It is probably clear to any of you who have been coaching for a while that the goal your coachee first presents with is rarely the real one you finally end up working on. The more authentic goal typically lurks underneath the surface and requires more probing to find.
The coaching challenge is that unless you probe with great care and unless you have a holding environment of high trust, the coachee will be wary of sharing their real goals with you.
I tend to refer to the ‘Iceberg’ metaphor when discussing this challenge. The ‘outer you’ is the visible piece at the top of the iceberg which sits above the water line. The ‘inner you’ is the invisible piece sitting below the water line. This is the part of the iceberg containing the coachees’ fears, values, principles, motivators and beliefs that you will need to access to successfully identify the real coaching goals.
Here are three methods that I have used successfully when approaching this challenge:
- Before attempting to unearth any coaching goals, invest time into understanding your coachees values, principles and beliefs and what truly motivates them. When you finally get to asking what the coaching goals are and this seems in dissonance with their values, principles, beliefs and motivators, flag this and say you are curious to know why the goal seems to you to be not aligned to their deeply held beliefs.
- Using sensitive coaching dialogue, ask your coachee if this is their goal or of it is the goal that they believe is expected of them by the key stakeholders currently in their lives. (friends, family, work colleagues)
- Ask your coachee this question: ‘if money was not an issue and their financial security was guaranteed, would this still be their goal’?
These are three great ways to open up the dialogue and promote a rich conversation. Only through this type of quality interaction will you get into the zone where you can ultimately create genuine sustainable change for your coachees.
