“Suppressing the desire to swing creates more activity in a baseball player’s brain than when he actually hits the ball.”

I read that quote a few minutes ago and it has stirred up a bunch of brain activity for me. I’ll type it out again so you don’t have to go back up and re-read it…. “Suppressing the desire to swing creates more activity in a baseball player’s brain than when he actually hits the ball.”

That is just fascinating to me and has me wondering about the interference that suppressing that desire must cause for the hitter… and about the benefit of gaining some kind of control, or developing some technique to eliminate or reduce that interference in order to focus more on hitting the ball. And… of course THAT has me wondering about the how that connects with coaching. 

As many of you know, Chad, Brian, and I (the leadership team at CAM) spend a good bit of time observing other coaches and giving feedback about their coaching competencies. We also encourage those we train and mentor to “coach the person, and not the problem.” In other words, focus less on a solution for the issue the client has raised, and more on the client her/himself… what they are thinking, feeling… how they are motivated… their hopes and dreams. As we grow in our coaching competence and confidence, we find higher leverage in focusing on the person. We call this moving from Transactional Coaching to Transformational Coaching.

For many of us, transactional coaching – helping clients get to some specific action to solve some specific issue – was a shift from what we used to do. Prior to discovering coaching, most of us were “tellers”, dispensing advice and insight to help others navigate through life. And the shift from telling to asking was a major upgrade to our interactions with others. Our transactional coaching actually helped others move forward on their issues and they were happy, so we were happy.

Don’t get me wrong here, transactional coaching is AWESOME, and for those who find yourselves at that place in your coaching journey, please hear me say, “You are doing good work, and making an impact!” Helping people get clear on goals, actions, dates, and times, can help them move forward. AND… your growing toward transformational coaching will create an even bigger impact. Transformational coaching – focusing less on what your clients can/should/will DO and more and who they can/should/will BE, and tapping into their hopes and dreams – is much higher leverage coaching. When you help someone discover who/what they need to BE, many, many transactions will flow from that new awareness.

So, what does all this have to do with hitting a baseball?

Well… as I said before, we observe a ton of coaching conversations and I think the number one challenge we see our coaches dealing with is the desire to help fix their clients’ issues. Some of the coaches we work with just jump in and offer solutions. Many more of you hold back your ideas about solutions. Holding back your ideas and advice is definitely an upgrade from telling others what to do, and it leads to more impactful results. But the quote above about baseball make me wonder how much more impact our coaching could have if we weren’t using our brain activity to “suppress the urge to swing” when it comes to giving advice to our clients. How much powerful could our questions be if our brains weren’t so distracted by holding back our insights. What if all (or more) of our brain activity was focused on creating awareness for our clients?

My guess is, the difference could be considerable. And the key to making this shift could be the change in focus from transactional to transformational coaching. When we are focused more on the person than the problem, I believe we can begin to decrease the interference that comes from suppressing our urge to weigh in with our insights.

He might be surprised or embarrassed to read this, but one of my heroes is Bob Dale. I believe Bob is a master chef who combines the ingredients of brilliance, humility, practicality, and humor to create a delicious dish. Those of you who know Bob will get exactly what I’m saying, and those of you who don’t know Bob should. In one of the first bios I ever read about Bob, he described himself in various ways (I think Momma’s Boy was one of them) and the most interesting of his descriptions was People Detective. What a GREAT description of Bob’s role as he interacted with people. And what a great descriptor for us as coaches.

I think the key to making the shift from transactional coaching to transformational coaching could be changing our identity from Problem Solver to People Detective. What might result from you seeing yourself, not as one who helps people discover solutions to their problems, but rather as one who helps people discover who they are? How would t change your coaching conversations if you saw yourself as a People Detective… one who is curious about the person, rather than their issue? What if your curiosity and your questions were all (or mostly) aimed at the other person’s identity rather than finding a solution to their problem? And how would that affect your brain activity – and your ability to apply more of your brain power to creating some awareness rather than being distracted by “suppressing your urge to swing?”

I want to challenge you to think about what needs to change in you to grow into a transformational coach. What mindsets will need to shift? How do you need to see yourself? Who will you need to become?

I’d love to see fewer Problem Solvers and more People Detectives. Imagine the impact you (we) can make in lives of our clients!