In this exhaustive interview, today we quiz Dhananjay about the various concepts connected with Executive and Life Coaching and how it can help individuals to succeed in their personal life as well as make headway in their professional careers.
CC: Dhananjay, tell our readers a bit about Coaching as a Concept?
DS: Coaching as a concept has always existed. Since earlier times, we have plenty of examples of advisors and gurus that have played important role in impacting the leadership thinking of their respective times, wherein the coach has challenged the leader’s thinking process via pertinent questions.
Throughout the war in the epic Mahabharat, Krishna played the role of a coach for the Pandavas. Guru Chanakya played the role of a coach for three leaders Chandragupta Maurya, Bindusar and Asoka in his early formative years. Birbal is remembered to have done the same with Akbar as his leader client. In all three cases, the coach would challenge and empower the thinking process of the respective leader to come up with innovative solutions in complex scenarios.
Coaching involves listening with intent and asking the right questions which challenge the client’s thinking process, enabling him to generate his own solutions, using the in-depth and comprehensive approach to issues, challenges and goals that leadership grapples with.
CC: Please tell our readers about how Coaching is different from Mentoring and Psychological Counseling?DS: Please note: Many times coaching is often confused with training and mentoring.
Training: involves communicating with the target person/group through instructions about what and how the objective is done. The process is open and explicit transaction between the trainer and trainee. Trainer downloads majority of the communication (80 to 90%) while participants contribute very less (10 to 20%). Training is generally done through workshops and seminars in classroom type situations.
Mentoring: involves a more focused-mix of process and content, wherein an expert shares what and how things are done, basis his own expertise / experience. The interaction involves training download of 50% & dialogue of 50% making the process more customised and dynamic.
Psychological Counselling: aims to help people manage their difficulties and transform personal problems into their own personal growth.
Coaching: on the other hand involves an in-depth and comprehensive approach to issues, challenges and goals that leadership / person grapples with. The idea is to enable the client to process and generate his own solutions for his problems. The Coach plays the role of an architect and works to create solutions in the form of SMART goals that are practical to achieve, implement and execute.
CC: How does a Coach approach a client’s problems and come up with creative solutions?
DS: During the coaching process, the client discovers and connects with his own inner strengths, which he then uses to overcome issues and challenges that he is grappling with. The coaching process involves a 360 degree approach of involving Mind-Body-Spirit, so as to take both the analytical and emotional aspects into consideration.
The coach follows the process of asking a combination of left brain (analytical) and right brain (creative) questions in a smart sequence, which activates the client’s thinking process and enables him to discover, generate solutions with a grounded sense of ownership and self belief.
Some Questions that challenge thinking would be:
- How does the current scenario make you feel?
- What purpose does this serve?
- What are your main concerns / fears?
- What would be the opposite of your current scenario?
- What values do you want to express in your goals?
- How will your family / friends / colleagues / seniors react to this / think?
- Where do you see this going?
- Where do you want to go with this situation / person?
- What unconstructive characteristics would you want to change that will enable you to achieve your Goal?
CC: From your experience, can you tell our readers, the root cause of a few of the common problems that one encounters in family life, personal and social life as well as professional career?
DS: The root cause of common problems stems from one’s life experiences of the early growing up years, when the analytical faculties are practically non-existent. Understanding of almost all events is based on the child’s emotional experience of its parental and extended family relationships, culture and religious philosophies which are normally inherited from one’s parents. Later, the school environment, teachers, family and friends make a deep impact on the growing up years. Quality of parental (father and mother) relationship’s perception is the key in shaping the overall packaging of the child.
When there is an imbalance of Mind-Body-Spirit in life, it causes challenges. All areas of life are interconnected and hence, though the problem may start showing up in one area, it spreads across all areas.
Example: Lack of bond and grounding in relationship with father (authority) figure can cause problems in family life and show up at work in the form of passive OR active rebellion with seniors which would hurt the client’s professional life. A conflicted professional life will impact achievements there and show up on the social space, health, mental, finances, etc., areas of life.
CC: Three critical questions here:
1. Have you observed any differences in how the two genders allow a problem to build inside, identify the problem itself as a problem and management of the problem?
DS: Men (masculine) primarily operate from left brain (logic), while Women (feminine) primarily operate from right brain (creative, emotional). Hence their basic approach to issues and problems are different. Depending on which personality (masculine or feminine) is dominant at a particular time in life, many times the approach of both genders can be opposite and also similar. Hence, neither gender aims to complicate the matter. They both get trapped in the patterns, beliefs, habits inculcated in childhood and growing up years, which are used as reference to deal / manage the problem.
2. Are women better equipped to tackle various situations as they go through the life process – youth, teenage, post-marriage, parenthood as compared to males or do both genders undergo similar problems but handle it differently?
DS: As mentioned earlier, women primarily operate from right brain (creative, emotional) and hence approach problems in that way. However, the EGO (identity) formed in early childhood years does take over at some stage and despite their internal conversation being as per their gender, the output actions are more in tune with their patterns, beliefs and habits. Men too, deal with things in a similar way despite their gender design. Sub-conscious programming of the EGO (identity) plays the key role.
3. Are women able to handle different situations in life because they are able to share their problems with friends and other family members of their gender?
DS: Women operating from the creative and emotional space are able to bring versatility to their style of managing things. However, their identity (patterns, beliefs and habits) does take over when faced with a problem / challenge => stress. Hence, they can use their creativity to create or destroy depending on the choice they make at that moment.
It’s the same case for men too operating from their analytical space can create wonders and also the opposite, depending on the choice they make at that moment.
CC: As a Coach, how do you get to the fundamental root of the problem that a client is facing in achieving success? Also, how do you help your client identify the root cause of his problem?
DS: The coach uses various methodologies to work with the client and enable him to access pertinent data from his sub-conscious to identify root-cause, deal with it and generate pertinent solutions. This way, the coaching technique helps address any problem.
CC: What aspects, for example the conscious and sub-conscious state of mind, performance challenges, mental strength, behaviours, etc. of a client does a Coach seek to address to enable his client to achieve success?
DS: When it comes to dealing with issues, challenges or working on goals, the sub-conscious mind is the director and conscious mind is the executer. Coach works with client to clear the haze, un-knot the many destructive patterns, beliefs and habits that may be playing out. This enables release of emotional charges connect with the matter being worked on, which leads to generation of smart goals and ultimately leads the way to success through consistent actions forward.
CC: Under what circumstances, or to be exact, for what kind of challenges should somebody approach a Coach?
DS: A Coach can work with clients to deal with issues, challenges and goals. The best is to approach the coach immediately when the client intuitively feels he is stuck in any area of his life. Delaying will only deteriorate the current scenario and require a higher quantum of work over a bigger period of time.
Top performing leader, with whom the buck stops. He is many times left alone to make key decisions that involve the current and future. i.e. the very existence of the enterprise, family and community. They have to live with their decisions, whether a success or failure. This creates a lot of emotional charge within them, which needs to be released through expert coaching.
In any areas of life, going forward, to always keep their self belief high and instincts sharp, which is key to the enterprise’s success and existence, coaching plays an important role.
Examples of sports, best sports-persons hire coach, not to teach them how to play but to work on their self belief, sharp instincts and to keep them grounded.
Coaches ensure that leaders are never alone or lonely (personally or professionally) and are an empower-ing company to have and be with.
CC: Is the Coaching process, strenuous, both for the Client as well as the Coach?
DS: Coaching process consumes a lot of energy because of the all-round work in every area of life in the conscious and sub-conscious space of the client. The coach also has to be well prepared and be alert for any eventuality at any moment. The process is highly dynamic with the possibility of just about anything showing up in the process because of the release of bottled emotions or the moment’s created / realised emotions. All these consume high amounts of energy, leading to fatigue / stress for both the client and the coach. Water plays a good charging, grounding and balancing agent in the coaching process. I always recommend a person to sip small sips of water for all discussions – at home, office or social.
Think of the beneficial impact, if we were sip water during arguments, fights and moments of stress, which we actually forget.
The coach being well trained to deal with the fatigue and stress guides the client forward with techniques to release the emotional charges, thus releasing the stress / fatigue. Both of them drink regular sips of water to stay hydrated, charged and grounded.
CC: Does a Coach give his client a lot of “home work” or “things to do” to work upon areas of challenges?
DS: The coach works with client, who generates, creates SMART goals for the solutions generated in the coaching session. He creates a plan of action to work on the SMART goals, in the duration till the next session. Proof of the pudding is in eating. Goals in action is the key and hence execution forward is the real test of the coaching process.
SMART goals are generated by the client and hence action on them is a choice the client makes. Coach holds him accountable and starts the next session with review of the goal action status. What worked, what was improved upon and what didn’t work.
The coach makes the client’s Integrity the key to the coaching process.
SMART goals basically stand for Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound.
CC: How does a good coach make the entire coaching process into a “learning and enjoyable” process of the client?
DS: By making the coaching session client centric, by ensuring there is no judgement in the space, by holding the space for the client as an achiever of the issue, challenge and goal that the client is working on. By helping the client clean-up his stored past energies (patterns, beliefs and habits) in the form of emotional charges, the coach creates space for introduction of new patterns, beliefs and habits which work as enablers for client. This provides learning and also makes it an enjoyable experience for the client.
Client, stuck in issues of authority of father realises that his father too went through similar experiences in life and is acting / executing from life learnings. He develops compassion and empathy for the authority, which enables him to release emotions stuck within him for many years, thus freeing his ability to express himself.
Client sees regular performers as normal human beings like him. Their attitudinal approach is the key. This realisation makes achievement look a normal thing and not some pie-in-the-sky. He goes for it.
Client sees that fear exists in everyone. Some freeze where they while some run away. Few stand their ground, acknowledge and deal with their fears, enabling them to move forward.
Coaching frees stuck energies which gets put to use making the experience an enjoyable experience of self expression.
CC: Does a Coach, despite his training, occasionally get emotionally carried away by a client’s challenges and gets personally involved? How does a Coach handle such situations?
DS: The coach is trained to be emotionally detached from the client, which is very important for a non-judgmental coaching environment. However, in case of an emotional involvement, the coach normally does a clearing session with his master coach and depending on the seriousness of his involvement with client, he can proceed forward or recuse himself from the coaching assignment and basis client’s approval, refer the client to another buddy coach.
CC: How does Coaching empower a Client to be able to handle his/her challenges in the future?
DS: Coaching connects and brings balance to the client’s Mind-Body-Spirit area of being. Important self coaching tools and action on the SMART goals help client to stay focused and deal with future challenges. Best way forward is practice-practice-practice.
CC: Is the Coach always available to the client whenever he needs help during the coaching process?
DS: The coach is always available to the client, both in person and in-between personal sessions, via the phone and other forms of communication. The coach aims to create a higher amount of self-dependence in the client.
CC: Does a Coach have a solution for every type of challenge that the client is encountering or in other words, are there common behaviours which if addressed can be helpful to the client in addressing / managing all his/her problems?
DS: The coaching process is designed to deal with any issue / challenge of the client. Yes, transformation of client in one area (patterns, beliefs and habits) at a Mind-Body-Spirit level might impact his transformation in other areas also because all are interconnected and synchronised.
CC: How does a Coach determine that his client is now ready to take on the challenges of personal or professional life and therefore consider the process to be complete?
DS: When the client’s - patterns, beliefs and habits are in sync with his Mind-Body-Spirit, his choices reflect - responsibility, integrity, compassion, confidence & other related values in every area of his life. i.e. Personal (Mental / Intellectual), Family, Professional, Social, Finance, Spiritual, Health, as they all are inter-connected and support each other, also feed on / derive energy from each other. It is the way of being of the client that decides completion of the coaching process. The frequency of the coaching session can gradually reduce and in certain cases, also completely stop.
CC: Without naming any particular client, can you give an example of a coaching process and how you have enabled a client to achieve his/her goals as well as taste success?
DS: A client didn’t want to take charge of the flourishing family business from his father, despite being groomed all his life for it because the line of business wasn’t in line with his current value-systems.
Coaching process enabled him to see the business values & personal value systems are two separate aspects of life. This enabled him to see his role and contribution to society, customers and his employees in a new light.
He was able to approach the challenge with a new energy and also use funds from current business profits to diversify into another area of business which played the role of a good balancer, wherein he was able to give platform to the social sector to do business and thrive. This gave him good satisfaction of doing business connected to his values and also showed him synchronicity of things in life.
CC: How can coaching help an individual, especially in the context of his/her professional career growth?
DS: Coaching works in dealing with problems (issue, challenge or goal to be achieved) with in every area of the client’s life, mainly à Personal (Mental / Intellectual), Family, Professional, Social, Finance, Spiritual, Health & Vitality. Since all areas are inter-connected, a problem in one may easily flow into the other areas, as is the case most of the times. Hence, a wholistic approach helps create solutions in professional careers.
CC: In an environment where talent is scarce, is it advisable for large companies to have in-house coaches to help professionals overcome issues like inability to cope with stress, instil confidence to take up higher responsibilities, identification of future leaders, etc.?
DS: In today’s demanding and multi-faceted expectation world, coaching plays a very important role, especially at the leadership level, which is expected to be ready 24x7 to deal with wide ranging challenges of a highly dynamic work environment.
It is important to have a good mix of both internal and external coaches. Internal coaches play the role of neutral counsellors to ensure balance. Example: Speedy tactical interventions done in-house.
The external coaches bring higher level of perceived neutrality to the table, especially at senior levels, where the stakes are high.
Example: Strategic engagements of medium to long term. Energising and working on the mindset which challenges an out-of-box approach.
CC: In a large organisation, how can a Coach become an active partner of the Human Resources Department with regard to talent management and succession planning of a Company?
DS: In large organisation there is always need of higher number of budding leadership requirements to lead and manage the expansion projects and also fulfil management role challenges. All this requires not only high quality soft skills but also high levels of energy at all times, which comes from self inspiration. The coach plays the role of a neutral sounding board and holds the space for the leaders. Confidentiality and trust is the key. Any fear will activate defensive behaviour and derail the process.
Example: New energy, mindset which challenges an out-of-box approach is many times looked as a threat to status-quo and leads to fear and defensive approach which can be suicidal in today’s super dynamic times. In collaboration with Human Resources Department, the coach challenges these very facts to enable / fuel the innovation and self expression energies in the clients and organisations.
CC: For the benefit of our readers, please share some tips on who can become a coach and what are the required qualifications?
DS: Well, theoretically, anyone can become a coach, basis one’s inclination, training and experience of life.
However, acceptance of a coach in the client’s mind is the key and that aspect depends upon the coach’s created perception, which depends upon his qualification, relevant experience, personality, language command, knowledge and most important personal realisations, which are first-hand moments of truth of the coach, because they empower his convictions on the matter at hand.
CC: What is the process to be followed to become a Coach?
DS: There are many coach training programs available which prepare the coach by working on themselves during the training process on every area of their own lives. The sense of conviction comes from this aspect. In my view, self conviction is the key to preparation and being of a coach.
CC: Does it require a lot of maturity and experience for anyone to become a Coach?
DS: It is also human nature to listen to grey hair. So, Yes, at times, a mature, older person does create acceptance, but need not be the right person.
A Coach provides a powerful, non-judgmental space for his client to express himself and hence a practical and grounded way of being is the key to become a successful coach.
CC: As a parting shot, what advice would you like to give our readers about handling challenges in life (stress, personal, family and professional) to achieve success in life?
DS: Don’t neglect any area of the 7-areas of life mainly à Personal (Mental / Intellectual), Family, Professional, Social, Finance, Spiritual, Health & Vitality because they all are inter-connected. They have both, the power to pull the others along with them, i.e. up or down, in which ever direction they go.
Examples to ponder:
- Poor health management will show up in engagement energy levels in family, work, social, etc.
- An engaged mental / intellectual person is internally charged up and generates possibilities.
- Spirituality plays a grounding role and brings tolerance and acceptance.
- A disempowered professional scenario will mess up family, social, health, mental spaces and vice versa.
CALIBRE CREATORS LEARNING LETTER thanks Dhananjay for his time and deep insights.
Dhananjay can be contacted on :
Tel : +91 22 65006503 / Mob : +91 98331 88650
Web : www.cloverconsulting.co.in
Email : dhananjay.singh@cloverconsulting.co.in
https://in.linkedin.com/in/dhananjay007
This article which was published in the Issue No.13, Volume 3 of CALIBRE CREATORS August 2015 issue.
To view and download the previous issues, please visit www.calibrecreators.com.
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Get Your Child Assessed for Making the Right Career Choice. Take the Aptitude Test – go to www.calibrecreators.com
Write to Calibre Creators to resolve all your education and career related queries. Please visit www.calibrecreators.com/contact-us. There are no charges for this service. Make extensive use of the service. All queries are responded within 24 hours.
Or you can simply send us a mail to sarfaraz.calibrecreators@gmail.com to request your copy and receive the issue regularly.
Get Your Child Assessed for Making the Right Career Choice. Take the Aptitude Test – go to www.calibrecreators.com
Write to Calibre Creators to resolve all your education and career related queries. Please visit www.calibrecreators.com/contact-us. There are no charges for this service. Make extensive use of the service. All queries are responded within 24 hours.
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