Monthly Archives: May 2011

Coaching and did it work?

 in Coaching  tagged business coach / business coaching / career coaching / closed questions / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching content / coaching courses / coaching model / coaching preparation / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / executive coach / explaining coaching / Free resource / language / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / open questions / performance coaching / personal development / question

At some stage in a coaching conversation it’s not at all unusual for me to ask a variation of the question – did/does it work?

I’ve written before about different types of questions (you can read that post again here) and you may recognise that “did/does it work?” can be labelled as a closed question.

In case you have not come across the terminology of a closed question – they are questions were the answer is only yes or no.

You will often come across the label of open questions at the same time – These are questions that start with Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. Open questions are designed to allow answers that are more open with the scope of the information provided.

Often as coaches, we can develop our own “rules” or what should or shouldn’t be done to get coaching “right”. Sometimes these are rules, or beliefs, we have been told by someone we perceive as being more knowledgeable about coaching.

On other occasions it can be something that we have inferred and then told ourselves is what we should do to be a good coach.

From time to time I come across, usually trainee coaches, who have taken on a belief that when coaching closed questions are always bad and open questions are always good.

If this is a belief that you have then I ask you does it work for you at the moment? If so then, as always, I encourage you to keep what works for you!

Personally, I don’t think that it is always so black and white. Sometimes a clear and decisive yes or no is actually really productive.

One of the benefits of a closed question is that it can cut through a whole story that someone is telling themselves about a situation.

“Did/Does it work?” is one of those questions I find can do just that when chosen and asked deliberately.

Particularly if a client is telling you about a course of action where you suspect that he/she is comparing themselves to someone else/the perfect way of doing something.

In this instance, it’s not at all uncommon for your client to have missed and not acknowledged the results they did achieve.

Let me give you an example. Imagine that you are talking to Bob who is “beating himself up” about the fact he could have approached a sales conversation, with a potential client, “better”. He feels that he lacks confidence in his own abilities.

In response to a question about how the last sales conversation went, he could give a detailed account of what he had done wrong, but doesn’t mention the outcome.

When asked, “Did it work?” Bob’s “yes”, both verbally and non-verbally, was surprised – as if this was completely new information.

There may indeed be space for Bob to strengthen his skills and develop other approaches. However, if he never acknowledges his achievements and abilities the harder it will be for Bob to have confidence in his own abilities!

I find that using the question

“Did it work?”

at this stage focuses their attention upon the reality of what they have already achieved. Particularly if they are in the middle of listing everything they perceive they did wrong.

How often do you use a variation of “did it work?” both as a coach and in your own life?

 

What have you left uncompleted?

 in confidence / General life improvement

“Thought is free.”

(William Shakespear)

This week I thought I would revist a piece I wrote a couple of years ago:

For the last few days I’ve had a couple of lines of music stuck in my head. It started when I heard a brief clip of it on the TV and after that it went round and round so I found myself absentmindedly humming it throughout the day.

What was irritating was that it was only 2 lines – no more, it was uncompleted. In fact as soon as I realised that, I had the solution – listen to the complete tune and the previous irritating 2 lines were stuck no more.

It’s just like when people say to me that they keep saying or asking themselves the same question over and over. It’s often some form of “who do you think you are?” “I’m not worthy/ good/beautiful / (insert relevant word for you) enough.”

Often its because something is missing so that the question or statement is not completed and just like with a piece of tune, it goes round and round in your head.

So what’s missing? This week’s message will give some
categories that may give you ideas. As always be gentle with yourself, if you feel it is more appropriate that you work through this with a trained professional than please do find a coach, therapist, counsillor etc. that you are comfortable working with.

“It’s not what you said it’s how you said it”

You have probably seen instances where somebody has caused offence to another person not by what they said but by they way they said it. So first let’s play with how you are saying these things to yourself. It’s not unusual for these unfinished bits to be heard in your head as a sneer or said viciously.

Imagine what it would be like if that was said softly and gently, or asked with a genuine curiosity.

What would it feel like to say the same words to yourself with different emphasis?

I had one client who admitted that for as long as she could remember she had had this sneering voice say scornfully “who do you think you are?” whenever she thought of something new.

By asking herself that question in a gentle, loving and curious way – while changing the way she stressed the words, she had an entirely different experience. She changed the entire meaning of the question to her, and felt very differently about it.

She found that now she wasn’t hearing it as an insult and a put down, that she actually had loads of answers coming to her about what she wanted to be doing with a new career. In her case what was missing was an answer to the question – largely due to the fact she had never heard it as a question before.

What’s the other half of the question or statement?

Get specific, what precisely is it you are not good enough, worthy enough etc. to do? Sometimes just getting specific can be enough to realise that it’s an old outdated comment that really doesn’t matter any more. For example – I’m not good enough … “to make the school sports team” really doesn’t have the same importance to me now as it did at age 9!

Compared to who or what?

Sometimes we unconsciously compare ourselves to other people or an image that we have created for ourselves as perfection. It can be worth doing a reality to check here – is it a useful and realistic comparison to make?

For example, if you are not beautiful enough and you realise that your image of perfection involves you being 6 ft 2″ when in reality you are 4 ft 8″ you are setting yourself up to feel bad (unless you know some secret trick to grow that tall).

It may be that you realise that you are comparing yourself to someone with 30 years expertise when you’ve had 10 lessons – realistically, could that comparison be considered fair? It may be enough to realise that the comparison is laughable and you’ll find the question and statement is completed and no longer has that same power it had over you before.

Recap

1) Pick something that you keep asking yourself or saying to yourself.

2)Play with how you are saying it to yourself – just for 5
minutes, if you really want to go back to the old way of
saying it after that you can!

Notice what’s different when you say it differently and stress different words.

3)What specifically is missing from the question/ statement for it to have more detail?

Some questions to help give you some ideas:
To do what?
Then what?
About what?
Who says?

Notice the difference including the missing bit to make it more specific makes. Is it still relevant to your life today?

4)What or who are you comparing yourself to?
Is this a realistic benchmark for you to have? If so, if you really must compare yourself to something, what could you pick instead?
(Bonus tip – you could compare yourself to how far that you have come.)

Most people report that by using tricks like the above, the questions and statements that used to have so much power no longer has the same effect over them.

Have a week full of completions

Love

Jen

This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com