Seeing that an entire mythology was created around coaching, I set out to introduce my potential clients and colleagues to my vision on several myths related to the topic.
1. Coaching is about giving advice
One potential promise of coaching is to help people unlock certain areas using their own resources.
Let’s think about the following situation: you go home, tell your friend/husband (wife) what happened at the office. He/she tells you what you should do, what and how to say it. What is your reaction? You get angry! You did not talk about it so you are told what to do, you just wanted someone to listen to you, to let off some steam and it seems that no one understands you.
We do not easily accept advice, be it from the person we love, parents, friends, coach or anyone else.
It is not the coach’s job to give advice, but to help you find the solutions, the answers to questions you ask yourself, to see beyond the obvious, to give you perspectives, and sometimes, to help you see certain aspects of yourself that you ignore. A coach can give you perspectives, accompanying you in the process of becoming a better person, a better leader, being able to feel good about yourself and the world.
2. A coach is valuable if he/she has the same business background or experience as the person being coached
A coach does not “need” to have the same business experience or background. Even more, I would say that the differences in experience and background can help to reposition the coachee.
On the other hand, I do not think that if you as a coach do not have experience, did not lead people, did not go through life and work situations, you can lead the conversation. It would be as if you were a guide on a road you only know from books. The roads walked by a guide are never smooth, they are filled with traps, unexpected situations, you never know what might surprise you on your way or when a storm comes. The guide must be always ready to know how to react and how to guide others. Likewise, in coaching, it is necessary to know how to lead the conversation, how to push to the surface the vulnerable points and to confront and manage them together with your client.
3. Coaching is a type of therapy
Maybe yes, maybe no. To the extent to which therapy is an exercise of mental and psychological hygiene, coaching can be seen as a type of therapy. There are moments in the process of coaching where the hygiene exercise is necessary, especially when it comes to Executive Coaching.
Leaders can accumulate many problems, worries, fears, anxieties of the organization and of its employees. The level of load, concerns, pressures from all sides can be extremely high. However, there are moments when they need to be “contained”, when they need to let out a part of their anxieties, when they need to be supported in order to see the forest from the trees.
4. Anyone can be a coach
Yes, anyone can become a coach (the same as anyone can become a doctor, teacher or engineer), with a few conditions:
• to take this job seriously, to go through an educational process (weekend courses to become a coach only trivialize coaching itself); the same as you cannot become a doctor after some weekend courses, I do not think that you area good coach if you do not prepare seriously;
• to go through a process of self-knowledge, development, analysis, guided by a coach, by therapists (you cannot be a coach for others if you yourself have battles to fight, things to prove, if you are not, as they say in transactional analysis, ok with yourself and others);
• to have the capacity to take a bird’s eye view of the processes and situations brought by the coachee
• to have explored your own past, to have closed wounds, and accept what cannot be changed
5. Coaching can solve performance issues
There are three coaching categories:
• coaching for developing skills (such as: collaboration, empathy);
• coaching to obtain certain results (for example, when someone is in a new organization, they have a new job, or got promoted, or want to have better results)
• development coaching – where the focus is shifted towards the person’s identity; it is the type of coaching that looks at a leader in their entirety, at who they are with or without a business card. After all, we do not leave at the office door who we are outside the office; our needs, our profound wounds, our inner drama are always with us and come to surface in stressful moments, or when we are tired.
Coaching can help in finding the solutions to solve performance issues. But it is not the only solution and it is not a panacea.
6. Internal coaching is more effective than external coaching
I do not think so. For a coaching relationship to work, a high level of trust and psychological safety between the two is vital. With all the good intentions, when the relationship is one of subordination, of inter-departmental work, it is difficult, if not impossible, to build an open relationship. No matter how we look at the situation, the relationships we have with our colleagues and managers have certain limits. The manager can have moments when they adopt the attitude of a coach to support the performance of someone in the team. I do not know if the openness that you can have towards an external coach is possible for an internal one. I have my doubts.
7. Coaching takes too long, until the results are visible
I would say it depends on the objective, on the coach (and their methods) and on the client. Nothing will change from one day to the next. The way we are today is the result of many years. To expect that an intervention can change us in weeks is a bit unrealistic. Turning points can be reached after a few sessions, but actual changes do not occur immediately.
Let’s think how long it takes for us to learn something new, how long it takes to integrate a new activity in our lives, until it becomes a routine.
It takes us even longer to repair. There was a book called “What got you here won’t get you there”. In this century, when technological progress is so advanced and it generates so many changes in the way we work, it is essential to understand that what brought us here does not ensure that we can stay here. A mentality of growth, of transformation, of continuous search, a high level of flexibility is essential.
I watched a movie once about a circus bear and that was kept in a cage all its life; he was trained to perform certain moves. After many years, he was brought to the Zarnesti national park. There were hectares and hectares he could roam freely. But no, he stood within a few yards of the fence, performing the same tricks he was making in the place he had lived before.
Likewise, it is also difficult for us to unlearn certain habits, ways of living and doing things.
8. Coaching is for those with issues, not for those who are successful
This was the approach for many years in our country (maybe in others as well). If someone has received a bad 360 feedback, we have them coached. If we cannot get along with them, if they are aggressive, passive etc., we give them a few coaching sessions so they can change.
However, situations have started to appear where people are being coached for a new job and need support, they need some kind of Jiminy Cricket they can talk to sometimes, in order for them to feel lighter.
9. Coaching is too expensive
I am going to ask: expensive compared to what? Cheese? What do we compare it with?
From my point of view, coaching is an investment in ourselves. The only investment we are left with. Many things can change, employees leaving the company, a break-up with a partner, families falling apart (which is fashionable nowadays), losing a large or a small fortune. However, no one can take what we have in our mind. That is why, we need to invest in ourselves. Coaching is such a possible investment. At the right time with the right coach it can have great benefits.
10. It is too risky to open up and tell your coach too much
Yes, it is risky, especially since, as someone said, only the paranoid survive. If you did not choose the right coach, if you do not have a trustworthy relationship, I can understand this statement.