Recommendation
Coaches help people move beyond limiting mind-sets. It’s a simple imperative that can be excruciatingly difficult to execute. How do you get your clients, employees, colleagues – or yourself – to see their struggles in a new light and transcend them? In this episode of the Coaching for Potential podcast, certified coach Marion Franklin shares her accessible, down-to-earth strategies to help you or someone you work with get “unstuck,”clarify goals, distinguish belief from fact, and overcome restrictive perspectives to move forward successfully.
Take-Aways
- Distinguish between truth and perception.
- Move away from pain rather than toward pleasure.
- View stumbling blocks from a different vantage point.
- Uncover “real” obstacles.
- Shifts occur at an emotional level. You can’t force them.
Summary
Distinguish between truth and perception.
A conversation with clients who feel stuck should not be centered around their desired outcome but instead on exploring why they feel blocked. Help them untangle their thoughts by distinguishing belief from fact. You will often find a “leverage point” – something clients falsely believe is holding them back. For example, a client fails to be promoted to CEO and cannot understand why. After untangling your client’s thinking, you may find that her fear of not being part of a team anymore has been holding her back from pursuing the position in earnest.
Move away from pain rather than toward pleasure.
Coaches often unsuccessfully try to motivate clients to undertake a shift by focusing on the reward. Yet moving away from pain is a stronger motivating force for 90% of people; only 10% are deeply motivated to move toward pleasure.
“It’s usually a negative impetus that’s really going to get someone to move. So we are looking for what is their pain point, and what happens so often is that they are not aware of just how bad their current situation is.”
As a coach, you can help a client understand just how unsustainable their present situation really is. Ask them first how their current behavior or situation benefits them. Next, flip it around and explore the costs. Have clients name one cost, and then repeat the question to help them uncover additional costs they may not have been aware of previously. Deeper inquiry helps the client gain introspection and realize the costs of maintaining the status quo far outweigh the benefits.
View stumbling blocks from a different vantage point.
Coach clients to contemplate the “opposite” perspective to what they believe is true. For example, your client may be reticent to speak up during meetings because they worry others may perceive them as “stupid.” As a coach, you may present them with the opposite view: What if others think you’re stupid because you never say anything? Indeed, clients may feel stuck in their quest for perfection. As a coach, you may ask clients to accept that a perfect solution does not exist – freeing them from unrealistic expectations and enabling them to move forward with a more open mind.
Uncover “real” obstacles.
The obstacles clients name to justify inaction are often not the real reason they are stuck. Helping clients imagine a situation where the obstacle they have in mind doesn’t exist can be deeply revealing. For example, a person claims he can’t get any work done because of numerous doctor’s appointments, but then realizes he still would not want to do the work, even if all the appointments were canceled.
Shifts occur at an emotional level. You can’t force them.
You will know clients have made a shift when you sense a high level of commitment or conviction on their part. In this case, find a good way to end the session. Shifts occur at an emotional level, and you don’t want the client to overthink or second-guess their newfound resolve. Instead, discuss briefly how the client wants to move forward.
“Asking more open questions just doesn’t work because now you’re taking them out of their emotional place.”
If you sense a shift hasn’t occurred, it may mean that you must go deeper in your conversation. Avoid the trap of becoming “parental” by telling the client what to do. Instead, ask clients how you can best support them in taking a first step toward their goal. If you sense continued resistance, offer to revisit the issue at a later point and focus instead on what clients want to do until they are ready to pick up the issue again. Don’t take charge of the client’s problem. Instead, let them decide when they want to tackle the issue again, if at all. Finally, it’s important to remember that shifts often occur between sessions, after you’ve helped clients gain greater awareness of their challenge.
About the Podcast
Marion Franklin is a Master Certified Coach and the author of The HeART of Laser-Focused Coaching: A Revolutionary Approach to Masterful Coaching. Rory Rowland hosts the podcast Coaching for Potential. He is a member of the Missouri House of Representatives and the president and founder of Rowland Consulting, a firm dedicated to helping organizations and leaders reach their full potential.
getAbstract maintains complete editorial responsibility for all parts of this abstract. All rights reserved. No part of this abstract may be reproduced or transmitted or used for training any machine learning system in any form or by any means – electronic, photocopying or otherwise – without prior written permission of getAbstract AG (Switzerland).