If you are a golfer, or have tried learning the game, you’d know that there are at least a dozen things you need to be mindful of before you take your shot – your stance; your grip; its intensity; the position where you hold the club; your address to the ball; the trajectory of your back swing; your foot work; your downswing and eventually, the angle and point at which your club makes contact with the ball – and so much more in between. If you are lucky to get all this right, there is a good chance you will stay on the fairway. Remember, all these are merely the ‘Physics’ of the game. The ‘Psychology’ of the game, however, is what is happening between your two ears while you are engaged in all the above. Your becoming conscious of any one or more of these ‘physical’ factors, can wreck your shot. This is one of the reasons why I’ve always referred to golf as ‘walking meditation’. But that’s true of every sport; the real game is always played between the ears!
For the last decade, as I’ve worked on my coaching skills, I’ve realised that wanting to become a better, or an effective coach is much like getting your golf swing right. You need the training, an understanding of the coaching process; a good grasp and application of the competencies etc… but your becoming conscious of any of these during a coaching conversation, can disturb your presence as a coach.
Here are NINE coaching mantras, I’ve collected from my experience being a coach, a coachee and a mentor coach over the years.
Mindful – not – Mechanical:
One of the things I recall doing in the initial stages of learning to be a coach, is to look at coaching with my framework-conditioned mind. I used to create flowcharts of questions for various scenarios a client would present. I’ve even tried to collect, memorize and internalise the so called ‘500 impactful coaching questions’ and the like. Looking back at those days, I realise how silly I’ve been. To be fair, B-school education and corporate cultures, have conditioned us to believe that ‘for every problem in the world, there somewhere exists a framework to solve it’ – so much so, that some of the coaches I mentor, keep asking me if there are ready-made templates or ‘cheat-sheets’ to practice their coaching skills!
Coaching, as many of you would agree, is anything but ‘mechanical’ – one cannot look up an impactful question from a ‘Dictionary of Coaching questions’. Coaching is being ‘in the moment’ with the coachee to help them gain awareness about their situations. The Master Coach, David Clutterbuck says that there are indeed ‘Seven Conversations’ happening in a single coaching conversation! An effective coach is the one who – even momentarily – can silence their own mental chatter, to listen to and sense what their coachee is saying, and not saying.
Empathetic – not – Emotional:
Coachees have a lot to share – they usually download a lot of information and through it, a lot of emotional baggage, when they begin answering your question “What would you like to accomplish in today’s conversation?”. This is a good sign. This validates the fact that the coachee trusts you to share their deepest, darkest, or murkiest of truths with.
As Coaches, we are driven by ‘Altruism’ – an emotion that is not very empowering when donning the coaching hat.
‘Empathy’ – itself also an emotion, is perhaps one such that allows the coach to reach inside a cut jackfruit with well-oiled hands! A powerful metaphor to describe ‘Empathy’ is ‘to be able to step into the others’ shoes’. Extending the metaphor further – the prerequisite to be able to step into others’ shoes is the willingness to discard ones own!
As coaches, it is tricky if not difficult, to remain unaffected by what the client is bringing to the table and yet be genuinely humane enough to empathize with them.
Deliberate – not – Default:
A coaching conversation is not a ‘discussion’. It is not the same as what two people would want to chat up over a cup of coffee! It is an empowering conversation between the coachee – who is grappling with a situation or a problem; and a coach – who is willing to partner with the coachee in this expedition! That’s why I am not a great fan of the opening question “So, what would you like to discuss today?”
It is not the coach’s responsibility to ‘solve the problem’ for the client. It is wholly the responsibility of the client to solve their own problems. A coach is the one who creates a conducive environment to enable that.
Creating a conducive environment is a deliberate effort. While it may sound contradictory to being ‘mindful’; it is the very same mindfulness that the coach must (‘deliberately’ if you will) rely on – to not get waylaid by the powerful emotions the client is experiencing.
Intuitive – not – Intellectual:
Coaching is anything but ‘Intellectual’. Modern education has trained us to be ‘problem-solvers’, and there is therefore a natural propensity for most of us coaches, to see the client’s situation from the point of solving it. It is often difficult to resist the urge to offer the ‘obvious solution’ that the client seems to be missing! If you pay attention, you can even hear your own mind scream out loud to the client “hey, isn’t that obvious…?”
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” says Albert Einstein. It is the well-intentioned client, who with their best enterprise and industriousness have walked themselves into a situation or a problem, which is seemingly proving to be a quicksand! It is not from the same space of the intellect, that a potential solution will emerge.
The solution is often hidden unbeknownst under the many stones that lay strewn on the client’s path. It is the ‘Intuition’ of the coach, that will encourage the client to walk up to a few stones along their path, and turn them over, to uncover under their moist underbellies, a solution…or even a glimmer of hope towards it!
‘Cognition’ is an enemy of ‘Metacognition’!
Transformative – not – Transactional:
Every coach-in-training is told that ‘a coach does not give advice or offer any solutions.’ The ‘why’ of this is not fully understood. So, when a novice coach gets into a coaching conversation, they are more preoccupied by the struggle in their own heads – the natural problem-solver in them is subconsciously analysing the client’s problem – ‘the what’ – and is itching to offer the solution; while their alert mind is supressing their strong urge to spill it out. In this crossfire, the rookie coach ends up framing questions that are leading (towards what they believe is the solution). I went through this struggle during my initial years as a coach and was getting frustrated at having my coaching not make any deep impact.
It took a long time for me to suspend the problem-solver in me and let my natural curiosity and intuition to step-in. This resulted in renouncing the need ‘to solve the client’s problem’ and instead focus on what’s going on ‘under the hood’. This allowed me to ‘be in the moment’; listen more intently; and let my questions explore ‘the who’ of the client. Now, this is not an easy state to sustain. The mind continues to want to be the ‘solver’ and tends to remain attached to ‘the content’ of the client, rather than dive into ‘the context’. This, in fact, remains the constant ‘inner work’ or ‘ongoing reflective practice’ for a coach.
Appreciative – not – Analytical:
Analysis and Judgement are like the two ends of a stick. Where one is, the other is bound to follow. Analysis serves the purpose of making a decision. A decision to help choose right from wrong or good from bad. As long as the coach keeps their analytical mind on, so long are they prone to judging naturally! Even a hint of judgement is enough to dilute the trust between a client and a coach. Any loss of trust is the first sign of a coaching conversation going downhill.
What if the coach adopted an attitude of ‘Appreciation’ instead? Firstly, to even appreciate the client’s courage and willingness to trust a stranger to discuss their problems with – appreciation of the vulnerability they bring. Approaching a coaching conversation with a sense of appreciation allows the coach to feel more empathy for the client and view them in the light of infinite possibilities. When this gets communicated through the coach’s questions and body language; it subconsciously helps the client feel encouraged and empowered.
Trusting – not – Telling:
Coaching is not so much about answering the client’s questions. It is often questioning the client’s answers. The moment a coach yields to the temptation of suggesting, telling or advising, they have relinquished their role of a coach and have stepped into the role of either a consultant or a mentor.
Coaching is a sacred space that is based on the premise that the client is perfectly capable of solving their own problems; just that they don’t know ‘how’ – yet. Our role as coaches is to make the thinking environment conducive enough for them to find their way around their current limitations – be they their fears, assumptions, beliefs, values, or any combination of these.
Every powerful leader or change agent in history has deployed it – even though they may not have called it ‘Coaching’. Coaching is a time-tested process that is a powerful enabler for the recipient. The process is built on universal principles of reflective enquiry such as neutrality; curiosity; intuition and unconditional positive regard. All the coach needs to do is to trust this process and get out of their own way!
Evoking – not – Enticing:
“Coaching is an awareness building business” says Master Coach Peter J Reding; and indeed so! The coach is one who helps their clients ‘examine’ or ‘re-examine’ their worlds, from perspectives other than the ones that they currently hold. A coach uses appreciative enquiry and open-ended questions, so that they are not leading or ‘enticing’ their clients to move in directions which the coach believes is right, or good for the client.
The ‘client’ is always at the centre of the circle. Anything the coach says or does in a coaching conversation, must begin and end with the client being there. It is the client’s prerogative to choose ‘what’ they wish to accomplish in the conversation. It is the coach’s skill to enable them to arrive at the ‘how’.
The possibility for deep awareness; fresh perspectives and profound insights – which often result in ‘lightbulb’ moments for the client, is greater and almost assured when they are evoked, and not enticed!
Here’s an invitation to you to MEDITATE on these nine Mantras. I am hoping that they individually and collectively hold promise to transform your coaching conversations.
Yatish Chandrasekhar is a Professional Certified Coach (ICF); a certified Mentor-Coach (ICF) and a Coach Educator (ICF). Yatish runs a coaching and leadership consulting business under the name ‘The Yogi Compass’ and has coached leaders and executives from Marketing; Retail; Technology; Consulting; BFSI; Hospitality and Non-profit organisations. Yatish has close to 100 hours of mentoring coaches-in-training.
Yatish spent the first 10 years of his professional career in Strategy and Operations in the retail industry and pivoted into people development to answer an inner calling to be an ‘enabler’. He has established and directed large learning ecosystems for Retail MNCs such as Aditya Birla Group and the Landmark Group. He has held senior consultant and facilitator roles with The Friedman Group (USA) and Stephen Covey International.
The views and opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of the International Coach Federation (ICF) or the ICF Bengaluru Charter Chapter. The publication of this article does not equate to an endorsement or guarantee of the products or services provided by the author.
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