Get Smart!

Having spent many hours observing coaching with my training coaches I have noticed a strange phenomenon! Coaches will often spend either no time or heaps of time discussing what the current situation is for a client.

When they spend no time, it’s as if the here and now doesn’t matter and there’s a headlong rush towards the next steps and options for change. When they spend too much time, they tend to get caught up in fact-finding and building a more and more detailed picture of what’s currently happening.

Neither are the ideal way to deal with the present in coaching. Exploring the present should be about helping the client to know where they’re starting from, what strengths they bring, what they need to work on etc.
Think of it this way. You might know that you are going to drive to Manchester but if you don’t know where you’re starting from then you have no clear way of knowing which way to go!

There’s no difference in any kind of journey really is there? In coaching we’re looking at a journey from where you are to where you want to be whether that’s in a professional capacity or in the client’s personal life.

So knowing where you are starting from is critical.

Exploring the here and now then seeks to draw out several pieces of information.

Before I take a look at the information it draws out it is worth pointing out that this information is not drawn out for the sake of the coach. It’s for the client!

Often clients haven’t give serious consideration to where they are. They may not have thought about what they have already done. They may not have thought about their strengths or conversely they may be pretty satisfied with where they think they are and do not realise how much is left to be done to get to their goal.

In either case, the coachee would have an inaccurate idea of the amount of work, level of difficulty and likelihood of success involved and perhaps be either deflated or over-confident.

So knowing where you’re starting from gives you a far more accurate idea of what’s involved to achieve your goal.

So let’s take a look at what information the coach should be drawing out from the client at this stage:

Well, firstly, what’s been done so far towards the goal!

Let’s find out what’s been achieved so far so that we can find out how far there is to go. If someone said they wanted to achieve a million pounds turnover by the end of the next month that could sound daunting if you didn’t know that the client was already at £990,000 or had managed over a million pounds every year for 5 years.

So, knowing what the client has done previously and currently towards the goal will help establish what is really being worked with in coaching. It’s not the goal itself is it? It’s the gap between where the person is now and that goal!

Next we could ask what the results of that action have been?

As a coach we can help the client re-examine the results of their actions towards that goal. What happened when it was tried before?

If it didn’t work, what needs to change so that it works this time?

If it worked previously, what was it about that time that it worked?

Looking at the results of previous actions can help the person find self-belief, rediscover ideas they already new but forgot or think harder to ensure they don’t simply repeat the same mistakes time and again.

OK, another question we could ask is “What is not happening at the moment?”

This is a great question to help the person realise why they need to achieve this goal. What’s not happening? I’m not getting promoted? I’m not getting my bonus? I’m not able to break through the target?

What is not happening could also include actions? I’m not picking up the phone enough. I’m not talking with my staff regularly. And so on. So what’s not happening helps find areas that need to change?

To help someone find what resources they bring to their challenge, we can ask “What strengths do you bring to achieving this goal?”

People often forget their strengths and focus on what they perceive to be their weaknesses.

Helping someone focus on their strengths will create greater encouragement, greater determination, more focus and so on.

It can also draw out actions that can be taken by using those often overlooked strengths.

Now, another question, “Who else could have an impact on the client achieving that goal?” is very important

Goals should always be within the individual’s control but that doesn’t mean that other people aren’t involved in them.

Helping the coachee identify who else is either affected by the goal or who affects the goal is very important. It pre-empts problems further down the line and also draws out who can offer moral, practical and intellectual support to achieving the goal.

Finally we need to ask what would achieving that goal mean the person would have to give up?

This final question is useful for discovering what unconscious or indeed conscious blocks could get in the way of achieving the goal. Say for instance that to achieve the goal would mean working much longer hours and the although the bonus is attractive and the coachee says they want it, in reality they just don’t put the work in!

Finding out what they have to give up to succeed in the goal will often draw out a lot of unseen hurdles to the success of the coaching.

Now there are many, many questions that we could ask when exploring the present but what the questions I have covered have in common is that they are about helping the coachee to find information that will help them overcome their challenge.

It is NOT about you as a coach simply being interested in knowing facts for the sake of it. This part of GROW should help the client gain confidence, clarity and a realistic picture of what could stop them achieving their goal and what could support them.

To finish, let me tell a quick joke!

A man is standing in the street scrutinising a map.
A local resident approaches him and asks if he can help.
The map-reader says “Oh, yes. Can you tell me how to get to the High Street?”
The resident looks puzzled and says “Well, I wouldn’t start from here!”

The reality in coaching is that we always start from “here” and as a coach we need to explore the present in a way which empowers the client to get to the future!