Blog Post: Exploring the Land of Who

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When you coach a client at a level that’s deeper than simple goals and performance, you start to delve into issues of their character, values, emotions, and perspective.  This is the territory of “who” as opposed to coaching that’s focused more on what and how.  There’s a lot of benefit for a client who is willing to turn her attention from what she wants/how she can get it to who she is.  But the land of who can also be confounding to coaches: How do we get there? What do we do there? And how do we distinguish coaching from therapy when exploring this territory?

Before we proceed too far, let’s be clear on an important aspect of coaching a client’s who: not every coaching conversation needs to go there.  Plenty of great coaching occurs at the what/how level, so we shouldn’t diminish the value of helping a client create awareness and action related to goals and performance.  We can frustrate clients when we push too hard or expect too often to explore their who.  With that big caveat out of the way, let’s talk who.

The doorways to the land of who

How do we get to the land of who?  There are two basic doorways.

First, many coaches who employ a coaching framework start the coaching relationship by focusing on client self-awareness.  They follow a process that’s front-loaded with exercises and assessments that explore who via personality, self-narrative, values, personal mission statement, etc.  This approach assumes that client self-awareness provides a high-leverage benefit that will pay dividends as the coaching turns to issues of what/how.

Second, other coaches allow the challenges faced in the land of what/how to invite the client into the exploring self.  For example, the challenge of asking for a raise certainly has what/how aspects: best practices, getting your message clear, negotiation tactics, etc.  But such a challenge also invites the client to reflect more deeply on who she is.  The challenge might be the doorway into exploring the client’s courage, self-confidence, agreeableness, and sense of self-worth.  Often a client needs address who in order to be effective with what/how.

What to do in the land of who

The land of what/how can be rather straightforward, logical, and almost mathematical.  There are challenges to be faced, so we need to expand our options, determine the best options, and then design those options into action steps in order to address the challenges.  Things are less straightforward in the land of who.

When exploring who a client is, there is no problem to be solved.  Self-awareness is not about finding a problem and fixing it.  Instead, the goal is for the client to learn (or be reminded of) something about who he is.  Self-awareness is like a light that shines both inward and outward, increasing awareness, understanding, and certainty the client has about himself as well as how he inhabits the world.

Recently, one of my clients admitted to herself the she was driven to succeed as a way to satisfy her ego needs.  Her sense of worth came (at least partially) from what she was able to accomplish and the approval she got from other people based on her accomplishments.  This was a powerful new awareness for her.  To be honest, she already knew this truth about herself to some extent but saying it out loud turned it from a vapor to solid.  Now she could engage this aspect of who she is in a new way – how it served her, how it conflicted with competing values, how it manifested in different contexts, when it was loudest, when it was most subdued, etc.  The goal in exploring was not to diminish or get rid of her ego-driven nature, but to notice it so as to not be overwhelmed by it.  We translated this new awareness from the land of who into some what/how goals and actions.  Specifically, she decided to limit her involvement in a particular social circle because those relationships fed that ego-driven part of her nature and made her miserable.  She also determined to allow her sense of worth to be partially informed by what she accomplished, but only to a limited extent.  She decided to do some homework around other sources of self-worth.

Is the land of who really coaching, or is it counseling?

Exploring a client’s internal world can sound a lot like counseling or therapy.  As coaches, we want to respect the distinctions between professional coaching and other professions and we certainly want to avoid practicing counseling/therapy without being properly trained and licensed.

Taking the deep dive into the land of who is not a plunge into psychotherapy.  Therapy is, by definition, about healing.  You visit a physical therapist to promote healing of an injury to your physical body.  Similarly, a psychotherapist promotes healing of the mental.  The keyword is “healing.”  In order to benefit from healing, something needs to be hurt, wounded, or disordered.

Coaches do not address injury or sickness.  We do not tend to a client’s mental illness or dysfunction.  Instead, we promote strengthening and the use of strengths in order to help clients experience an even better life.

Let’s return to my client who recognized her ego-driven nature.  A counseling approach might invite her to explore her past in order to recognize what trauma or adverse experience produced this aspect of her nature.  This approach assumes that her ego-driven nature is something that is wrong with her and stems from a deeper pain that must be addressed in order to alleviate the condition.  Fair enough.  But in contrast, a coaching approach doesn’t necessitate a painful origin story to explain this aspect of who she is.  Instead of going back in her story to find the hurtful source of her “condition,” we can simply accept that this is one aspect of who she is (for now) and allow her to decide how best to move forward.

Counselors tend to look backward for answers.  If we understand why something is the way it is, the more likely we are to accept it and find healing.  In contrast, coaches tend to look inward and forward.

The distinction between backward and inward is important.  Inward is about a person’s character, strengths, virtues, tendencies, personality, etc.  What’s confusing is that we can only see these aspects of who a person is by looking in the person’s past.  After all, the past is all there really is, so far.  We can’t witness the totality of a client’s who in the future because we haven’t been there yet.  And the present is that wispy-thin bridge between the past and the future.  Looking inward requires looking to the past manifestations of the person.  On the other hand, a counselor looks backward to spot experiences that explain the client’s inner world.  Coaches do not.  Coaches are more interested in who a client is and we gain access to their land of who by exploring who they’ve been, not what has happened to them.

My rule of thumb on determining whether a client can benefit from coaching or needs counseling comes down to one word: choice.  If a client can choose his way forward, then coaching is the ticket.  If not, then a person needs to work with a therapist in order to restore choice.

Conclusion

Exploring a client’s who is usually positive, encouraging, and tremendously helpful.  Coaches who are skilled, confident, and comfortable exploring the land of who will serve their clients well.  Such a client will make the shift from noticing the world around her to noticing herself in the world.  She will gain greater agency and find greater leverage for experiencing the life she truly desires.

 

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