Archives for April 2013

What does your favorite movie have to do with your coaching?

The movies are a pretty good teacher about all things coaching

Do you have a favorite line from a movie? Or a favorite scene? It might be “You had me at hello…”, “Go ahead, make my day…”, or “That rug really ties the room together…” It could be anything. If you’re thinking of a scene, maybe it’s Danny Noonan and Ty Webb walking the golf course, the Fellowship of the Ring setting out, or something from Nights in Rodanthe…again it could be anything.

Ok, let me ask you a key question: what came after that line? Or what came after that scene? It can be really hard to remember, can’t it? The connection between that great line and the rest of the story doesn’t always stick. Some films have story lines that are quite a bit less-than-memorable, but those same films are really quotable. I don’t think that was what the director was going for, do you? To really work, a movie needs both: a great story is made more memorable by having memorable lines in the film.

Think about a coaching relationship like the narrative to a movie…each scene in the movie is like a conversation in a coaching relationship. Here’s the most important part: each scene connects to the one that comes after it. That’s a key idea for coaching: each coaching conversation should connect to the one that comes after it. Each scene takes the moviegoer closer to the ultimate resolution. In the best scripts, each line moves the audience closer to the big finish. Coaches can learn from this model.

In an effective coaching relationship, each conversation should drive the client closer to their goal. If you’re not making progress toward that goal, your coaching conversation might actually be working AGAINST your client. Just like a scene has to connect to the bigger storyline, each conversation has to fit in the larger narrative of the coaching relationship. A coaching conversation is a building block.

Stephen Covey wrote about the difference between the urgent and the important. The movie narrative can help illustrate the difference. If you’re working on scenes (coaching conversations) that connect to each other, chances are you’re focusing on the important. You’re focused on your priorities, and are systematically making progress toward what’s key to accomplishing your goals.

If your scenes are disjointed or struggling to stay connected, this coaching relationship may need some re-focusing on the bigger picture. You’re working on the urgent! Resist assigning an outcome for your client–that’s not the coach’s role!!–but re-visit the coaching agreement or draw the big picture out of the client. Once you have a clear picture of where your client wants to go, structure your session to help the client get there.

Now let’s break all this down to the individual line. Something a character says might bring a scene to a conclusion, define a relationship, or open up a new wrinkle in the story. Coaching questions have the same possibilities. When a coach is choosing questions (either in preparation for a session, or in the moment during a session), moving a client toward their ultimate goals is the standard. Each question can bring a session to a conclusion, define a relationship, or open up new wrinkles in the story. Ultimately, every single question has to be focused on what the client wants to accomplish.

When you think about your coaching, do you come up with memorable coaching questions (like great lines from a movie)? Or do you think of entire sessions, like scenes in a movie? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment area below.

Momentum in Coaching

Newton's cradle — Here’s momentum in action…back & forth, positive & negative

A former coaching client—no names please—struggled with choosing actions that he actually was willing to accomplish. No matter what action he considered, he could talk himself out of actually acting on it. The plan could make all the sense in the world, but my creative client was able to brainstorm all kinds of reasons why he shouldn’t actually move on the plan. Good plans or bad, it wasn’t long before the momentum fell away.

Maybe you’ve worked with a client like this, or a client that struggles with momentum in accomplishing their action plans. More often than not, a loss of momentum is the first step toward inaction. So, watching the momentum in coaching can be a great predictor of what a client will do, and what they won’t. Let’s ask the bold question: Where’s the momentum in your coaching relationships?

Momentum is a funny thing…we’re not talking about physical momentum, like in this video about momentum. Really what we’re describing is that sense in a coaching conversation where you know the client is going to accomplish whatever they commit to. Choosing actions becomes easier, and they seem to happen with minimal activity/effort in the relationship. It’s not the same as buy in to the purpose of the relationship, but momentum is definitely and outgrowth of being fully bought in.

With buy in, momentum is forward momentum. Without buy in, momentum can easily become backwards. The best coaches constantly find ways to supply forward momentum for their client. More accurately, the coach doesn’t supply it, but rather the coach fosters momentum growth in the relationship. Trust and mutual commitment to the relationship are the building blocks. The client must be making progress toward their vision, with the coach going along for the ride.

Think about our working definition of coaching: “a relationship with a purpose, focused on facilitating change.” It’s fair to say that if nothing is changing, you’re probably not coaching-at least not very well. So the first evaluation of momentum in your coaching is “What’s changing?” Forward momentum grows when you’re changing the thing that the client picked out. You can’t just change anything willy-nilly, you’ve got to be working on changing the thing that the client chooses.

So any momentum in your coaching conversation has to be moving toward the destination or vision that the client picked out. How do you do that? One is by constantly checking with your client, “Are we making progress toward the thing(s) you want to accomplish?"

If the answer is “Yes” to this question, you got forward momentum. If the answer is “No”, you probably don’t. If the answer is “I’m not sure”, you probably need a little time to evaluate the action steps your relationship is generating to see if they’re taking the client where they want to go. All of those situations are coachable, and an effective coach will consistently leverage questions and action steps are the best way to measure your forward momentum.

You even have an opportunity to leverage negative momentum or backwards momentum into something positive. Think about Frederick Vester’s idea of energy transformation and Wikipedia. Vester argues that any—positive or negative—momentum can be leveraged toward the preferred outcome. Powerful coaching question can be a great way to route any momentum toward the preferred outcome.

So what’s the current state of momentum in your coaching relationships? What questions can you ask to route that momentum toward the preferred destination? How can you use questions to add momentum to your relationships?

Got a strategy you like? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Strategy & Tactics in a Coaching Relationship

A game of strategy AND tactics...just like coaching. — A game of strategy AND tactics…just like coaching.

One of the coaching questions I’ve found myself asking more often in recent sessions is “How does that action step help you achieve your goals?” It’s a pretty bold question…and forces the leader to evaluate their plan with an useful lens.

The bad news is that too often the answer is “I don’t know…” or “It doesn’t…” A question like this really plumbs the tension between the urgent (the things that are on fire at the moment) and the important (the stuff that helps you make the most progress). Another way to say that is that bold questions bridge both strategies and tactics.

The best coaching relationships are both strategic and tactical. In fact, a lot of coaching conversations are both…and the best coaches understand how to balance the two options. Think of it like a chess game (or any game)…to have the best chance to win, you have to think about what it will take to ultimately get a checkmate AND what you can do next.

First some definitions:
Strategy: a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim. This is the big picture of why you’re working with your client. You might describe it as the master plan.

Tactical: actions carefully planned to gain a specific end.

Do you see the difference? Strategy is big picture, the large scale objective(s). Tactics are the steps to get there. In the International Coach Federation competencies, think of strategy as Planning and Goal Setting (Competency #10) and tactics are more of Designing Actions (Competency #9). Strategy is the route you’ll take to get where you’re going, and tactics are what you’re going to do along the route..

Strategy comes into play when you’re aligning the actions that your client designs with equal for all purpose of the coaching relationship. Strategy gives you a lens to use to line up each of your next steps so you make as much progress as possible. Effective coaches touch on big picture strategy in every session, but it rarely dominates the conversation.

Tactics get chosen & implemented when the client is designing individual action steps to move them closer to the overall vision. You’ll spend some time in every coaching conversation talking tactics. The best tactics line up with your stated goals and provide forward momentum that moves you closer to your vision.

Think of strategy as a physical fitness plan that includes, diet, cardio, weight lifting and yoga. Tactics are things like leg workouts, interval runs, and back stretching routines.

Any coach that’s worth a darn has seen both strategy & tactics in coaching…got a story you’d like pass on? I’d love to hear how you walk the line between these two key elements.

Small Changes that Result in Big Reactions

Ever notice how small changes can result in big reactions? You might be surprised to learn what a new haircut or small wardrobe adjustment might do for your impact on the people around you. This is a great lesson for coaches. Jonathan Reitz has more.

What changes might you consider making? What response do you expect from those changes? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Why I Only Coach By Phone

Why I only coach by phone

Virtually every time I mention to a group that I only coach by phone, someone asks “How can you be sure you’ll be as effective as you possibly can be when you only coach by phone?”

Coaching by Phone — This is not a picture of Jonathan

A few years ago I started noticing that my face-to-face coaching appointments seemed to be less effective than my phone appointments. This really puzzled me, at least at first, and I wrestled with why. The way one coaching conversation played out the convinced me that it’s not the phone—the problem is really personal, in fact, it’s me. Something I consider a strength of mine was getting in the way. And that stength makes the phone a much better option for my coaching practice.

I was sitting in the office of one of my clients at a church not far from home. My client was telling me about the plans his church had made for the upcoming holiday season. They were creative, connected to the neighborhood, and required a reasonably high commitment from the existing congregation-which he was getting! It looked like a dream scenario. and I found myself getting more and more excited about what he was telling me. The thought that I could help with this started running through my head. My wife and daughter could help too. I even thought out loud “Who else I could invite to be a part of what they were working on?” Do you see what happened there?

Somewhere in the course of this pastor’s plans, I stopped thinking about what he was telling me and started focusing on what I could do to help them. I had slipped out of my coaching mode. My purpose there wasn’t to get involved, I was there to help draw out his plans. I wasn’t doing that. It was a rather epic fail.

Afterwards, I realized that the distraction of sitting across the table in the same environment wasn’t helping. My boundaries had gotten muddy, and I began to put myself into his situation. That’s only helpful when a coach uses their personal view of the client’s situation to help the client gain clarity, and not to plan their own personal steps. My enthusiasm for his plans was getting in the way.

Further reflection showed me that I often had challenges—because of a positive quality of mine, my enhtusiasm—staying in coach mode. Over the next couple face-to-face conversations with this client, the same pattern happened every time. When I got energetic and enthusiastic about what he was saying, I started projecting myself into his plans. I was no longer coaching.

A deeper pattern has since become clear to me. Over the years, I have masked this unhelpful application my natural wiring by claiming more to be introverted than I appear (which is true). But in reality that introverted-ness doesn’t have anything to do with why I don’t coach is effectively in person as I do on the phone.

The real reason is that unless I am very disciplined, my enthusiasm for kingdom plans overwhelms my coaching skills. If I let it go unchecked, I start thinking about the contribution I am going to make to my clients project and missing the plans/actions we’re talking about.

If coaching is a relationship with a purpose focused on facilitating change, my role in the process is facilitation not active contribution. My role as a coach is to help the client figure out what they are going to do next, not what I am going to do next in their project. For some reason, that’s just harder for me when I’m sitting across the table from someone. I want to believe it’s because I really do care for the results my clients get, but I do have to care in a way that’s helpful for them and not just a self oriented, Jonathan-focused, way.

After those specific coaching conversations with that pastor from the Cleveland area, I stopped committing to face-to-face coaching conversations (a practice I still hold). I wish I could tell you that my energy and enthusiasm immediately became strictly an asset in my phone-based coaching conversations from that minute on, but I still have to sometimes re-direct my excess enthusiasm. But I’ve learned to channel it into listening or asking a bold question so that it’s helpful, and not a distraction.

Coaching by iPhone — This can make you a better coach.

Please know that I’m not suggesting that no coach should ever coach face-to-face. A better lesson is that good coaches do everything they can to tailor their behavior to serve the client. The bottom line is I was much more able to focus on what was important to the client when I was on the phone. My mind wandered – and still does – when I coach in person. So, managing external stimulus so that I can focus is directly tied to coaching effectiveness for me. The phone helps me focus solely and completely on the client.

What can you do to focus your energy and attention on your client? What external stimuli can you eliminate during your coaching time? How can you provide your self a distraction free environment for every single one of your coaching conversations? And maybe most important of all, how can you measure the difference in your effectiveness when you’re coaching in a distraction free environment as opposed when you have other things going on?

In the comments I’d love to hear your thoughts. Specifically I’d like to know if you think a distraction free environment would help you listen more effectively or ask better questions? Loooking forward to hearing from you.

Archives for April 2013

So, what is YOUR cause?

Let’s talk about getting you focused on the thing(s) that get you up in the morning…or what keeps you up at night!

Let’s talk about getting you focused on the thing(s) that get you up in the morning…
or what keeps you up at night!