Are there times when a client needs more from a coach than just coaching?
Recently I worked with a technology team facing competing priorities and endless to-do lists. Our first workshop had gone well, but on Day 2 I sensed that something wasn’t working.
My systemic coaching questions were bouncing off people as if coated in Teflon. A relational approach – voicing my own unease – didn’t shift anything either.
What else did this team need?
So I decided to experiment with something more directive. With pen and flipchart I guided the team through key discussion topics. This felt uncomfortable too: I had now moved from coach and facilitator into consultant and teacher mode. It can be a dangerous place to be.
But as we pondered the flipchart outputs, we finally had a breakthrough.
The solution on the flipchart was clear. Except – everyone could now see it didn’t address the real issue. As soon as someone said it out loud, the whole team agreed. It was a massive aha moment resulting in shared relief and laughter.
Because someone had finally voiced an unspoken truth: “I simply want to be told what to do!”
It was a revelation for everyone, including the team manager who had always assumed the opposite to be the case in a servant leader culture. It also explained my growing unease and why I’d felt nudged towards being more directive.
Had I stayed in pure coaching mode, would we have reached the crux? Could we have arrived there by sitting with the discomfort a bit longer? I’m not sure. I may well have lost the room.
On reflection, my approach here felt closer to coaching supervision than coaching. Supervisors understand what coaches go through; similarly, my background in technology helped me understand what this team was facing. And like a supervisor pivoting between normative, formative and restorative roles, I switched stances as appropriate. It was almost like running a group supervision session.
Food for thought. As coaches, when do we need to coach – and when do we need to offer something else?
True Horizon Coaching 