there other superstitions that are guiding the coaching industry? Can freeing ourselves from superstition reveal a path to mastery?

Let’s continue to wonder.

Next – The Wonder of Coaching Mastery