What is wrong with the traditional coaching process?
This is a question that has been with me since I first came across the word, “coaching” and wondered what it meant. It arose out of a feeling that something was amiss in the coaching process; but could I put my finger on it? Could I heck. And not many people were even interested in trying.
Over the years of exploring change within myself, with clients and within this process called “coaching”, I would like to describe what appears to be a design flaw.
But first, let us take a step back. The coaching paradigm – it’s presuppositions, it’s models and its processes – evolved out of a need to facilitate effective change, and they do a very good job.
But could something have been missed?
Todd Epstein, the great NLP innovator and the most skilled practitioner that I have had the pleasure to witness, was once asked whether they was anything left to discover in the field of NLP. Now given that this question was asked on a month long Master Practitioner training in the field of NLP, supposedly build on the foundation of always learning, he got a little tetchy about it.
He said that, for all the models and processes that he and Robert Dilts had developed over the years, they had not even scratched the surface of what could be.
It is with this in mind, that I share with you a new model of Emergent Coaching Orientation™, which I hope will provide new distinctions and choices in the way people go about the art and science of personal evolution.
Emergent Coaching Orientation™ (ECO™) is a 3-Phase model of sensing the emerging potential, facilitating the unfolding of that potential, that leads to the becoming of that potential.
To begin with, it is worth sharing some of the distinctions of The ECO™ Model.
∞ Evolution vs Development
The ECO™ approach sees the individual as a fluid mysterious being which, at any one point in time, is expressing certain aspects of their potential, whilst suppressing the rest. It sees personal evolution as the ever-increasing circles of exploring new potential and making it known. This is in contrast to the development notion of skills being added, as if there was something static to add to.
∞ Emerging vs Out-There
In traditional coaching, clients are asked about their goals, or where they see themselves going. The focus tends to be on describing a future “out there” to which they will journey by a process of taking actions and learning.
The ECO™ approach is to sense that which wants to emerge over the coming days and weeks, and to enrich that experience so that it becomes a fully existing possibility within first. This approach feels more natural and organic to the client, emerging as it does, from who they are right now, as opposed to some notion of who they think they want to be.
∞ No Gap vs Big Gap
One of the benefits of this approach is that there is no “abstracted gap” between where the client is and where they want to go e.g. the goal.
It is this gap, that is THE design flaw in the existing coaching model.
This gap creates a vacuum in which doubts and fears can play. It is this gap, which coaches and client wrestle with. It is this gap which creates a false challenge, that of traversing it, when it doesn’t really exist. It is this gap which clients use to judge themselves.
Worst of all, the propagation of the traditional coaching model, gives people the impression that to change, requires the creation of a gap which they them must traverse.
∞ Learned Skill vs Obstacle Course
Learning to sense that potential which wants to emerge and become in the world is a learned skill. Once learned, the client can deepen their experience and knowledge of this skill to meet the evolutionary demands through their life.
Traditional coaching can also be taught, but for me, it has more the hallmarks of an obstacle course; the goal, the obstacles, the resources, the timeframe, the support and so on. Thus, there are many different components to be mastered and employed.
In fact, all of these components are already integrated within each of us. By using the model of emerging potential, we find that we automatically know what direction to go in, what the challenges are, and the steps to take. Such aspects flow easily from our sense of emerging potential.
A SHORT ILLUSTRATION
Recently, I collaborated with a client who has a significant Project Manager role in a multi-national corporation. This client had taken months off through stress-related symptoms. Now, she was back and once again, feeling the pressures.
Because of the way, many clients “see” traditional coaching – namely, as a way to fix themselves, or be “better” in some way – using a goal-oriented approach feeds into this perception.
Using the ECO™ approach, the client was simply asked to:
1. Describe her current situation with respect to work & life.
2. Asked to sense those aspects of herself that she feels would like to be expressed more and more over the coming days and weeks.
She pulled out a series of threads which she feels are emerging for her. Threads, which she feels she has suppressed and/or ignored in the past. For example, to balance her own needs with that of the company, and that, in the past, she had a tendency to serve the company at the expense of her health.
As an exercise, she was asked to write a short journal entry as the she that is emerging, in which is described what a typical day would be like, to reveal attitudes, approaches, behaviours and so on.
She found this great fun to do, and in reading out the journal entry, it had a cohesion that is rarely there with goal descriptions. Essentially, this is because we are going for the whole thing, namely the YOU you are becoming, rather than a specific goal.
Having enriched this experience of the emerging potential the client could sense more and more how, not only was this becoming a real possibility within herself, but she could feel that it was already happening almost of it’s own accord.
Given that natural emergence, she lay out some actions that she wanted to take to support this emergence, over the coming days.
Her description of the actions were that they seemed effortless; and not something she feels she has to do, or is resisting doing.
So, in this way, the client has set of on an emerging journey of self-discovery and evolution which feels utterly natural, organic and exciting.
For there is nothing more exciting that the anticipation of your potential being allowed to know itself.
FORMS OF POTENTIAL
An additional point worth making is that emerging potential can also be expressed in a variety of forms.
To give another brief illustration, a client was asked, “What is the potential that you sense really wants to emerge, and may have been waiting to do just that for a while now?” - his response was swift, “A book that I have been trying to write.”
His response suggests a perception of the book as goal, and his struggle to reach that goal, to traverse “the gap”. By shifting towards the books-that-wants-to-emerge through him, he could genuinely feel how the manifesting of this book was something which he can’t not do.
I use the double negative form, because when you have the experience of potential, which so wants to find it’s way into the world, there is a strong feeling of serving something that is bigger than oneself.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
Needless to say, all models serve some more easily than others. This ECO™ model would suit coaches who work in a more intuitive way, and are excited by the experience of emerging potential being expressed in the world.
It is for coaches, who look at clients and see huge potential – but not only that. They see potential lining up to be brought out into the light; potential that has been suppressed, whose time has come.
