Becoming Relevant: Lessons from a Mosquito

A woman named Betty Reese said this: “If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.” Okay, okay.

Onward!

My first blog of 2011 is a mandate to myself to expand my horizons to the world in which I am strangely rather comfortable … the future. First requirement is to fall away from ordinary thinking that has plagued us (me included) for the past decade.

Lest I forget, professional coaching developed during this time … yet in some ways it struggles to remain the same. None of that is a terribly bad thing. It’s just not the only thing to think about.

I’m going to Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw and renewing my close relationship with connecting things, people, ideas and those ostensible “whatevers” that don’t yet exist. His other excellent books (Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers have the same thinking, BTW).

For two years I wrote about professional coaching, mainly the competencies and how to take exams with a few other observations thrown in from time to time. It was fun and rewarding to look at what I do with an eye to what works. But I haven’t been truly fearless; I’ve been somewhat safe (not entirely) but then I’ve never known myself to take on things that are (were) purely safe …as if I knew what I was doing all the time. LOL

Then there are times when I need to educate myself in matters other than people.

I read Michio Kaku’s Hyperspace and will follow that with his Physics of the Impossible. The universe exists (no matter what anyone else thinks). It’s huge, beyond immense, unimaginably vast … no more words to use. Well, it makes me aware of how small and insignificant I actually am to the greater scheme. Yet I am aware enough to know that I am on a very small planet with rather frightening problems that may or may not have solutions. I’ll be reading this book for quite a while bearing in mind the mosquito.

I was musing on some cursory ideas from Alvin Toffler (of Third Wave fame) and his Fourth Wave predictions. The scary part is that they’re all the same problems only magnified. I’m of the opinion that the future must include some radical changes that I certainly cannot define or describe … at least it seems that way to me. I count on better minds than my own to keep me honest.

My wish now is to be able to relate to the future and bring what I do for a living (professional coaching) into a relevance that extends much further into the future than I will ever know.

So how’s that going to happen? First, I’ll check in with the mosquito for strategy. Then I will begin.

Evaluating Professional Performance

My current foray into the world of evaluating the professional performance of others is as a member of the ICF Credential Assessor Team. I’ve been involved heavily for the past 8 years. And, I hope I have not only learned a lot but have become a better assessor and better coach.

I’ll speak to 4 observations … commitment, skill, imperfection, and value.

(1) Commitment. There’s a lot involved with evaluating a person’s professional future. For one thing, it’s taking what this is all about with a deep serious commitment to doing the best possible job for all concerned. One does not take that lightly for a moment. And, I would say it’s the first and most important place to stand when taking on this commitment.

(2) Skill. For many years I was involved in training, developing and evaluating people who chose to become officials for a sport (competitive swimming in this case). This long time experience probably helped me move into the professional coaching arena more than I realized at the time. It remains a grateful background to my assessor work.

Another helpful origin is that I did not train with any of the founding group of coach training programs … I had no bias on how coaching should sound or be. Really, that’s true and remains to this day. The only backside of that is I do not want to hear a training program showing through above and beyond the coach … i.e. method coaching (sort of like method acting gone astray). To become an assessor is to shed one’s “learned” way of how coaching should be.

(3) Imperfection. There are some aspects that don’t work optimally about the ICF credentialing program but it’s rather remarkable how much does work well. In a new profession, grabbing the reins as the ICF did in 1998 and creating a credentialing program complete with core competencies that seemed to emerge from inspiration must be acknowledged as amazing.

But then again, to anyone who has not succeeded in obtaining their desired credential, there may be a heavy dose of criticism … well, except for the few who pursue with passion, learn, and ultimately do succeed. I know a few and admire the heck out of these exceptional coaches.

(4) Value. For anyone wanting to learn more about coaching than one could ever learn in any other way, becoming an ICF assessor is marvelous. I can say honestly, that my coaching could never have moved forward as it has without this part of my everyday training and development. The hours I spend as an assessor continue to be eminently worthwhile.

Distractions

I’m a zealot about managing distractions when coaching. I normally think of cell phones, email, doorbells, children, dogs, cat walking across my desk, small child practicing mousemanship … the regular list.

That’s changed.

For the past few weeks I've been plagued by back problems … which is quite a distraction. I can work, take care of clients, get my house ready for sale … those kinds of important items, but I have not been blogging. Therefore, distractions have expanded into my blogging world. Just because I hurt doesn’t automatically translate to “can’t do my blogs” but apparently it has.

Blogging requires having something to say about something. I’m not pleased with myself for using pain and inconvenience as an excuse but it seems I have.

Distractions are a big deal in the world of professional coaching. That’s why there’s a very important competency called Coaching Presence. I’ve learned to manage this competency when coaching so now it’s time to expand its reach. Where this ‘reach’ goes I do not know but in case I wasn’t finding something new to learn, here it is!

While I’m on a roll, let me say something about Coaching Presence. Over the past couple of months I’ve had the pleasure and frustration of evaluating 4 coaching exams. The key to success, as I long ago discovered, is to be fully present, completely flexible and totally in service of one’s client. There is no other way to pass the ICF exams at a high level.

Distractions for coaches taking their exams are often subtle … so subtle the coach is unaware of them. These kinds of distractions include “trying really hard,” “preparing so much the prep itself destroys presence,” “having exam anxiety (performance anxiety),” “being awed by the assessor team (trust me it happens),” “failure to practice a 30-minute session,” “letting any other distraction get in the way,” “being late to the call,” … got the point? This list of what could be construed as beneficial (e.g. trying really hard) actually is subtle sabotage to peak performance in an exam setting. Any of these distractions will get in the way of being fully present in the conversation. A low score in Coaching Presence is not supportive of doing well in the exam, most definitely at the MCC level.

You might wonder if anyone passes their exam … the answer is yes! My past blogs talk a lot about what it takes to pass. This blog reminds us all that we must overcome distractions and not let them destroy our capacity to be fully present and natural.

Zenyatta

The special loveliness of a horse named Zenyatta quite deservedly captured the love and adoration of her human fans.  I've been around horses most of my life but never have I seen a horse dance ... especially a race horse on the way to the gate for a race.  What an amazing experience. 

Yes, she should have won the race.  I can hold that thought just because I want to. What happened during the start may be known or it might not be known.  It seems she just didn't get her mojo up and running ... but when she did ... well, she took my breath away. 

Pure and simple, it was a moving experience to share in the love and appreciation for magnificent Zenyatta.

Why write about a horse?  First, because I want to.  She captured my heart and I'm happy to have let her do that.  Second, because giving ourselves moments to be swept up in joy and delight is nourishment for the soul.

What’s Critical for a Successful Coaching Conversation?

I’ve wrestled with which one of the ICF Core Competencies is critical to coaching success. One could make a case for any of them … a testimonial to their power, by the way.

I quickly eliminated the actions competencies … duh! People do things with or without a coach. If you take umbrage at my dismissal, actions are the natural result of great coaching, not the point of it. Nicer way of putting it?

Over the 8 years I’ve been an ICF exam assessor, I’ve taken a long look at the actual techniques of coaching: Active Listening, Powerful Questioning, and the concepts of Direct Communication. Upon reflection and the lessons of experience, it’s inevitable to find that these 3 coaching techniques are also essential to many similar professions: therapy, counseling, religious work, mentoring, social work, teaching, and on and on through the long list. At the very least they are critical coaching skills. And … they are also a starting point in defining the essential elements of ‘partnership’ (the essential relationship of coach and client).



If you are familiar with the ICF Core Competencies then you will note some missing items already. So I will talk about the Coaching Agreement given I harp on it all the time when mentoring coaches anxious to pass their exams. The Agreement for a given coaching session is the structure and the only structure of that conversation. Its absence is an invitation to a modest version of chaos and uncertainty. However, before we all get comfortable here, one very important ingredient of the Agreement is clarity …”What do you mean by …?” And, it’s also not a good idea to ask what a client wants to achieve before there’s even something articulated as the content of the conversation. Think about it. I’ve been greeted in an exam with these very first words out of the coach’s mouth: “So, what outcome would you like to have today?” What do you suppose was my response? (Clue: “Uh, well, I don’t quite know yet.”… I answered so very nicely.)

Suffice to say that a clear Coaching Agreement is very important to effective coaching, and not one that the coach dictates … in case I forgot to mention my favorite admonition for all coaches: let your client do the heavy lifting.

Okay, here we are. What’s left?

The two most essential elements (Competencies) of any coaching conversation are Establishing Trust & Intimacy and Coaching Presence. We can’t have one without the other and we can’t have successful coaching without them both. My experience is that a failure to gain trust and at some point a trusting closeness (professional intimacy) dooms a conversation and doesn’t even allow true presence to show up. And yet, could I be talking about two more difficult elements to learn? There is no formula, no simple way, no magic about it … these two Competencies are asking you, the coach, to be authentic, confident, caring (empathetic), comfortable in your role, ruthlessly compassionate and a complete advocate for your client … all the time, every time.



Coaching As A Commodity -- Really?

The principal lesson I learned from a wonderful ICF-sponsored teleclass presented by Vicky Sullivan and Kay Cannon is that while I was comfortably engaged in the 7-year cocoon of the NASA project, the coaching profession had morphed into a commodity.

Yikes!  This is truly earthshaking information for me.

What is a commodity, you ask? Well, in business parlance it means something that has become accepted and understood. That can include anything that people and organizations have decided they need. I never imagined coaching would arrive at this stage so quickly.

You might argue with this. After all, not everyone knows the benefits of coaching. True enough. However, if you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point it seems entirely possible that this is indeed how things are.

There comes a point in time when an idea takes hold with strength to endure. I’m not sure this is the case for all kinds of coaching but it appears to be the case with organization (executive, corporate, leadership) coaching.

And now the question I must ask myself: What do I need to do?

Clearly, I must respond carefully with my next moves in order to make a living. Could it be more obvious?

Having been in business now for 25 years I need to pull out the basics (that I taught for 15 years). When looking at what is next for me to do I must once again engage my entrepreneurial spirit, my years of experience … and fearlessly innovate!

I recently changed my vision statement from “Sustaining High Performance Over Time” to “Building People & Enterprise for Long Term Success.” I intend to design my expertise menu to include not only executive coaching but also to underscore management consulting and facilitation … (how I earned a living prior to the NASA project). I might even include two of my favorites: grad school teaching and public speaking …but those ideas are open for debate (with myself).

I expect these questions from curious minds: Isn’t that a rather heavy menu? Isn’t it too scattered? Don’t you want to focus more?

Yes, eventually I will focus. I shall narrow the field but I won’t leave anything out until I’ve looked at them all and entertained opportunities that show up. I can truthfully say that coaching will always be included, however.

More to come ….

Working My Way Down to Clues

My relationship to the world around me is primarily visual. Some of you will happily join me and note that you are inclined to see things rather than hear or touch them. We even use language like “I see.” as a response to a request or comment or explanation. That’s a clue or cue to how to best work with me.

Try to imagine that I not only see the science in this meteorite coming really close to our planet but I find it metaphorically symbolizes getting to the point, narrowing in on an idea, sparking a creative thought. And it’s beautiful.

Now this visual thing can get pretty elaborate. I often find my thoughts (like most of the time) translating words into visual images, or racing through like a 24/7 video tape, or even just looking around for inspiration. I have lots of artwork on my walls: dramatic and complex, tiny and simple … all evocative (for me). I like to read action novels for relaxation noting how I rapidly translate the printed words into my version of the images those very words are describing. It’s just how it is for me.

We are all born with some sort of way to process the world around us. Small children touch, taste, test everything and watch big people … all of the time. When my grandchildren were very small they crawled and I crawled with them … a revelation regarding the world around me. I saw newly what I didn’t know I was seeing when a tiny little girl.

We all process information in all the usual basic ways: visual, kinesthetic, verbal, and auditory. I’m going to add: linear and non-linear, interpretation, meaning, recognition, empathy. It’s all fascinating and doesn’t begin to include personality, morality (ethics) and character. I learned by watching those I admired …visual learning once again.

What does this have to do with coaching? From my perspective, in coaching we don’t need to be complicated or complex … it’s suffices to know that individuals process information in the basic ways. A question can be asked in different ways if we know just this much about our client: “How might (do) you (see, feel, hear, verbalize) the situation?” “What does that mean to you?”

It’s truly important how we speak to our clients and connect to what works for them … the ICF the competency that recognizes this is called Direct Communication. Think about it. If I don’t pick up the clues as to how my client processes information and just push on with a story or recommend a book or expect a particular response … not much is going to happen except nice agreements and a friendly conversation … which is fine but it’s not powerful coaching.

We are now down to clues (the kinds discussed above, for starters). Clues (or cues) are the keys to exploration, discovery, forward progress, the euphemistic “going deeper,” awareness and creativity. Ignore the clues and stay painfully on the surface seeking information, agreement, and a nice experience, maybe even fun. Mostly, the focus of a coaching conversation where clues are missed will generally result in a clients not being challenged or engaged in exploration and discovery. From where could come an important action to take when nothing has been discovered?

The purpose of coaching is to partner with a client in exploring the heart of his/her agenda, to allow that client to discover something new and important, and then to work with that client in designing steps forward in order to act on that discovery and new learning. The client then does the “heavy lifting” while coach is there for support and appreciation.