A professional coaching relationship is special in the sense that it has ‘human-potential movement’ (if I may coin that term) at its core and thereby has a super-ordinate goal much beyond performance goals alone. A holistic coaching framework hence should address both ‘Doing’ and ‘Being’ part of an individual. In that sense, the role of a coach as someone who holds a mirror to the client for increasing her self-awareness and inviting to dig deeper into herself to treasure-hunt the natural gifts and talents. This is very critical and different from some other relationships such as mentoring, training, counselling and consulting. The coach is no expert in the client’s domain of work and still gets the client achieve the best of herself is through inviting her tap into richer and fuller resources that might have been buried deep inside. This brings up the competency of a coach as creating awareness in the client as one of the cornerstone capabilities for a coach.
We have spoken of coaching as a process in guided self-discovery. The coach’s prime tool in this journey is powerful questioning whereby the client is invited to go deeper and explore the innermost beauties and come up with solutions to the issues at hand. The coach obviously has no agenda of his own and goes by the agenda of the client. This is critical in creating a safe space for the client to reveal those magnificent talents and gifts. The whole coaching journey is exploratory in nature and often both the coach and client have no clue what’s next to be discovered albeit they have the guiding philosophies and a deep faith in one’s true gifts and talents.
Why is creating awareness in a client such a critical piece in coaching relationship?
Coaching is not for quick-fixes but sustainable changes, mostly in behaviours and beliefs. These are to be effected through inside-out approach rather than the other way. Tapping into one’s resources, beliefs and reference-frames are the levers to bring about these long-lasting changes. A coach often asks the client to act from adissociated state. This is similar to visualize oneself playing out on the centre-stage from an audience place in a theatre or similar to a director seeing the actor playing out the part in front of the camera. This dissociated state creates profound insights about the performance as whole and then as the coach coaxes the client into certain action (using thought-provoking questions) for her to bring about the desired changes- both Doing & Being selves! The client generates solutions and the coach allows her to pursue them. There is no hint of the coach dictating any solution to the client.
The obvious discussion then should be on how to create awareness in a client during coaching conversations?
Before we go to the above, let me be upfront in saying that for a coach to create awareness in a client it’s a pre-requisite for the coach to be fully aware of his own thoughts, prejudices, biases and likings. Otherwise, he might run the risk of unduly influencing and colouring the thoughts and beliefs of the client- not a desirable thing in coaching! The coach can successfully create a safe and explorative environment for the client by asking powerful questions to shift reference-frames, challenge existing beliefs and a creating coaching presence for the client. The following approaches to create awareness in a client are well documented and practiced,
- Powerful questioning: The critical importance of incisive questions in coaching has been well documented. The premise that a client has all the answers and solutions to issues within themselves – the coach only helps through exploration and the process himself explores all possibilities and learns more about the client.
- Silence in a coaching conversation: A master coach would often ask the client powerful questions and practices deep listening where silence is an integral part. Often the client upon contemplation comes up with responses such as- ‘Wow! That’s terrific – never thought of that earlier’. This is a cusp in self-awareness where the coach practices silence and allows the client to further go deeper and continue that serious contemplation. Any input from the coach at this juncture could prove to be counter-productive and might shunt the free-flowing thought process of the client. Questions are useful at the two ends of tis contemplation continuum- at the beginning of the process where powerful questions stirs up the client and again towards the end where the client hints of some deep- revelations and then the coach tries to funnel down the process. Often you know that the awareness in a client is imminent when you see the client going silent and in reflective mode.
- Allowing the client to explore every possible strand of thought chain:Master Coaches are themselves as much explorer as their clients. They are driven by exploration rather than fixed solutions and their invitation to the client for the same far exceeds any possible hint of solution. Periodic encouragement with phrases such as ‘Wow’, ‘How magnificent is that’,‘Wonderful’ are catalysts that propel the client further in the journey. A coach might ask the client for confirmation- ‘What is this awareness all about, could you please share?’ or a simple statement such as ‘Allow yourself the magnificence of newly explored awareness’
What next after Awareness? From Awareness to Action!
With the client gaining increased awareness about self, a belief or simply behaviour what next for her? The coach being fully present in the moment with the client cajoles the client what she would like to do with this heightened sense of awareness. Usually, the client contemplates and commits action based on the new found awareness. There are times when the client might wish to stay with the awareness for some more time and it’s perfectly right for the coach to allow the client to sink in with the sense of awareness and stay with it. It’s the client’s prerogative to decide the course of action and its timing once the awareness has set in. After all, clients action and her commitment will largely depend on how deep and touching are these newly discovered awareness.
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