Met
an Executive Coach the other day who expressed a different perspective on Life Coaching from how I saw it till then.
{A
disclaimer at the very outset:
I have a stake in both life and executive coaching and my win will surely be if
both grow bigger in the individual and organizational consideration-set as
immensely valuable, effective and result oriented interventions that can lead
to measurable growth and improvement}
This
senior internal Executive Coach of a leading technology services organization
described Life Coaching as ‘feel good’ coaching. Her views on Executive
coaching, (as compared
to Life coaching) was that it is more structured, quantifiable and hence
measurable.
While
the Coaching industry in India
goes through its adolescence and tries to rid itself of the image of its
intangibility, let’s try understand this better through this very example. Let’s
imagine a scenario in the case of this technology services behemoth – How will
it be if Executive Coaching measurably prolongs an 18-month employee attrition
cycle to 19 months and eventually to an ideal 22-24 month cycle! Can you imagine
the impact of the coaching initiative? I just did and visualized the rush to
hire coaches to address all level of employees in this organization. Let us next
imagine a more contained impact – a coached employee’s ratings going up from 2
to 4. Whoop! That is a momentous impact and if a sponsor initiated Executive Coaching
intervention can convincingly take credit for that – the future of Executive Coaching
has arrived decisively!
At
this point, we must take note that in Executive Coaching what is critical is
the buy-in from the Coachee after he
has answered the ‘what’s in it for me?’
& ‘why me?’ questions for himself. Other areas of sensitivity: the reality that a
Coaching intervention commences via a nomination (sponsor-led) and is very
often (seen as) led by
HR. All of this inherently frames the first line of mistrust that the
organization has to deal with and assuage. To me, the rest of the process is similar
to any other niche of Coaching (that has been duly named). Of course, the tools
applied will be specific to each intervention.
At
this point, let us look at Life Coaching and what it can impact. A Life Coach, in
all cases, is directly hired and paid a fee (directly) by the Client (an
exception is an adolescent where the Coach is hired by the parents). The fee is
at an average 3K-5K an hour/ per session, for a minimum number of sessions.
Safe to assume that there is Client buy-in. The Client has decided to invest money to impact, streamline, perhaps kick-start
a part of life from a limbo, directionless or energy sapping position. The trigger
could be in a simple belief that life has the potential to be much better, that
there is scope for enhanced clarity and purpose for life ahead.
In Coaching
circles it is said that every type of Coaching engagement becomes about Life Coaching
from the 3rd – 4th
session onward. It makes sense, as work too is an integral part of life and
cannot be simplified and explored in isolation. Any effective Coaching
intervention is able to view life as holistically as the Client is able to
share of them with the Coach.
What
does the Life Coach typically get hired for? Here I share an extract from my
website (LifeAlignCoaching.com)
Do you often
wonder about your strengths, values and life-purpose?
Are you feeling at
a crossroad; that a deeper and more meaningful success may be possible in your
life, career or venture?
Are you raring to
maximize your abilities, leverage your strengths, know and manage your
weaknesses, have more satisfying relationships or become an authentic,
effective individual?
Is there a longing
for greater clarity, confidence, calm, balance or sense of purpose?
Are you often
yearning for focus, looking to create a plan and move past your doubts into
action, to make a genuine and sustainable transformation?
Is there a best
version of you awaiting expression?
Do you want to
manage your time more effectively? And commit and keep to deadlines?
These
are only some reasons that a Client signs me on for.
All such
reasons and the outcome of interventions thereon become measurable when the basic
tenet of the Coaching intervention is set crystal clear right at the beginning.
‘Establishing the Coaching Agreement’—no. 2 out of the 11 Competencies laid
down by ICF International Coach Federation—is absolutely
paramount to begin the process. This naturally ensures result orientation,
measurement and assessment at the end of the process. Objective setting is
empowering as it sets a clear goal and framework for the coaching conversation
to move within and ahead. And it is empowering as much for the Client.
And
if the desired objective is feel good about a specific issue in life – that too
can be broken down into ‘what does feel good mean for you?’/ ‘how will you know
you have succeeded?’/ ‘how will success look like for you at the end of this
session?’
For
the uninitiated, in Executive Coaching setting up the coaching agreement and
goal setting is primarily done with the sponsor. More specific session goals
and progress thereon are agreed upon with the Coachee from session to session.
As
an intervention model, Coaching, in all its niches, is singularly result-oriented.
In my experience the real
distinction that Coaching brings (from other interventions like Therapy) is
accountability. As a Coach, I work with Clients to be responsible for their
thoughts, feelings and habits and take action that will challenge their comfort
zones, create new habits and augur transformation. I collude less with the
emotional self and more with the desire for growth that is overshadowed by the
emotional self. I focus on the past only in terms of how the attitudes
developed then are impacting the present and their future.
In Coaching - taking action;
holding a vision of what is possible for the client beyond the story; being
open to challenging the Client to discover, create and choose new ways of doing
and guiding the Client towards accountability is the big difference that we
Coaches can make. And it becomes tangible only when the Unit of Success has been laid out at the time of establishing the
agreement. That is imperative.
Success, you would agree, is
directly about the ‘feel good’ for the Client and that ultimately is the
essence of Coaching. Feel good is about oneself, about knowing one’s strengths
and learning to value and utilise them, about one’s worth at home and workplace
and engineering self to build value; feel good is about growing in self
awareness, confidence, conviction and clarity about one’s inner resource and
capability to work things out; feel good is about knowing and preparing to construct
a future capably and intentionally; feel good is about becoming accountable to
self and setting and delivering deadlines set and received. This list is
ongoing but we can see ourselves in the middle of at least a couple of these.
This is a Coach’s delivery, the rest is only nomenclature to help market
ourselves in a niche we feel comfortable to deliver and find Clients in – Life
Coach, Executive Coach, Accountability Coach, Wellness Coach and so on.
Of course, there is
specialised Training, Tools and Techniques that a Coach will do well to learn,
reskill in and acquire mastery in, to better their skills in listening,
questioning and holding the space.
And in the final assessment,
if the result is ‘feel good’ for the client, the sponsor, the employee as well
as for the larger organization as measured against the objective set up at the beginning,
it is an absolute win in every way. Simply put, the measurability of Coaching lies
in the softness or tangibility of the objective set and that steers the delivery
of the critical ‘Feel Good’ at the closure of the intervention.
Nivedita
Das Narayan, CPC, PCC
Executive
& Life Coach
LifeAlign
Coaching
Skype:
niveditadn
Mobile:
+91 7738143477
