Wimbledon week. So that is why it was so wet and why I needed to put my heating on at the end of June….

I have heard - more than once - commentators at Wimbledon saying: “True champions always find a way to win”. True and wise words. And I have seen players change their game strategy when something isn’t working, and seen players repeatedly use a particular shot that works well for them and earns them points against their opponents.

And for me it seems  timely (being the beginning of another month and the second half of the year) to do some reflecting and self coaching and ask myself the question: If I play the second half of the year in the same way that I played the first, am I on track to win or lose or draw?

It is good to take stock of what is working and what isn’t, and drawing up a list of what I need to stop, start and continue doing.

And to get creative and look for alternative ways to win in areas where my strategy is not working. (Still haven’t come up with an alternative to anything that matches the quick highs of chocolate, although am respectfully informed that eating grapes helps and sends a message to the brain that the body has received chocolate. Trouble is it doesn’t send the same message to the tongue!)

Any creative suggestions gratefully received and appreciated. Keywords: winning, changing, mid-year analysis, game strategy, chocolate, and grapes…

Well what a weekend. Great for ducks I say. I am off to (I hope) sunny Spain tomorrow so hopefully I can dry out….

It has been another interesting week again. One of the things I most love about coaching is the fact that, as I said some weeks ago, you just never know what you’re gonna get.

This week I received a call from someone who would like to pay for coaching for someone very dear to them. Wow what a friend! From a coaching perspective however the initial coaching conversation will be really crucial. In my past experience there have been times when someone has been ‘sent’ by someone else. There can be an unspoken message in this process which says ‘you need fixing’. It can also mean ‘I care about you so much I want to do all I can to support you, for my part I will pay and for your part you will need to put in the time and effort.’

Sometimes we are too close to family and special friends, and it is best not to coach them. Some people say never teach your wife to drive and certainly never coach her! What has been your experience of being coached by someone you know or coaching someone you know? What do you consider to be the benefits or downside? I fall on the side of preferring to recommend them to someone else so there is total objectivity, no assumptions and the space of anything is possible can be honoured. I would appreciate your comments on this one please.

So, back to last week’s request. I will be especially mindful of checking the level of commitment on the part of the person about to be coached. Also it needs to be acknowledged that whilst the mutual friend chose me, I may not be the choice the person I am being asked to coach would have made for herself…. I will keep you posted as to the outcome.

Out with the old and in with the new. Being the diligent coach that I am, I already had plans in place to fill vacant coaching slots left by my last project group.

I had a session with a new client yesterday who is an interesting one. He has a solid background, great career path, obviously very highly thought of by his company - so much so that they have flown him in from Asia to the UK to repeat the success he has achieved there over here.

Fairly straightforward on the face of it. Not too difficult to reflect on what skills, attitudes and experience he has in his recent past that can be applied now. However, as we got further into our discussions, it became apparent that  he still has responsibility for the very busy, full time job he has left behind in Asia. Well you don’t have to be an Einstein to work out that the chap is now doing two full time jobs, one in the UK and one in Asia. No wonder then he is feeling overwhelmed and out of his depth…….

Which actually is not peculiar to him. Not many people I have coached are running two full time jobs in two different continents, but it stands to reason that whatever your goals, when you are introducing new things in to your life, it generally means letting go of something else. Last time I checked, there were still only 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week.

So, go for your dreams, take challenges on the chin, stretch by all means but hey let’s not raise our expectations of ourselves and others so impossibly high that we set ourselves up for failure.  

However, what about those who want a regular session, do not need “counselling” and don’t have any particular goals but do want a weekly sounding board / person to check in with? I have now affectionately called in the IDKWC model – the “I don’t know what’s coming” model. I DO know that some amazing conversations have taken place by creating a space that invites exploration. This and some very deep level listening and natural curiosity have uncovered life long, deep held desires. I liken it to window shopping. On one level there are those who just want to look and have no intention of buying; others want to browse and, at some level, there is something they are searching for. Just maybe….

Certainly the same is true at top level Executive Coaching. I have worked with individuals who have been assigned a coach. They can think of any number of business projects they would like to get done. For me these are more of a “to do” list rather than a “ would love to / have a burning desire to do” list. And many have indeed told me it gets lonely at the top. And whilst performance coaching has its place, their business objectives largely would get done with or without a coach. The benefit for them lies in having a third party they can talk to, someone who understands, who does not judge, who will challenge their beliefs / assumptions and someone they can trust but is not a “Corporate Counsellor”. It is far from a cup of tea and sympathy type session.

I invite you to share your thoughts on this one. What has been your experience of creating and coaching in “this space”? What results have you created? What has surprised you on the way?

Well a very special hello to Jane from Canada and to Alice! There I was thinking that the whole world reads Diary of a Coach and in fact it appears only two people do! Well it’s a start. From little acorns and all that… Seriously your comments are appreciated and do please keep them coming. Interesting thought from Alice though about fear of being judged and wanting. I understand your point about the fear of being judged but not sure I totally understand what you mean about the wanting piece. Please do explain.

The fear of being judged leads me to question who you think may be judging you? A common theme does keep appearing when I talk to coaches about this. I know many who are fantastic coaches with a huge amount to offer and with different areas of expertise. Ask them though to sell themselves or their services and they pretty much have a cardiac arrest. WHY? Some would maybe argue that they don’t have basic selling skills, but my instinct tells me it is something deeper. If we perceive a gap in ourselves, our abilities and our offerings, I believe on one level that is what we portray to the world.
 

Some coaches ask me how can I coach someone in an area that I know nothing about? Which raises the whole difference between knowledge based coaching versus commitment based coaching. And it highlights for me the differences between coaching, mentoring and teaching. I could coach someone who has a life long goal to play the piano but I couldn’t mentor them or teach them. In fact as their coach we would probably agree the first action step for them would be to identify a great piano teacher.
 

And for you Alice I respectfully suggest you start offering chocolate at your shared learning meetings and see what happens….  

I got together with a group of coaches at the weekend. We meet every couple of months with the idea of assisting each other if necessary with information on latest trends etc., and to ask for help and ideas if we are finding certain coaching assignments challenging. 

But, as we were sitting in my house nibbling on my remaining Easter eggs, it struck me that not many coaches seem willing either to ask for specific help or discuss their own work (obviously within the confines of confidentiality). Certainly on leadership programmes I have worked on, contribution is a pillar which supports effective leadership. So how come coaches feel they have to appear to know everything and don’t want to seem uninformed or incompetent? Is it an issue of trust? Is it that we don’t want to contribute to each others progress? Should I have bought cheese bites? 

So let us practice what we preach: let’s reach out, ask for help and support, trust each other, operate from a mentality of abundance – there is enough work out there for everyone. I am the first to admit that even with many years of coaching and experience under my belt, I benefit hugely from others input, discussions and ideas. 

So over to you. Some comments please. Anything at all that you as coaches would like to ask. Anything at all that you are experiencing that may be useful for others to know in terms of things that have worked well for you and maybe things that haven’t, and the learning you have taken from that. 

IF NOT NOW, WHEN? IF NOT YOU, WHO? I await your comments…    

Easter has come and gone, but  brought with it a lovely long weekend, sunshine and loads of the dreaded stuff beginning with c…… The weather was so nice that I had to put my Easter eggs in the fridge, sitting in there staring at me every time I went to get a diet coke or a low cal yoghourt. Those eggs were just begging to be eaten. So I obliged.

My project group are doing well and gathering momentum with their goals. We are already nearly approaching the halfway point in their 10 week assignments. As their coach, now is the time for me to be looking to raise the bar for them. Always an interesting point in coaching and I think an essential one too:  break the bigger goal down into bite sized pieces so they can get some early wins under their belt.

Then it is a matter of timing. Raise the bar too soon and they can get despondent and give up. Leave it too long before you raise it and they can get bored, especially the ones who have had previous experience of finding it challenging seeing a project through to completion. Also essential in my opinion is that everyone in the group acknowledges their successes and has some kind of reward system in place. It doesn’t have to be anything major, but it is useful to get them into the habit of recognising how far they have already come. I liken it to skiing: sometimes we are so focussed on that end point at the bottom of the ski slope (usually a bar with gluwein aplenty) that we forget to stop on the way down the slope and look what terrain we have already successfully covered.

What is also interesting to me at this stage of the coaching assignment is that the coaching relationship has developed and trust has been established. Once you reach this point (and it is an art not a science knowing when this has happened), I am especially mindful of tuning into the seemingly “throw away” comments towards the end of conversations. A greater depth to their goals or new ones that we have not spoken about before are coming to the surface. I put it down to these people connecting with what is important, having some success already and having confidence in themselves to achieve their dreams.

Some really interesting personal lifelong ambitions have been raised by a couple of the people in the group this week. And once again I am reminded of what a privilege it is to be a catalyst in their journey. If you are even remotely interested in coaching I urge you not to hesitate. Do whatever it takes. And commit to someone else’s success. It is amazing.