As an executive and leadership coach this feels like a strange title for a blog! I’ve experienced personally how coaching has at different points transformed how I was showing up in the world. There was the time when my coach helped me to understand how to advocate and ask for what I needed at work which, eventually, led to me getting a promotion I had long wanted (and to be honest also deserved). Or the time when a coach helped me unbury myself from the overwhelm. I’ve also seen with my clients how they have pivoted careers, learned to pace themselves, developed stronger, more joyful working relationships with their teams, figured out how to set boundaries that support them and their work… coaching is great… except when it isn’t.
What about those times when coaching doesn’t feel as though it’s working? When you feel like you are stuck? Where the insights from the coach don’t seem to be landing? When you feel deeply frustrated because significant resources – money but also time which is just as, if not more valuable to many of us – feel as though they are being wasted? What do you do then?
Switching from frustration to curiosity is a great first step. Here are some questions I have seen as helpful, both for myself and clients:
- How honest are you being a) with yourself and b) with your coach? The most important person in this is you. Sometimes we think we want something – a new job, better work life balance – but when we start to work with this, nothing actually changes. It can be helpful to then ask, ‘what is it in myself that benefits from…. (being stressed out, staying in this role)…’ in ways that invite curiosity. I always start from the premise that there is something in the behavior I want to change that is serving part of me. If I can understand what that is, then I can decide whether I really want to change. For example if I say I want to be less stressed at work but nothing is changing, can I pinpoint how the stress is serving me (maybe it allows me to feel valued which is something I crave, or maybe it keeps me focused on work when there are other things I am trying to avoid in my life).
- Have you talked with your coach about it? If not why not? Your coach is there solely to support you. They will most definitely want to know if you don’t feel that things are panning out the way you were imagining they might. There are all sorts of reasons why we might not be saying anything (fear of upsetting them, wanting to defer to them as the expert…) but I would wager that none of them are probably substantive and may play into patterns of other things you are working with. Finding ways to start the conversation so that they can share their insights and you can jointly work on it together is a great first step.
- If you were to let go of my expectations of what should be happening, what would change? Most of us know the fable from Aesop of the Wind and the Sun in a competition to get the man (or woman) to take of their coat. The harder the Wind blows however, the tighter they wrap themselves in it. When the Sun warms, then the coat gets taken off easily. Sometimes, getting where we need to go (which might be different to where we think we want to go), needs less not more effort. This is so counter intuitive it can be hard to even experiment with. But I see time and again where it pays off. The person who wants to be liked and accepted more at work stops trying so hard to get other’s approval. The manager who wants their team to achieve greater results, starts putting less pressure on the team and making more time for conversation. As my friends in the justice space are constantly reminding me. Sometimes we have to slow down to move more quickly. And talking of speed…
- Have you had an insight that excited you but are now frustrated that you’re not seeing any results? In a group coaching context many years ago, I got the feedback that actions I had been taking because I was insecure (getting up very early to ensure that results were delivered into people’s inboxes ahead of the deadline) were being experienced as me being overly competitive and wanting to get ahead. This was eye-opening to me – my efforts to achieve excellence were being seen negatively by others. However, there was a long road between that insight, and really putting into practice different behaviors that truly mirrored my collaborative intent and didn’t let my insecurities get the better of me (some would probably tell me I’m still working on this!). The fact is that insights can happen in a flash at any point in time. Changing the behaviors involves literally rewiring our nervous systems and that takes much longer and usually is non-linear. If you are frustrated with the pace of change, ask yourself whether you really are stalling out, or whether you can recognize that change rarely happens in a flash.
Maybe these questions aren’t the right ones for you – I’d love to hear what questions have helped to get you unstuck from a particular coaching quagmire. The invitation though is to approach the ‘not working-ness’ from a place of curiosity and nuance rather starting from a place of judgement (either of yourself, the coach or the context). It is of course possible that the coaching really isn’t working – but curiosity is a great place to start.
Photo by Martino Pietropoli on Unsplash.
