So What Happens in Coaching? : Coaching to Develop Resilience.

Most people do not come for coaching saying they want to become more resilient.

They come because

• they are stressed, having too much to do in too little time.

• they are not responding well to the change swirling around them.

• they are trying to cope with many challenges in both their personal and professional lives that have joined together into something called "overwhelm".

• they are facing a major restructure that is going to see them challenged from every side with people issues, time management issues, work life balance issues, corporate governance issues and downsizing decisions.

They come for many reasons, but the underlying motivation is nearly always that they want

• to feel they are in control of their life,

• to be able to manage change, adversity and the challenges of their position in a constructive, positive and proactive way,

• to learn how to ride the waves and roll with the punches and feel energised by the process,
• to assertively and strategically address the challenges,

• to be solution focussed in their decision-making so that they can move forward confidently.

They recognise that many of the challenges they are facing in their professional (and personal) lives are inherently pervasive in life today. If they are going to grow their careers the way they want they need to develop and grow themselves to better manage these challenges.

If they have come for coaching on their own initiative, they are usually very aware that it is something within themselves that is blocking them. They want to become more aware of what that is. They usually have given it some thought and have some ideas. They want to better understand and manage its impact on their personal and professional life and work with their coach on ways to free themselves and take control.

If they have been sent for coaching, they usually see everyone else as the problem and believe that if others would change their way of being and doing, there would not be a problem. These people are difficult to work with in coaching, unless they are open to changing their perspective.

I want to tell you about "Emily" because it is much easier to tell you what I do in coaching by telling you a story.  She is a real person who came for coaching with me. Actually she is many "persons" who came for coaching with me because I've changed her distinguishing details. She is a bit of a composite now because all the coaching I do is confidential and I can't really tell you the stories of "Mark" or "Emily".

Introducing "Emily".

"Emily" is 48 years old. She is one of four executive managers in an organisation with about 248 employees. She has 46 employees in her area of responsibility. She has been appointed to this position, having built and managed a very successful team of 10 further down the organisation.

She comes showing signs of obvious exhaustion and stress. She tells me that she is unsure whether she can do this job. She feels that maybe the outcome of the coaching will be that she resigns, but that she wanted to, at least, talk it through with an objective third person first.

She says that she just loved managing her team of 10 and that they loved her and they achieved an enormous amount together and supported one another in everything that the team did. She says that she is struggling to get the same team spirit in her new team, doesn't know where she's going wrong and is frightened that she'll lose professional credibility if she doesn't get on top of things.

She goes on to say that she's not coping with the increased pressures of the new position. She's been in it just over 3 months. She feels she's going around in circles, not achieving what she wants to achieve. Paper is piling up on her desk and she's not getting to it. She takes work home every night and works at home on work stuff most week-ends. Under questioning from me, she tells me she rarely leaves her desk for lunch, has stopped exercising and wakes up at 4 in the morning and can't get back to sleep.

When I ask her about her staff, she tells me that she has two very difficult men who have made it quite clear they do not think women can manage organisations. One of them applied for her position. They are quite decidedly undermining her authority and position whenever they can. She knows she has to deal with that, but can't bring herself to do it at this time. On the other hand she has two Gen Ys whom she values highly who also stress her for the opposite reason. They are energetic, enthusiastic and want to be more involved. Again she recognises that she needs to talk with them because she is afraid if she doesn't address their need to be challenged she will lose them and doesn't want that to happen. Yet she can't bring herself to address that either at the moment.

She then tells me what is happening outside of work. She has elderly parents who can't care for themselves anymore but are resisting going into care. She is looking after them on a daily basis, going there before work and after work.

She is the primary breadwinner because her husband has a degenerative condition and only works part-time, but he does much of the work around the house. Recently he has relapsed and she has been carrying most of the responsibility around the home because of that.

As if that wasn't enough, her daughter's marriage broke up and she's come back home, devastated and needing a lot of talk time and emotional support.

In every organisation, there would be many people like "Emily" and no one knows.

So what response do I, as the coach make to this?

I ask clear but respectful questions of "Emily" so that I, and she, can see the whole picture.

I focus on and highlight her strengths and personal resources - not the problems and inadequacies. Her strengths will get her through, but at this point she has lost contact with them. I facilitate some reflection with her to get her to work out her strengths and how she uses them.

I get her to begin to reframe her situation in a more positive and constructive way. Her CEO, who organised the coaching for her, had told me that she was a highly valued member of her executive team and she didn't want to lose her. She also told me that what she was feeling was not reflected in her work or in her relationship with staff. She also gave her, if she needed them, double the coaching sessions usually approved by the organisation. I shared this with "Emily" which helped her view her situation very differently. I also summarise what is happening for her and make it very clear that given that she is, in fact, a superwoman!

I encourage and support her to move into a proactive frame of mind - I can do this.

I help her to regain control and reduce the overwhelm in her situation by separating the issues so she can take them one at a time and respond.

I work with her to become solution focussed. I discuss with her ways she can reduce the stress on her and regain control.I do not tell her how to manager her life. Through questioning and shared reflection, I lead her to the solutions that are right for her. I do not become her counsellor.

   1. Elderly parents - call a family meeting to get family support and discuss options, get support from local council while waiting for her parents to adjust to their changed future.
   2. Daughter's marriage - get her counselling to reduce the emotional toll on "Emily" and to help the daughter work through her loss.
   3. Work around the house - temporarily get a housekeeper and a gardener.
   4. Paper on her desk - given the length of time it has been there, be ruthless. Put aside two hours and sort it - bin it or file it or address it.
   5. Stress - make at least half an hour of exercise a priority - it's a good stress buster. Take a lunch break. Begin putting high energy food into her body. Drink lots of water.
   6. Taking work home at night and working week-ends. Stop the week-end work immediately. Develop better time management skills to make taking work home at night a rare event rather than the norm.
   7. Staff Issues - We don't address the hard issues of dealing with her staff in this session because I want her to feel stronger and empowered before she does that. I want to restore her psychological, inner strength first. We will take that up in another session.
   8. People Management and Team Spirit- We don't take this up in this session either for the same reason.

What happens next?

"Emily" leaves the coaching session with a basketful of solutions to change her life. She feels she can do it. She has greater clarity about what is happening for her. She no longer sees any need to resign. Even though we haven't talked about the specific issues at work, she's already feeling that she'll be able to manage them.

I ask her when she'd like to come back. She feels she will have acted on everything we covered in this first session within a fortnight so we make another appointment for a fortnight's time.

In this second session, we will review what happened and assuming that everything goes to plan, we will begin to discuss her new management role and what she's thinking and feeling about the challenges it's presenting.

At some point in the coaching, before it finishes, we will do some talking together about what "Emily" needs to do to avoid finding herself in this situation of "overwhelm" again. This is where we will talk about resilience and how leaders and managers like her can develop and maintain it.