Challenge of Coaching

Martin Hill, British School of Coaching

“If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you” Fred DeVito

“Challenge” is one of the key skills that a coach needs to possess, but from my experience as a coach and supervisor it is interesting to reflect upon the many and varied meanings that people apply to the same word. For some challenge equates to confrontation, for others it means causing the coachee to pause, reflect and explain.

Just Googling “challenge” generates the following definition (The Free Dictionary):

• “A call to engage in a contest, fight, or competition.
• An act or statement of defiance; a call to confrontation.
• A demand for explanation or justification; a calling into question
• A test of one's abilities or resources in a demanding but stimulating undertaking.”

As a coach, for me, the latter two bullet points perhaps best reflect what challenge means in a coaching context. It is the stretch demanded by the challenge that moves the coachee from the comfort zone to the learning zone. The coach needs to ensure that the stretch is not too far as this can lead the coachee into the stress zone and endanger rapport, trust and the coaching relationship itself.

How do you gauge tension in the coaching session? This links in to your skills of active listening and observational skills- change in tone, body posture, eye movement etc. Having seen it what do you do?

In their book “Challenging Coaching”.John Blakey and Ian Day suggest the following interventions to INCREASE tension:

• Use of silence
• Prolonged eye contact - especially if accompanying silence
• Probing questions
• Challenging the coachee to take a risk – they pose the suggested question “What is the riskiest thing you could do in this situation? Why aren’t you doing it?”
• Challenging statements
• Play devil’s advocate
• Take the role of opponent
• Use an approach opposite to the coachee’s usual style

They suggest the following interventions to DECREASE tension:

• Increase the level of support by more active listening (summarising, paraphrasing etc.) and less probing.
• Acknowledge the feelings the coach is observing.
• Provide affirmation and praise.
• Set lower and more achievable goals so the coachee experiences the positive feelings of success.
• Take a break, move the coaching into a different environment, take the coaching outside the normal workplace, such as walking in the open air and coaching at the same time.

From my own coaching and supervisory practice, I would strongly recommend the practice of specifically contracting with the coachee about challenge – what is their preference? (Then test and explore that, rather than simply accepting that); what do they understand by challenge? Explain what challenge may look like in the session.

The other recommendation I would make is to have a post session review with the coachee and review challenge. Consider asking the coachee whether they had encountered challenge in the session, and what was the nature and level of challenge. It is often interesting to note what they perceived as challenge, and this may be different from what your views (or perhaps intentions) were. I have found that humour (appropriate and considered) can be an effective tool to introduce challenge in a session, whilst at the same time maintaining rapport and trust.

Reflect on what your challenge style is. Is it authentic to the real “you” and is it effective? Above all else keep it under review. That is where supervision may prove useful.

And finally ….. “Challenge is the pathway to engagement and progress in our lives. But not all challenges are created equal. Some challenges make us feel alive, engaged, connected, and fulfilled. Others simply overwhelm us. Knowing the difference as you set bigger and bolder challenges for yourself is critical to your sanity, success, and satisfaction.” Brendon Burkhard

Operating Within Your Strengths Zone

Charlotte Randall

How many of us grew up under the premise that we could be anything we wanted to be, if we just applied ourselves hard enough? I certainly have recollections of my mother regularly imparting this message on me, mostly when I was refuting doing my homework. A mother now myself, I have had to work hard to manage the aspirations and expectations of my children within the realms of reality. Keeping their dreams for the future alive is a constant challenge and I can certainly understand how easy it is to revert to ‘you can be anything you want to be’ when they look at you with such hope in their faces. My daughter, at the tender age of 13, has recently had to form an opinion on her career path that will shape her impending subject choices. Whilst my son believes that we are thwarting his chances of being a Formula One driver because we are refusing to sell our house to fund this. Both may succeed in the paths they wish to travel down (although, I can categorically say we are not selling our house), but the indicators in their behaviour points heavily towards this being a goal not firmly underpinned by their evolving strengths, but one based upon an impending time constraint, current trends in media advertising and extrinsic motivators (money, reward, title, benefits).

In order to support their thinking my current conversations with them do not focus on something that they may or may not be in 10 years’ time, but more poignantly, what it is they have done recently that excited them, that they have really cared about doing or achieving. I ask questions that will fix the moment to a feeling and provoke thinking in a forward’s direction. For example, one of them recently came home very excited that they would be moving up to top set PE. I asked the question - what do you think your teacher saw in you to move you up? The response ‘I always work hard and show good sportsmanship’. I followed this with curiosity by asking the question - what does good sportsmanship look like? ‘I work as a team member and when someone on my team has done something good I let him or her know’. How does it make you feel that your teacher is pleased with your performance? ‘I feel proud and happy’. I wanted to then challenge the thinking by asking - what have you learnt about yourself because of this? ‘I always wanted to move up into top set and now I have because I worked hard so my teacher would notice me. Anything else? ‘I work as part of a team’. Anything else? ‘I encourage others to do well’. Anything else? ‘It makes me feel good when I support my team mates’.  Moving forwards I then ask - how can you feel like this more often? ‘I could keep helping out my mates and working hard.’ Where else could you use these skills? ‘Maybe at breaks or in a different subject’. What would that look like? As you can see themes of strengths start to develop from this platform of enquiry based and solutions focused questioning, becoming even more powerful when you revisit the topic a few weeks later to continue to support and embed the transference of skills. By scaffolding the conversation they are becoming more self-aware of whether they will get the best from themselves, the influence this will have on others and how these strengths can be transferred within and between situations making their future choices more informed.

Similarly, within my professional capacity I have also had interactions with colleagues where career decisions are based upon extrinsic or company led factors. As a result, personal fulfillment and achievement has not been attained because of consistent failure to work from and within identified personal strengths. Entering a profession or taking on promotion that has not been supported by a transition conversation, based on strength finding and transference questions, can be a costly exercise for all involved. Out of this circumstance a shift in focus can be created that relies on operating persistently within the realms of personal limitations and can eventually become a barrier to success. An expectation gap between the individual and organisation establishes itself and is played out through increased negative behaviours and relationships, a decrease in productivity and stifled creativity. So, how can we work towards making the right choices and increasing the gratification and achievements we get out of our professional lives? As with my children, it starts with a conversation that sets in motion a thought process around identifying or re-engaging with what it is we are good at, what we need to do more of. The language may change in its complexity, but the essence of the conversation remains the same. Take a moment to ask yourself the following questions. Then, reflect upon your answers to inform your thinking and increase self-awareness of when you are operating at your optimum.

• What have I done or achieved that excites and motivates me? What am I good at?
• What is my performance output like when operating within my strengths zone?
•  How does operating within this area make me feel? 
•  How often do I operate within this capacity? How can I function here more?
•  How will working here help me to aspire towards my future goals?
• How can I transfer these skills into different areas of my life?
• How much bigger is my sphere of influence as a result of operating in this zone?
• How often do I revisit my strengths to re-energise and move forwards?
• What do I not yet know I am good at? How can I find this out?

Of course in life circumstance and opportunity also play a role, but once you can align a situation with your strengths you have the baseline from which to move forwards, to make informed and potentially positive and life-changing decisions that exhibit more chance of sustainable output. There will always be occasions and situations in life that play to our limitations, but these are much easier to face head-on if we can identify and engage with our strength zone the majority of the time.

Coaches need to be coached – Oh and supervised!

Judith Barton, Director of Coaching and Mentoring

To me, running a coaching practice is similar to being in a legal or medical practice.  As a professional coach I am going on a journey with my clients enabling them to delve into their own resources so that they can develop a sense of their own potential and are supported to realise that potential through listening, questioning and challenging.  But in the end it is their own decision – as a coach it is not my place to provide guidance or advice but to draw out from clients their own understanding and enable them to make choices to develop their own careers and futures. 

Professional coaches are also practicing – practicing our skills, reviewing and reflecting on how each coaching session progressed and the interactions which took place.  Finally, a coach must create an accurate an accurate baseline. This sets out their strengths and areas for improvement and leads to a personal development plan to be actioned.  Once implemented, this plan is subject to review, reflection and further planning for improvement.  As part of this process, the coach must also recognise and celebrate their strengths and achievements. This leads me to four central tenets of running a coaching practice – which are: self-review supported by supervision, maintaining their skills base; keeping up to date with research and thinking about coaching practice; and ensuring that purchasers of coaching understand the concept of ‘coaching practice’. 

1: Self review supported by supervision is critical.  To be effective, review of practice should be carried out soon after each session is completed.  You will need to find your own balance between being to close to the interaction to be objective; and too far to be able to remember key points.  Self-review on its own however carries risks – that you will become overly self-critical or insufficiently self-aware.  In order to ensure some degree of distance and to avoid getting too drawn into feeling that you have to sort everything out on your own, the input of a supportive, challenging and knowledgeable coaching supervisor is an equally critical element of self-development.  You should choose a supervisor who understands your approach to coaching who is willing and able to be both supportive and challenging to question your assumptions and self-evaluation and provide a platform for continuous improvement of your practice. 

2: Coaches need to Coach – this may sound obvious but coaching is not something you can do once or twice a year whilst maintaining professional standards of competence. I feel that I need to be practicing my coaching skills at least twice per month. Coaching a number of people who have different issues to resolve, different learning styles and different interpersonal skills ensures that I can maintain a variety of coaching skills and the ability to deploy these skills in working with a range in types of client 

3: Keeping up with new thinking in coaching.   As a professional coach I can only provide a ‘state of the art’ coaching experience for clients if I spend time on a regular basis reading, evaluating and, where appropriate, working out how to use new techniques in my coaching practice.  I regularly read a number of journals – Coaching At Work, Edge, Management Today, Harvard Business Review – which keeping me up-to-date with not only coaching theory and practice but also management thinking.  As well as providing some coaching articles, the latter keep me up to date with the issues which may be facing my clients in their professional roles. In addition, I attend relevant conferences and CPD events.  For example, Association for Coaching conferences, Institute of Leadership and Management events and coaching network's can provide useful insights into developing my coaching practice and ensuring that my practice is evidence-based and leading edge. 

4: Purchasers of Coaching need to understand the concept of practice.  For those who purchase coaching, for themselves or members of their leadership or management teams, it is critical that they appreciate and seek out coaches who undertake regular supervision; who maintain their coaching practice, at the appropriate level of seniority, and who can demonstrate that they are up-to-date with the latest thinking and practical skills.  Purchasers have an in-depth understanding of what they are purchasing and what they hope to achieve for both individuals and the organisation.  I will be further sharing my thoughts on ‘Selecting the Right Coach’ in future blogs.

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