–What is helpful and what do most coaching students and coaching clients truly want
The art of coaching, whether life, business, spiritual, sports or executive, can open an incredible new world for people when they learn to shift the way they view things, and to use their understanding to take their lives to the next level. I liken the awareness and freshness that people can find through coaching to putting on a new pair of glasses after having blurry vision for a long time. Everything is sharp and clear and you feel ready to take on life because of your clarity. Coaching also trains us to find opportunities and learning experiences in every challenge or setback.
The question is, are coaches simply shallow cheerleaders who memorize chants to pump people up any way possible, so that they are able to jump onto the field to score points in the next quarter? I prefer to believe coaches are truth tellers who help people confront reality and spur them on to achieve growth and change they are able to sustain for the long term, by helping them to stay accountable, and true to their own values and goals.
There are few things that create as negative a response in me as those who are fake and insincere. I actually sometimes have a physical reaction, complete with a gagging reflex that is hard to control, preceded by a highly unpleasant rumbling of the bowels. When I listen to voices dripping with saccharine falsehood, I am transported back to my high school days, when I fancied myself a budding intellectual and felt tormented because I had to take classes with seemingly air-headed cheerleader-types. (I hope I am not offending those of you who were cheerleaders and grew up to find authentic voices that so often elude teenagers.) It seemed to me at the time that their vocabularies had pre-set margins allowing a very narrow selection of words and gushes to enter into their communications. As an overly dramatic teen, I would cringe and find a way to exit the space, as though in physical pain from being subjected to the superficial and artificial banter.
Fortunately, I am a lot more tolerant nowadays, but I still find disingenuousness difficult to stomach, regardless of the venue. I definitely do not feel it has a place in the world of training coaching students, or working with clients. I do not believe it belongs in any type of a learning environment, or in a setting in which paying coaching clients are trying to create the lives they truly want to live in order to build more success and happiness for themselves…
My son, Jesse Abbot, a college professor, often tells his students, “ I do not subscribe to the Paula Abdul school of training or education. I like Paul Abdul. She and I even have the same birthday but when it comes down to the question of whether someone is on the right course or completely off track, it isn’t helpful to say how nice their shoes are. So when little Billy responds to the math teacher’s question of how much is 10 times 10, and he says 20, does it serve little Billy for the teacher to gush at him and tell him what a fine job he has done in class that day?”
My husband, an RN, once had a job in which the employer stated in the personnel manual that staff was expected to be “relentlessly cheerful”. Naturally it was not possible for the staff to maintain this unrealistic state at all times, but in working with elderly and ill patients and their families who were under stress and often in emotional and physical pain, it seemed inappropriate, and in my opinion, not even necessarily in the best interests of the patients and families. The employer did not seem to comprehend the benefits to staff, client population and to the reputation and integrity of the facility of being available, empathetic and sincere.
As a parent, grandparent and as someone who has worked professionally with families, I am an ardent believer in the value of positive reinforcement, praise and encouragement for children. However, I have known parents who praised their children so extensively that it seemed false even to young kids. Rather than aiding them in building self-esteem the children tended to question their own capabilities. When the youngsters emerged from the safe cocoon of their homes, as we all must do, and found that their teachers and friends did not seem to consider them as perfect as their parents did, they were in for a considerable shock.
Authentic is the only way I know how to be, and I happen to believe that is what others want and expect from me. I do not arbitrarily look for ways to demean people’s thoughts, experiences or outcomes. I like to find ways to celebrate the good in people and their accomplishments, and to be enthusiastic too, but I engage in a healthy portion of truth-telling, in my writing, in my professional life and in my personal interactions. Comments within a learning milieu must be real and should be intended with the purpose of enhancing learning and growth.
Enthusing is an important job of a coach, but so are truth-telling and trust building. If we relentlessly praise people for mediocre work we miss crucial opportunities for teaching and skill building but we also set up a dishonest relationship. Eventually, the recipient of our relentless optimistic focus begins to doubt us. Potential beneficial results of our work and the safe space we have created for our clients are diminished. The client no longer feels safe and nurtured, but betrayed.