Who is Coaching Really For?

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Who is Coaching Really For?Clients and Coaches
BewareKoucing Centrum International Coach
FederationConference Prague, June 6th-7th, 2006

• Annette B. Reissfelder

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Why am I here?

• To share my passion for coaching
• Maximise the results and impact of individual
  sessions
• Improve professional coaching standards and
  development
• To talk from a non-coaching position as
• A fairly seasoned expert in the profession
• A professional with concerns, hopes, and
  aspirations
• An insider who will answer and raise new
  questions
• My sources
• Own observations, reflections, discussions with
  would-be coaches, HR managers
• My working hypotheses

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Professional Background

• German, lived and worked in several European
  countries
• Economics economic history studies, psychology
  degree
• Previous professional roles include trainer,
  consultant, HR manager, and co-owner COO of
  consultancy with 25 staff
• Systemic management coaching training and
  supervision
• Currently coaching in Czech, German, and English
  in CEE countries (mainly CR), the UK, F, and D
• Most clients from top level (CEO, board, board
  -1) positions
• A CHANGE-oriented consultant
• A business owner who used to manage a training
  budget

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Profession Full-time Coach

• When she isnt coaching, shes probably at a
  conference
• Working differently with companies and managers
• Focus How clients can best manage their own
  change projects
• Practice
• Individual coaching
• Approx. 70 top management positions
• Approx. 30 middle management positions (usually
  growth roles)
• Some board top management group coaching
• German-language Coaching Club for top managers
  with a solid background in (self-)coaching
  (former participants of cf. below)
• Coaching-based management training for senior
  managers

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No Advocate of Wellness Coaching

• Bottom line my services cost real money must
  deliver FAST and TANGIBLE returns
• As much as absolutely necessary, as little as
  possible
• How to measure the companys gains
• Savings (streamlined learning systems, direct
  cost-cutting ...)
• Quality (more internal promotions, customer
  satisfaction, )
• Retention figures, employee satisfaction, etc.
• Always create a hierarchy of goals if client is
  not a CEO
• Overall earnings have to far exceed session
  costs (my fee, their time)

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The Centrepiece How Coaching Lifts Companies
Performance

• By eliminating the WASTE of energy and money
• Examples
• Training programmes that lack solid link-back /
  follow-up / cost-effect ratios
• Badly managed performance assessments
• By removing personal and organisational
  ROADBLOCKS
• By boosting individual motivation and ENERGY

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What am I talking about?Paradoxes and Double
Binds

• My clients are always smart and reasonable enough
  to solve their problems themselves
• UNLESS they trap themselves with double binds or
  ingrained assumptions (This is how it must be)
• I need my team to do exactly what I want, but I
  need them to believe they came up with it
  themselves
• At the same time I need them to show more
  initiative and think more independently

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More Examples of Belief Systems that Trap My
Clients

• "I need my managers to be top experts in their
  fields... AND I expect them to be professionals
  who support and develop their team/direct
  reports"
• a variation on this "I must be the leading
  expert in my field... AND I need to develop
  a team of competent, self-accounting
  professionals"
• "I want my coaching programme to be as short as
  possible... AND I want the coach to tell me what
  to do clearly, instead of wasting time with all
  this unnecessary reflection"
• "I want a robust company with clear structures
  and systems in place... AND I want my people to
  be customer-oriented and flexible, and of course
  to cooperate synergistically"

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Calculating the Bottomline of Coaching -
Estimated Savings

• 10 year-on-year increase in closing sales for
  under-performing sales rep (or 25 - 33?)
• Gains when 100 of training participants adopt
  one key learning skill in their everyday practice
• Estimated savings from NOT replacing one manager
• Outplacing paying out old manager
• Replacing (recruiting and training) new manager
• Extra demands on colleagues diverted from tasks
  and goals
• How do these figures compare to the costs of 5-20
  hours of one-on-one coaching over 2-6 months?

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What an Interesting Profession

• Travel options
• Meet interesting people
• Work with people who want to develop and improve
  themselves
• Oh really?!

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Definitely an Interesting Profession

• ? Most people lack a positive view of coaching
  but are curious
• ? If they have NO opinion, I have 10 minutes to
  engage them
• ? This is the only time I will ever have to
  change their mindset (Now show me how you are
  different)
• Potential clients want/need to change something
• (usually someone else!)
• Have zero time for a nice approach
  understanding
• The last thing they want is to develop
• N.B. People who want to develop usually dont
  want to pay you!
• ? Potential clients are experienced, demanding,
  and quick thinkers can quickly see what works
  for them
• ? - 5 crucial minutes to position myself as a
  true partner!

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Challenges of Working at Top Level

• CEOs and entrepreneurs have a different mindset
• Not interested in development for its own sake
• Certainly dont want to unlearn what made them
  successful
• Extremely effective and capable professionals
• Like challenges and creative, surprising new
  edges, thoughts ideas
• Dont need your knowledge not interested in your
  opinions (esp. on how they need to change)
• Have no positive experience of your coaching -
  yet
• Probably ask themselves how you can be worth your
  fee with no experience in their industry no
  idea about their complex contexts
• What do you have to offer?

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The Boredom Dilemma

• Management development quickly bores top
  performers
• The Supermarket Analogy A few articles catch
  your attention, but the whole experience is
  uninspiring
• Coaching avoids this problem (if the coach
  matches the CEO/manager)
• BUT many top people see it as a weakness
  unattractive
• HRs educational role Create opportunity for the
  CEO to discuss key topics with a coach
• Team goals, performance reviews, career planning,
  etc
• The goal is to facilitate ONE positive personal
  experience
• High performers see the benefit straight away

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The Bottom Line What All Coaching Clients

• face undesirable outcomes
• believe there is something THEY can do
• really hate and wont tolerate for long
• being told what to do or think - just like
  everybody else
• being patronised or treated as immature,
  inexperienced clueless
• have already tried without success
• applying old linear/causal explanatory models
• talking to friends
• want help with being stuck right now
• This is what they are willing to pay for

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Centrepiece for HR Managers/ Business Owners

• Ensure that your actions have maximum impact
• Ultimately you want to change behaviour A
  complex goal!
• To succeed, you must respect each individuals
  complexity (reflected in coaching before
  trainings and blocks of seminars)
• Reduce your companys wasted costs caused by
• Lack of clear (and/or closely monitored)
  performance evaluation follow-up / career plan /
  succession plans
• Lack of training / seminar / workshop follow-up
  and clear implementation plans These should be
  closely monitored by HR (worst case), or the
  managers themselves (best case)
• Look at what its WORTH - not what it COSTS

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If You Are Considering a Career in Coaching

• You are on the right track if you want a
  profession which
• Challenges you every time you meet a client
• Ensures you will keep learning for the rest of
  your life - not in a course, but from yourself
  and your clients
• Requires exceptional energy and inner strength
  (plus the usual things that any successful
  independent professional has to confront)
• Requires reflection, and ongoing personal and
  professional development

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Questions for Aspiring Coaches

• What is your background and USP?
• Anything you are trying to get away from?
• Any chance your coaching clients will be working
  in these same contexts?
• Do you have a convincing track record of being
  ambitious for others?
• Are you comfortable with an independent
  professional role?
• Bookkeeping, travel arrangements, admin, - not
  for everyone
• Responsible for your own marketing, pricing,
  sales calls
• Selecting and financing your own ongoing training
  supervision
• Facing financial insecurity and a hugely varying
  workload

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Centrepiece for Coaches-to-be Where and How to
Train

• Starting off as a coach is tough in many ways
• professional problems, self-doubts
• self-management issues, finance/workload
  data/examples
• Easy way out Overcome this by learning on the
  job
• Learn to apply your new coaching skills in your
  present job
• Find out what works and where youre strengths
  lie while managing your current (or new) team
• Use these insights to develop a niche for
  yourself not just a marketing niche, but one
  that is about you

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Useful questions if you are looking for a coach
(for yourself or others)

• Does this coach have the life experience to face
  tough contexts and crises?
• Is this coach mature enough to respect my
  personality, or do they want to educate me (
  to be like them, or how they feel I should
  be/act/)
• Do I believe this particular person is walking
  their talk?
• Does (s)he offer a safe environment to clients
  while still addressing their underlying needs?
• Do I trust this person? Would I work with
  him/her? Why?

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Putting it All Together The Coaching Space

• Created between each coach and coaching client
• Space determined by the possiblitities, personal
  and professional resources, and motivation that
  both bring to the table
• Resulting space can widely vary in impact
• 11 2 (coach is almost irrelevant/no
  value-added)
• 11 3 (some impact suited for middle
  management)
• 11 4, 5, 6 (exceptional impact, for the top
  level)

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Questions now? Or later? Contact Annette
B. ReissfelderTop Management CoachingMoorreye
88, 22415 HamburgGerman Mobile [phone]
97Czech Mobile [phone]
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Somewhat heretic guidelines (to be used in small
doses)

• Compare how little we can ever know about our
  clients with the multiplicity of their
  experiences with being them most of which are
  potentially accessible to their self-reflection
• My favourite quote for coaches If you have a
  hypothesis, take an aspirin and hope it will go
  away (Steve de Shazer, 1991) ?

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Appendix 1/4 The Case for Self-Reflection

• Coaches only have themselves to rely on Very
  good self-care is essential
• Coaches with better self-reflection can do more
  with and for their clients
• Many coaching trainings focus solely on coaching
  tools and techniques
• Tools are great but without highly developed
  self-reflection skills have little real value for
  the coach
• Strongly advocate basic systemic training for
  coaches

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Train the Self-Reflection Muscle2/4

• Self-reflection is a muscle it needs to be
  isolated, strengthened, and trained
• Its not just clients who benefit from this!
• Coaches need supervisors (more experienced
  coaches) to help keep this muscle in perfect
  shape
• Self-reflection is central to a coachs main
  professional tools, i.e. how they create value
  for their clients
• Ability to distance self from the clients issues
  
• Ability to offer useful insights and opinions
  (that are about the client, not the coach)
• and to detect circular thinking/paradoxes

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Self-reflection Addresses Behaviour and Context
3/4

• Monitor your actions (using feedback feed
  forward)
• Reflect your behaviour with a better future in
  mind looking for higher goals, other points of
  view, alternative actions, etc.
• On-going behavioural assessment
• What exactly am I doing? How did I get there?
• What effect does/did this have on the others?
• Is this type of (re)action I chose (still)
  effective?
• Put on glasses in different colours to see
  things differently
• Be less black-and-white/either-or, but more
  context-oriented
• The aim is to make you see more options

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Self-reflection² Focuses on our Way of Thinking
4/4

• Where do my judgments and assessments come from?
• What do I really know about what I do and how I
  do it?
• What stereotypes rule my assessments?
• What behavioural preferences rule my actions?
• How can I makes sure I listen to my client, when
  I know how most of what I hear is about ME not
  HIM?
• How do I reflect my behaviour?
• How do I reflect that others reflect me/my
  behaviour?