Good coaches understand how important it is not to provide too much advice or feedback to clients. A fundamental tenet of coaching is that the client already has the answers that are right for them, and the coach's primary role is to ask the challenging, provocative or supportive questions that will allow the client to discover those answers within.
But this isn't to say that coaches should never offer advice or feedback--there are times when it's essential to do so, and withholding such information from the client would be as unhelpful as providing too much. The key is finding the right balance, both over the course of each individual coaching relationship, and in any given conversation. Below are excerpts from three texts that have had an important influence on me as a coach, particularly in the context of my work at Stanford, where one of my primary roles over the last five years has been helping MBAs develop coaching skills to support their effectiveness as leaders and managers.
From Co-Active Coaching (2nd edition), by Laura Whitworth et al, one of the primary texts in Stanford's Leadership Fellows Program (and for many years in our Leadership Coaching and Mentoring course, which was integrated with the Fellows program this year and which provided the basis for the new Fellows curriculum):
Opinions and Advice
The urge to give good advice and to be helpful is so strong that it is sometimes nearly unmanageable. This is another case in which self-management is a judgment call, not a rule to follow.
We emphasize that clients are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole and that they do have the answers or know how to find them. Still, at times it may seem pointless to withhold your knowledge or experience when it is clearly relevant and could spare clients time, money and effort. As long as you are conscientious about framing the conversation as your experience and encouraging clients to find their own best way while exploring a number of alternative pathways, your experience will be seen as one more potential course of action and not the "expert's" way. In short, don't make it a rule that you will never share an opinion or a bit of advice. Self-management is a context of discretion, always in the client's best interests.
This discretion also extends to sharing your personal story. Most of the time, it's best to keep your personal story to yourself... In almost all cases, it is inappropriate and a waste of the client's time for you to share your personal story. We say "in almost all cases" quite intentionally, because there may be times when a little of your story will be important in building trust and relationship with a client. The fact that you are human, not just an anonymous impersonal resource will contribute toward building a strong, co-active relationship. [p 112]
Asking Permission
One of the most important techniques the coach uses to remind clients that they are in charge of the coaching direction is to ask permission: "May we work with this issue?" "Can I tell you what I see?" ""Would you like some feedback on that?" [emphasis mine] When the coach asks permission, it demonstrates that clients have power in the relationship. It demonstrates, too, that the coach knows the limits of his or her power in the relationship. Asking permission is a sign of self-management on the coach's part and allows clients to take responsibility for managing their relationship and their work. Clients are honored when you ask permission; their boundaries are respected. This is especially important when the issue you'd like to work on is unusually intimate or may make clients uncomfortable: "May I tell you what I see about the way you've been handling this?" [p 114]
From The Coaching Manager: Developing Top Talent in Business, by James Hunt and Joseph Weintraub, the other primary text in the revamped Leadership Fellows Program:
The Coaching Mirror
Self-assessment based on personal reflection alone may not be enough to help employees clearly see how they are doing and what they need to learn to improve their performance. Feedback is a component of coaching episodes. It may be one of the most difficult aspects of coaching. We suggest that coaching managers have the goal of building a "mirror" in which employees can see themselves more clearly. Feedback isn't meant to create change, it is meant to inform. [emphasis mine] [p 27]
Observing What is Important, Effectively
Observational data are the best data of all. The coach watches the coachee and, ideally, pays attention to what the coachee did and said, without interpreting the meaning, at least initially. In this critical way, the coach is especially valuable to the coachee, serving as the coachee's eyes and ears and being in position to offer the coachee fairly accurate feedback.
Unfortunately, even with firsthand data, observer bias quickly becomes a problem. Feelings about the individual being coached; a tendency to identify or "dis-identify" with that person; recent memories of great or terrible performance; race, gender and cultural and personal style difference between the coach and coachee; these can all make it harder for the coaching manager to focus on what the individual employee is actually saying or doing. The coaching mirror is built from data, not inference... The most important point, however, is to acknowledge that such bias exists and is a potential problem for all of us. [p 29]
Providing Balanced and Helpful Feedback
Feedback represents the coach's view of the gap between an individual's performance and what improved performance might be like, if indeed there is a gap. (In the case of a strong performer, the gap might be "upside down," meaning that the coachee doesn't appreciate that he or she possesses a particular strength.) Feedback serves as a source of information to coachees, helping them assess the gap between desired and current performance. Ideally, feedback holds up an accurate mirror to coachees, so they can see themselves and take ownership of their actions or results. [emphasis mine] Once coachees have defined learning issues or goals and offered self-assessments of their effectiveness in relation to those areas ("I think I need to be better at..."), feedback alone may be enough to help them improve their performance...
In addition to the problems associated with building a useful coaching mirror, there are other barriers to the effective use of feedback. Simply put, nice people don't like to criticize... However, feedback should always be delivered in a way that will maintain the dignity of the coachee, particularly if it is critical information.
When coaching managers deliver feedback, a caring attitude is essential. If coachees define learning goals, they are allowing themselves to be vulnerable to the process of receiving feedback. They have let their defenses down, at least with regard to particular learning needs. It is the coach's job to help maintain an individual's sense of comfort, to the highest degree possible, so their collaborative efforts can continue.
However, this does not mean that such feedback can't be critical. Indeed, it often has to be critical. According to our interviews, coaching managers find that to withhold critical feedback as a means of supporting an employee is often seen as gratuitous. In a coaching-friendly environment, critical feedback is taken less personally, particularly if it is directed at the learner's actual goals. [pp 29-30]
From Helping: How to Offer, Give and Receive Help, by Edgar Schein, one of the most useful books I've ever read in this field--I've been meaning to write a review for ages--and a book that Carole Robin calls the "third, unofficial text" in the new Leadership Fellows curriculum:
Feedback as an Essential Helping Process
Feedback, by definition, is information that helps one reach goals by showing that the current progress is either on or off target. If it is off target, that feedback automatically triggers corrective action... Feedback is essential to the helping process when the client asks how to remain on track. In this sense we are all seeking and using feedback throughout every day of our lives to ensure that what we intend comes to pass. But the information we seek, especially when we explicitly ask for help, is only useful if it is relevant to our target. The helper must be sure what the target is that the client is aiming for, and, therefore, must engage in humble inquiry before offering feedback...
Feedback is generally not helpful if it is not asked for. ...[T]he helper must first identify what problem the client is trying to solve before it becomes possible to provide help. When a colleague, boss, friend or spouse unilaterally decides to give advice or feedback, it is likely that not only will the message be misunderstood, but the other person will be offended and insulted. I have seen this over and over again in performance appraisal where the boss says something like "You need to be more assertive in meetings" and the subordinate has not idea to what the boss is actually referring. That leads to a second principle. Feedback not only needs to be solicited, but it needs to be specific and concrete.
...[I]f feedback is to be helpful, it must occur in the context of a review of action, something the group has done together where specific behavior can be referred to and analyzed... By referring to specific events that both parties can remember, there is at least a chance of meaningful learning, but note how crucial it is to redefine the norms of deference and demeanor for these things to be said at all and to be heard as constructive instead of punishing.
If we combine these two points, the potential for effective feedback would be even higher if in the after-action review the leader asked members to start with their own questions about their own performance in order to solicit feedback... By giving the initiative to those seeking feedback, there is a greater likelihood that they can hear it because it relates to something they want help with. It turns the situation explicitly into a helping relationship around common team goals...
Finally, a fourth point is that feedback works best if it is descriptive rather than evaluative... By making a judgment on what you should have done, the helper is taking on the expert or doctor role. By making a descriptive observation, the helper stays in the inquiring process consultant role, which allows elaboration and explanation on the client's part.
To summarize thus far...feedback works best if it is solicited rather than imposed, if it is concrete and specific, if it fits into a shared goal context, and if it is descriptive rather than evaluative...
...When I think of helping conversations that have gone wrong, in almost every case I discover that what I said was either unsolicited, too general, judgmental or related to some goal of mine rather than to what the other person was trying to do. [pp 117-122]
Photo by Erich Ferdinand.
