Blog Archives - Alison Maxwell

Is Peer Supervision good enough?

A sign of a professional coach is their active participation in coaching supervision – i.e regularly taking time out from live client work to reflect on and develop their own practice. This may take the form of a group or a one-one relationship, held face to face or virtually. For many coaches the default solution is to reach out to peers to help provide this support. This is entirely understandable given there is often a cost implication attached to using a trained and qualified supervisor. Peer supervision can be exchanged for free with someone you know and trust already and it is an opportunity to practice coaching skills. So why wouldn’t you go to peer supervision?

I would argue that while many peer supervision relationships are great, some peer supervision falls foul of dual relationships and confused boundaries. Supervision is more than ‘coaching the coach’ . The point of supervision is to work with someone who can help us to be objective about the quality of our work and hold the (potentially competing) interests and perspectives of the coach, their client and their sponsoring organisation in view. A coaching supervisor has to be able to operate as a critical partner – and that means being able to discuss the messier edges of our coaching work as well as support and celebrate our victories. If our supervisor is too much of a friend, the relationship can be in danger of a subtle collusion where we agree to support each other but not challenge enough.

In the commercial coaching world peer supervision simply doesn’t ‘cut-it’. Prospective client organisations and the big coaching houses increasingly look for coaches who have professional supervision from a qualified supervisor. Conscientious coaches also know that supervision time is essential ‘me’ time for coaches, and the knowledge of an experienced practitioner invaluable to growing their practice. So why wouldn’t you?

Over-strength coaching – turning the volume down

I’ve long been interested in a strengths-based approach to coaching and there is now a fantastic range of tools out there to facilitate this sort of conversation (e.g. StrengthsFinder, SDI, Realise 2 etc). Helping people to identify and leverage their innate talents is a fundamentally more effective and motivational conversation to have than talking to people about how they might ‘fix’ their weaknesses and deficits. Yet do we do our clients a disservice if we only talk about their ‘bright’ side and we avoid talking about what gets in the way?

Intriguingly, I find a conversation on ‘over-strengths’ is a palatable and helpful way for clients to see how they might be bringing ‘too much of a good thing’ on occasion. It has often not occurred to clients that their strengths also have a flip side. So the ‘forthright and direct’ client might show up as ‘domineering’ or the ‘polite’ client might be experienced as ‘conflict avoidant’ when taken to excess. The coaching conversation is then about how they can ‘turn the volume’ done’ on an over-played strength, balance it with a compensating strength or avoid tipping into the excess version in the first place.

Is the chemistry right?

It’s been know for some time that the number one factor affecting the success or failure of a coaching engagement, is the relationship between coach and client. This makes sense if you consider that coaching is founded on the ability of the client to talk freely about whatever they need to. Most organisations I work with understand this and the importance of making sure the ‘chemistry’ is right from the get go. Its now fairly usual as a coach to be asked to be part of an initial ‘beauty parade’, giving the client the option of several coaches to pick from. I think this is great, as it puts the client in the driving seat right from the start and sends a clear message that they are in charge of the relationship.

However, some organisations still don’t seem to do this. The pattern is much more about the client being ‘sent’ for coaching, and the client gets little choice about who they work with. This doesn’t give the coaching engagement the best chance of success. Initial sessions are often taken up with building a trusting relationship rather getting started on the work. And sometimes the relationship just doesn’t ‘click’ and the work doesn’t happen. A waste of time, effort and money for all involved.

The negative coaching client

While being negative once in a while is human, entrenched negativity can be hard to be around and is often hard for coaches to work with. However, negative language gives the coach important clues into how their client’s see the world and how they might be limiting themselves, for example:

Black and white thinking – reducing a complex situations to binary choices or extremes “I’ve completely failed “. “It’s my way or the highway”
Mind reading – anticipating how others will react and making it a truth “They will find me boring”. “The boss will never let me “
Crystal ball gazing – assuming how things will be in the future and using those assumptions to justify our present actions ( or in actions) “There is no point trying – it won’t work out”
Over generalisations – “Everyone knows that ….”. “I always
Catastrophizing – making a mistakes mean inevitable dire consequences “If I fail this exam that will be the end of my career
Dis-qualifying the positive – not letting in the positives in ourselves “I might have done a good presentation but anyone can do that”
Self-Damnations “I’m not the sort of person who …”

Rather than engaging with, and potentially being derailed by the negativity, a coach can use a number of (Cognitive-Behavioural) techniques to encourage the coachee to look afresh at the assumptions they might be making about themselves and their situation.

For example in response to a coachee who says ‘my presentations always go badly’ you could :

Ask a ‘180 question’ ie a question that leans into the opposite direction implied in the coachees statement. In the example this might sound like ‘give me an example of when a presentation went well’. This reminds a coachee that there probably have been times in the past where they have been effective and helps them to pull forward solutions from previous experiences
Request evidence from the coachee e.g. – ‘what feedback did you receive on you presentation?’
Dispute the ‘facts’ as portrayed by the coachee g. ‘so while you had feedback that your opening could have been clearer, overall the feedback was excellent’
Disputes absolutes e.g. ‘ what, always?’ (Often delivered best with a wry grin!)
Recognising the unmet need behind the statement e.g. ‘so what I’m hearing is that you would like to be able to present with confidence to a senior audience’. This moves the coachee into talking about what they do want instead of what they are trying to avoid.
Focus them on what they can control/influence (however small) e.g ’what could you do to manage your nerves’. This helps a coachee to feel less of a victim in a situation by taking back some control of their life

People are often completely unaware of their negativity and how it is shaping their thinking and acting. One of the many useful functions of a coach is to help them look afresh as their assumptions and beliefs, and, if they choose, rewrite a different script for themselves.

Now is the time to say goodbye…

‘When is it right to say goodbye to a coaching client?’ is a question I get asked in supervision. I was recently talking to a coach who had been working with a client for over two years and was starting to wonder if it was time to call a halt but reluctant to do so. The sessions with her client had become more about personal support but lacked any direction or tangible outcomes. The coach was feeling guilty about finishing the relationship and was worried about leaving an emotionally fragile and lonely person without support. At one level she knew that the coaching was now going around in circles, but felt a great sense of duty and loyalty to continue to work with them. Feeling caught, she decided that this was a topic ripe for supervision.

In supervision, we worked on how her sense of responsibility and desire to please as a coach might be tripping her up and creating a potentially co-dependent relationship. This was the first time she had ever had to face into concluding a session with a client as all her previous coaching relationships had been time bound by the number of sessions contracted. However with this client the initial contract had been less clear, and the sessions had just drifted on with no one willing to call a halt. She recognised that her own dislike of finishing relationships and of hurting the client was playing out in the situation. We agreed an exit strategy that didn’t leave the client high and dry and she negotiated a ‘work towards date’ for closing down the relationship with the client. This gave the client 3 months to get used to the idea that they wouldn’t carry on meeting and to focus on how she build her social support network. The coach was then able to exit with grace, feeling she was leaving a more resourced client behind her. Sometimes it is just time to say goodbye.

For all you introverts out there

Being helpful vs being useful

I was reminded last week by the wonderful systemic facilitator, John Whittington, about the difference between being useful and being helpful. Lots of people (including myself) got drawn to coaching because of a desire to make a difference in the lives of others, and to be of service to others. This positive intention can then get translated into a wide range of behaviours, some of which are not useful to the client even if they are helpful.

The coach that takes too much responsibility for the client’s change process ultimately does the client no service. For example, I was recently talking to one of my coaching supervisees, who had got into the habit of taking the actions for her client after coaching sessions and was wondering why the client wasn’t taking much responsibility or action between session. The simple signal of taking the action list unintentionally said to the client that the responsibility sat with coach not with herself. While the coaches intent was to be entirely helpful it wasn’t useful

If the client does not take full responsibility in their lives, then a coach who props this up or colludes with this might be giving the client what they want but not necessarily what they need. Being helpful is all too often about pleasing others and being liked, rather having the difficult or courageous conversations about what is really going on. Speaking the truth to a client isn’t easy but it is always useful.

Coaching as a sticking plaster?

Don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I wonder about the motivation of some organisations when they buy in coaching services. Are they genuinely using coaching as a way of growing their people, or as a sop to mask other problems?

I was recently asked to work with several leaders in a rapidly expanding organisation, however it be rapidly apparent that all of them were working seriously crazy hours and seeing too little of friends and family to be healthy. I guess if I had been working with just one of them this pattern wouldn’t have been so apparent. As it was I began to suspect that the development agenda extended beyond working with these individuals and starting to point at more structural issues. The company had survived a traumatic start-up where it had nearly gone bust but now, several years on, was still working flat out just as if it was about go under. Resource levels still reflected the old way of operating, despite the fact that the organisation was now highly successful and very profitable. Endemic workaholism and stress was the net result.

In coaching, the focus is very much on the person sitting in front of you. As result I’ve been working with my coachees on the way they are working and helping them to find a more functional work/life balance. However a bigger conversation is needed with the Exec about their style of managing, the strategy of the organisation and the resources required to deliver it. Yes, coaching can help individuals to work differently and take responsibility for how they show up, but it also needs to support individuals to have the difficult conversation required in the broader organisation. It is all to easy for coaching to be non-systemic and fall into the trap of being a sticking plaster on broader organisational issues.

Awkward triangles

I’ve been caught a few times in my coaching career in an ‘awkward triangle’. By this I mean situations where the commissioning client and the coaching client have relationship problems. Both sides try to enrol you in their point of view and expect you to side with them against the offending party. It is not often clear where the ‘truth’ of the matter lies (usually somewhere in the middle), and it is easy for a coach to get trapped between the warring factions. This triangle can be doubly awkward when it is a boss-subordinate relationship, and there is the assumption that the boss has the total ‘truth’ of the situation

I find the Karpman ‘drama’ triangle’ a useful way of explaining, at least to myself, what is going on. Both parties see each other as the ‘persecutor’ and themselves as the ‘victim’. The coach is cast into the role of ‘rescuer’, a role they are bound to fail at particularly if they get seduced into taking sides.

I’ve found that the only way of escaping this triangle, is to refuse to enter into it in the first place. Both clients have to know that you are not there to play ‘agony aunt’ and that your concern is for the overall functioning of the individuals and the organisations they get paid by. The work is therefore to help the clients have direct and open conversations and step out of the picture. Now that is not necessarily as easy to achieve as to say….

Here’s a link to some background on the drama triangle in coaching relationships

Who shouldn’t coach?

Now this is a tricky question! As you probably know, i) everyone seems to want to be a coach these days and ii) there are absolutely no barriers, other than those self-imposed, to becoming one. So it is perfectly possible to set yourself up in business with no qualifications, experience, supervision, or talent for the work.

It’s also not an unknown phenomena for people in need of help themselves being attracted to the role of supporter /developer/ rescuer. There seems to be a sort of unconscious logic that says ‘If I can help someone fill a whole in their life, that will fill a gap in mine’. And of course it doesn’t work, as the agenda becomes about the ‘coach’ and their needs, not the client. Our clients often don’t know what ‘good looks like’, and there just isn’t enough feedback on practice from robust reliable and experienced sources.

Coaching has a long way to go to become a recognised profession, however we can all start by insisting on professional and ethical practice. Next time, for example, you speak to a coach who doesn’t think they need supervision ask them what makes them so special.