Monthly Archives: March 2011

Coaches, what question is your coaching client actually answering? 2

 in Coaching  tagged answers / business coach / business coaching / career coaching / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching content / coaching courses / coaching model / coaching preparation / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / confidence / executive coach / Free resource / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / performance coaching / personal development / questions

Imagine the following scenario:

You have asked a straight forward and in your opinion perfectly crafted question to your coaching client. However, the answer you get is actually one that may have lots of words but didn’t actually answer the question you asked!

As a coach there are many things that you can do in such a situation.

  • Perhaps you just repeat the question without comment and see if you get an answer the second time.
  • Maybe you point out that they didn’t actually answer the question that you asked.
  • You may even decide that the answer that they gave actually takes the conversation in a useful direction so let the none answered question pass by.

One of the things I personally find really useful is to consider:

What question would the answer given make more sense?

We all filter information through various beliefs and values etc to get it to make sense. Sometimes, the questions that we as coaches ask can also get caught up in one of those filters so that the question they “hear” is different to the one asked.

Identifying the question a client actually “heard” can give some indication about the beliefs, values, your clients perceptions and any patterns. It can give you a clue about what is getting in their way.

For example:

As a coach, you ask a client “What would you love to do?”

The response they give you do not believe is something they would love to do at all. The answer is actually a much better fit with the question “What would be the next logical step to take?”

Why can being aware of what question your client actually answered be helpful? Firstly, it can show you what is getting in your clients way and assist you in wording a “killer question.” It may also indicate beliefs and values that impact other areas of their life.

Using the example above, by immediately considering the logical next step they are missing out on considering bigger better things. Are there other beliefs and values about what “admitting” what you actually want means? Perhaps, looking at the logical next step is something that they think is the natural thing that you should always do.

How often do you consider the question your client is actually answering?

 

A quick boost of confidence

 in confidence / General life improvement

Another post from my back catalogue from a time when I sent monthly, not weekly messages.

I thought today I would give you a method to give you an immediate boost to your feeling of confidence.

This month I have tweaked a muscle in my back so I have been particularly aware of the position that I held my body in. This increase in my consciousness reminded me of a the importance that our physiology can have on how we feel.

Imagine if you were to see someone sat slouched in a corner, shoulders hunched, head and eyes lowered, frowning – get the idea? Now just by that description – how do you think that person is feeling? Happy, joyful and confident? Now while the question itself asks for a certain amount of mind reading, you must have noticed at some stage that you can just tell by looking at someone if they are upset or happy – notice how actors in dramas utilise this to demonstrate their art and portray their character, I’d be surprised if you found anyone bounding onto screen like an excitable puppy, grinning from ear to ear during a tragic part of a film for their character!

So lets try a confident posture: Standing or sitting tall, check that your back is straight, your shoulders are back and your head is up.

Become aware of where you are looking and consciously move your eye-line so that you are now looking above the horizon.

Having done that, keeping that same posture and eye-line put a big cheesy grin on your face – you know the one, the one that if it was in toothpaste advert it would be accompanied by a *ping*!

Now, try not to feel confident in that posture – Go on, give it a proper try. If you notice that you are wavering feeling confident then just double check that you haven’t moved your posture.

Now, I don’t know in what sort of situations this will be helpful for you to remember, maybe before talking to a group or maybe before making a particular phone call. Whatever, the scenario is for you, I invite you to enjoy playing with this.

As always I would love to hear your experience playing with this technique.