From practice to philosophy– insights into what fuels my coaching practice by Yvonne Thackray
I was sitting at my desk listing all the possible titles that I could write about my practice, and as I wrote down my five working titles, which seemingly looked very easy to write, there was something missing. Yes, I could write about how I do what I do, or share my opinion of the field, or even do a thought experiment on the future of coaching, yet I felt as if there was something missing that captured the essence of all these pieces. And as I sat back to think about what that was, and recall all the different and recent coaching conversations I have had, thoughts began to emerge of what it is that made me enjoy coaching and whether I am still as qualified to coach even after a decade . Instinctively, at every turn in my coaching career I have latched onto a few key precepts that have helped shape and focus my way of coaching – whether through personal experience or experiences derived from others – and it has helped me to fine tune and understand more of what it is that I do and how it fits in with what is understood to be coaching.
This is my 53rd blog, and while not many by some standards, it is the largest collection on the good coach site that has been published over the last 7 years that contains my thoughts and sense of how I am practicing coaching within the broader community. This is my continuing professional and personal development. To be able to access what is my approach to coaching, there needed to be a purposive framework that could purposely enable me to begin collecting data on what has so far driven my motivation, adapting knowledge, experiences and information shared by key influences and influencers, as well as my continue on my journey of life-long learning. It is this desire to be able to articulate and understand these patterns of behaviours that has enabled meaningful experiences to emerge from my coaching conversations. This is the practice that I often write about in my blogs, and I hope that it can be somewhat observed and measured by others to judge and compare against.
And so, as I stepped back to further reflect on what I’ve written, and integrating them with my recent experiences of coaching, I began to evaluate my style of coaching and what could be underpinning my approach. The key word that continuously popped up for me was ‘character’. I feel that one of the core aspects of my philosophy in coaching is supporting an individual to continue developing their character that then better enables them to deal with the various challenges that they will personally and professionally come across. How I achieve this practically is by giving that quality of attention to enable an individual to humbly develop their potential through various learning and development spaces.
Why Character?
“It’s simply being human” is just one of many common phrases I hear used in coaching. It’s laden with meaning and justification of what every human being should have - an acknowledgement to a universalist position that we take and that should be given without exception to everyone because it’s their moral right. It also offers a baseline of what the ideal should be, or even could be, in comparison to the reality that clients are facing in their role in their organization. What we recognize is that our clients are more than just a human being. They are a person, an individual, with their own set of belief, experiences, desires and motivations who can assert and make their own choices under their own volition. How mindfully, or mindlessly, we might go about doing this is another matter.
As coaches, when we meet our clients for the first time, or on subsequent occasions, I truly believe that we are only working with the facets of their social identity which they are comfortably enough to want to share more deeply with us that may give us glimpses to their whole. Often our work is rhizomatic: we can only start from where they wish to start from, which is often not from the beginning of their life. What I mean is, our clients are only willing to share the part of their self that they are comfortable to expose and express in a coaching setting and space. And so, in the first meeting with our client, we may get a sense of their personality – the observable manifestations of their underlying traits, patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviours. Supporting them, if they are unaware of their personality patterns, to learn about their personality, about themselves, and how they will be perceived by others, is at one level, core work.
The next and deeper level of work is recognizing how their personality can be influenced by their ethics, moral compass and core values, and how they decide to respond which hopefully is consistent in different situations, yet more likely will vary as we learn to build this muscle. It requires each person to consciously observe and consider what they choose to put into action is aligned with their character. As the qualities of an individual’s character becomes distinct and developed, it often suggests a person who’s better able to cope with and develop their potential in a variety of situations because they know what’s most important to them and know they have that choice of how they want to respond in that situation, versus a compromised version of who they want to be. This often means dealing with conflict, internally within oneself, and with others, because everyone often has their own agenda. How comfortable each person is to bear such conflict is often the struggle we each must face in order to achieve our goals. I sense that working from this place asks the client to share even more vulnerability, and it’s here where I need to know if I have done enough work with the client that they feel that can trust to go even further to explore more of their facets of self with me. This will better support them towards having a longer and sustained change versus a momentary change of what could be.
For most of my clients, they come with a clear idea of what they think they want to achieve through coaching, in reality though their longer-term goal may actually be a surface level objective, and only through ongoing coaching conversations will the workable goal, that can be more immediately achieved and tested and that fits their current situation and context, is found. Sometimes it’s a skill thing, sometimes it a performance thing, sometimes it’s a behavioural issue, sometimes it’s something that’s causing conflict that’s impacting their personality and character. Depending on their starting point of readiness, I as the coach, have to be able to jump between all of them to find a route in. Yet like any individual, I have my preferred starting point, and that is often from a strengths-character-context lens and perspective and so my questions are more weighted towards understanding their thinking and processing preferences with respect to the situational stresses and strains they’re facing and how that ‘needles’ at their moral and ethical compass. Discovering whether a client is open to exploring that space alongside the practical issues that they are facing, will all depend on each individual. For some, it’s inappropriate, and the coaching ceases. For others, it’s acceptable and the coaching goes on in whatever sessions deemed appropriate. This is why I co-ordinate my coaching contracts to start with a fixed five hours of coaching. During this initial five hours, it gives each of us – the coach and the client – an opportunity to check our whether there is a good fit between us to work together on their longer-term goals whilst exploring their pressing and immediate challenges.
Whilst this may be my intention, and I caveat that I’ve only realized this as I wrote this blog, you could say that has subconsciously been my agenda. Behind that agenda, is the intention of providing my clients with the ongoing capacity and knowingness that they can handle their future oncoming challenges with confidence because they better know themselves and have both a broader and deeper capacity to deal with things. This can only be achieved because of the work the client has done for and on themselves, and coaching is simply one of the tools at their disposal to support and enable them along their way. I hesitate to say that it’s because of coaching that this is the result, however, coaching maybe one of the places out of all of their support circle (similar to a board of trustees) to either perhaps initiate that awareness or/and enable them to be continuously accountable to themselves (and their stakeholders) whilst in their professional role. I appreciate that in the coaching world, they say that coaches don’t have an agenda, but I think they do. Hopefully, this implicit agenda aligns with the client’s, otherwise there would be a route for recourse on the coach. And now knowing what I know now, if all my clients were interested in hiring a coach for their ‘philosophical and pragmatic’ development, then that would probably be my dream work.
My real work as a coach includes character development and …
To be fulfilled in the work I do as a coach, I have made choices contrary to the norm and seek opportunities that either had not existed previously or I’ve gently expanded on the intention of the existing role available as a coach. Hopefully, through all my posts it’s been fairly consistent in the theme that I am always curious about how people think and process their ideas to make decisions, and that has been my pattern of engagement with others – whether in leadership and management development, knowledge creation (Innovation), coach development, student career coaching, and dissertation coaching. Each of these areas in my work requires differing degrees of engagement in my participation as the coaching partner.
For example, where I might have a short assignment with each client that may last for 30mins, the project objective is very clear, and in these cases I have a limited amount of time to get a sense of their character. My approach in these cases is to focus and listen to what’s been shared by my client and piece together from all the information that’s being provided in that moment, no matter how limited it might be, where the possible ‘key’ sticking point might be, and speak to what I perceive might be the strengths that they are missing that will enable them to find their way to better deal with their situation. I then follow up by asking relevant questions to explore what would be most useful to them in our time together. In these situations, it’s important to me that they have taken away something that is useful and can apply regardless of whether we work together again. Being in this position, the coach can be seen as an expert however I believe that it’s always best to remain humble when we’re holding this space to keep ourselves on our toes and make sure that we stay curious and keep learning from whomever the client is in front of me.
For longer engagements, whose elapsed time may last from a few months to a few years, where we meet on a scheduled basis for an hour or two to discuss their coaching challenges, my coaching role becomes expanded and dynamic. As I shared earlier in this piece, often with the clients whom I work with on a longer-term basis, it’s not clear what topic they want to discuss until they turn up to their session. The good news is that knowing that they can have these sessions helps them to clarify something that has been troubling them for a while, or even in the moment, will be useful to them. And often, they are bringing in only that piece of the whole puzzle into our conversation. Depending on how they turn up, full of energy or discouragement, it’s important to match it at some level and just listen. And then we begin teasing out what it is they want to progress towards whilst extrapolating or recalling other conversations we may have had to find the context we’re working within. A lot of different feeling and emotions will bubble from their conversation, and in my work it’s about letting my clients express this and finding a way forward as it becomes clearer why they are feeling this way in this situation i.e. what conflict has emerged that’s challenging their professional identity and perhaps even themselves. From there the relationship often shifts to brainstorming and considering possible ways to work on the situation. Here I have become a thinking partner and a resource. Here I’m sharing different perspectives and ways of considering something, and it’s for my client to think and consider what’s useful for them – it might be something or nothing, but it gives control back to my client to determine what’s of value. And I sense that it’s during this shift that the space begins to re-open for them to begin thinking about the choices that are available to them and consider what might be possible as they now have more information at hand that helps them to more objectively see what they can do.
Depending on the type of engagement requested, how I apply my work as a coach will vary in depth and breadth, yet in each of these engagements I feel privileged to have some insight into their personality and character, and I hope that in some small way I can help them to continue developing their self and potentials.
Where next?
Writing about my work as a coach is a constant challenge as there are many avenues and ways to investigate how I do the work I do. This piece has:
Offered me an opportunity to step back further – some may call this meta-reflection or reflexivity – and deepen my self-awareness of a belief that I was unaware of and carried with me as I engaged in any coaching conversations.
Allowed me to think through some of the structures I have put in place for my work and recognize that this has also been fueled by my ‘invisible’ criteria – character development – and how this can influence the longevity of the work I may do with my client.
Enabled me to observe how I shift in my role as a coach depending on the type of engagement and available time to engage in a coaching conversation, and its potential influence on the perception of the working relationship.
Continued to allow me to accept my strengths and limitations as a coach and realize that I still have a place as I continue into my second decade of coaching. My first ten years of coaching have helped me to develop my foundations of coaching, map out my strengths and passions in coaching in comparison with others, and create meaningful connections with like-minded coaches around the world. I look forward to continuing them in my next decade of coaching as well as the other opportunities that may present themselves over time as I continue to shape my future alongside what’s needed today.
Writing this piece may be a little self-indulgent, and if any readers have got to the bottom to read these last few words, I thank you for being curious about me and what it is I do. I hope that in the future you might like to share with me what it is that you do that makes your shine as a coach.
Connect with Yvonne Thackray via tgc The Bloggers
Yvonne Thackray is an executive coach and peer supervisor, and a practitioner researcher and editor, who has combined her passions through all these roles for the past decade at the good coach. She works with clients internationally, with a keen interest in leadership (professional and personal) and knowledge management (intuition and tacit knowledge). A specialist in the field of coaching she defines coaching as providing that quality of attention that enables another person to have the confidence and clarity to reach and humbly manage their potentials now and in the future.
Reference list
Nickel, James, "Human Rights", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/rights-human/>.
James T. McHugh The Review of Politics Vol. 54, No. 3, Special Issue on Public Law (Summer, 1992), pp. 445-461 Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on behalf of Review of Politics
Solum, Lawrence (2017) Legal Theory Lexicon: Persons and Personhood. Accessed 21st June 2020. https://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2017/12/legal-theory-lexicon-persons-and-personhood.html
Winston P. Nagan (2008) Love, Hate and the Human Rights Boundaries of the Law Love, Hate and the Human Rights Boundaries of the Law World Academy of Art and Science: General Assembly 2008 The Anthropocene Crisis: Perils and Possibilities of the 21st Century October 17-20, 2008 Aalankrita Resort and Conference Center Hyderabad, India http://www.worldacademy.org/files/Love,%20Hate%20and%20the%20Human%20Rights%20Boundaries%20of%20the%20Law%20by%20Winston%20Nagan.pdf
DELANY DEAN, Free Will, Volition, and Morality https://mindexpressions.wordpress.com/free-will-and-volition/
