Here's What My Executive Clients And I Share by Dr. Lilian Abrams, Ph.D., MBA, MCC
A few years ago, my dear colleague Yvonne Thackray asked me, “Who are your ideal clients?” I was puzzled by the question. “I can work well with any leader who wants to work with me”, I said. To me, it was a simple question of them being motivated to achieve their coaching goals, and their feeling with a comfortable fit with me. She countered by saying that she suspected that that might not be the full picture. She suggested that I might want to identify and work with a smaller subset of better-fit clients, if I could identify them.
I have thought about her question many times since then, and I’m beginning to believe that she might be right. I have also begun to wonder if some newer coaches might likewise need time and experience to realize the answer to this question for themselves. I say this because one newer coach, whom I supervise, recently gave me the same answer to me, when I asked, that I initially gave Yvonne.
Us coaches can only coach from who we are. I can bring only as much insight, compassion, respect, etc. to my clients as I have developed myself. Yes, we all have blind spots and areas about which we can learn, all our lives. But the better we understand who we ourselves are, and what our unique skills and qualities and triggers might be, the better and the more helpful the “instrument” we can be, for our clients.
I always have said that while I work well with people of all demographics, I may specially connect with leaders who have multicultural and/or data-oriented technical backgrounds, as well as women. It’s taken me 15 years of experience as a coach to really understand why.
Women: I am one. I have also been female in corporate settings of all types, at all my various ages. Like many professional women, I have often been in meetings where I am either the only, or one of the only, women in the room. So while being female is something I share with approximately 50% of those that walk the earth, it isn’t always as evenly distributed a characteristic as it could be across all areas of corporate life. I personally have also held common female roles such as wife, mother, and daughter. I have sensed and been told explicitly by some of my clients that these characteristics have helped them feel greater trust, understanding, and/or resonance with me.
Data-Oriented: I am trained as a quantitative and qualitative researcher. I have always been a critical thinker, who automatically considers systemic effects and impact, as well as one who examines the data upon which conclusions are based. I tend to see patterns in data fairly well, and the scientific method and the pursuit of truth and objectivity have been ingrained in me for decades now. All this said, I am also intuitive, and as a psychologist, I study people – an almost infinitely variable topic area. I am thus able to bring both my mind and my heart, as well as a respect for data, to my financial/engineering/science/etc. data-oriented clients.
Multicultural: I am U.S.-born and raised, but my parents and all their friends were immigrants. This meant that English was not the first language around my house, and that the American cultural assumptions I was exposed to at school and in the media were not necessarily what guided my home. For example, my parents were stricter, more strongly directive, and authoritarian than any of my “American” friends’ parents. I learned respect, obedience, and duty towards them, in ways I didn’t tend to see mirrored elsewhere.
My educational experiences also added multicultural resonance. Early on, I attended a public school where I was one of few white kids, among mostly non-white peers. This was followed by a brief stint at a private school, followed by a different public school. All of these schools represented mixed cultural environments. I had friends who were white, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino/a, Jewish, Armenian, Korean, Mexican, black, Arab, and probably other backgrounds that I am forgetting. That was normal. Like most people do, I assumed that my experiences were normal for everyone, until I learned, much later in life, that they weren’t.
By now, I have coached scores of immigrant and ex-pat leaders in the US (and a few outside), as well as others who participate in multiple sub-cultures. From this, I have learned that actually, my background developed a particular sensitivity and skill set in me that helps me understand and relate to some of my clients “from the inside”. I automatically “get” what it means to balance and participate in multiple cultures at the same time, and that cultures, beliefs, viewpoints and experiences in life can vary greatly.
For example, as English was our second language in my house, in order to communicate effectively with my parents and their friends I had to learn how to choose simpler words and ways of saying things. I therefore instinctively know how to change my language to accommodate accents and non-native speakers, and tailor what I say and how I say it to my audience - because I have been doing that since I could talk! I also know this has nothing to do with my audience’s intelligence or ability to understand concepts, so I am respectful as I do this, since it’s just a question of finding the best way to communicate together. When I have the luxury of using my first language, English, then I assume it’s up to me to do the adjusting.
I also implicitly understand that when you are inside and outside of one’s home, it may be that your belief, expectation, and behavioral sets can differ. We may thus need to walk delicately and talk sensitively between those differing sets and practices. I believe understanding this adds to the safety and trust of the space I can help create with my clients. This awareness resonates as much for me as for my clients! I also know that most people HATE feeling stereotyped and treated as if they fit some pre-determined assumptions. For this reason, I am especially careful to try to convey a message of individual respect and warmth to everyone I meet.
Here’s an example. I have a client who is originally from an African country. Although his cultural background from Africa and mine from Eastern Europe differ, in some ways we share an understanding of what the expectations and demands of more traditional parents and non-US cultures can be like. We also share an understanding of what it is like when English is not necessarily the language used in the home. It also happens to be that I know a bit of one of his first languages, though I am not close to fluent. We are also both educated professionals in the corporate world. We thus have a number of personal background points in common.
When he selected me as his coach, I asked him why he chose me. He said it’s because the other coach he interviewed indicated some assumptions about him and his needs, as an African in his corporate setting, which he really didn’t like. He also said it was because I offered him a positive suggestion about how he might proceed, in the way he wanted to go. Nevertheless, I still felt like he was on guard with me for quite a few of our early Assessment meetings. I was aware that I was working very hard, non-verbally, to let him know he could trust me. By the time we reached the Coaching stage, however, I was happy to see that our conversations had started to flow. At the same time, he reported starting to behave differently in-between our sessions, in ways that showed he was working effectively towards his goals.
In one of our sessions, he chose to bring up the effects of recent current events on him at work. We then discussed viewpoints that included both his experience as an African immigrant to the US, and mine as the child of immigrants. We found ourselves in complete, even vehement agreement, and I believe that our trust grew even deeper because of it. He seemed to feel truly understood, in a way he said no one else at his work did except for one other African woman. I am optimistic that this will only lead our work together to serve him even better than it might have before, due to our now-greater resonance and trust.
This is something I likely could not have done if I hadn’t been my immigrant parents’ child, with the experiences I have had. It is only now, after long experience in coaching and a few years’ experience as a coach supervisor, that I can recognize how who I am, uniquely, is what I bring to coaching my multicultural, data-oriented and/or female clients. This recognition of unique personal value is also something I now hope to help the coaches I supervise to also realize for themselves.
Connect with Lilian Abrams and read her other posts published on the good coach.
