Coaching and the 2 How’s of impacting limiting thinking…

Those of you who coach regularly will know that to help someone improve their performance can often mean having to impact their limiting thinking – “I’ve always been rubbish at that”, “I don’t have enough hours for my day job never mind finding time for development” or “I don’t see that as an area I need to work on” (eek!) for example.

When I face tough coaching challenges like this I find 2 How’s help me work out what to do….

How 1 – use questions to understand more about how they think

How 2 – grow my range of options around how I can influence them to think in a less limiting way

Once you’ve been able to establish that How 1 is what is limiting performance then I find the more effective options you have around How 2, the more likely you are to positively impact the performance of anyone.

What are some of the options you might need? Here are some I think are important…

• Do I have the skills to build open and honest relationships to explore and reframe the experiences that might have shaped the way of thinking that is holding them back?
• Can I offer alternative ways of thinking that are adopted based on understanding rather than any perceived hierarchical pressure in our relationship – parent, boss etc.
• Am I comfortable to be non-negotiable about the fact that under performance driven by limiting thinking isn’t acceptable and support them to commit to try something?
• Am I good at helping them break big things into manageable areas with measures of progress in place so small, self-driven successes reinforce new ways of thinking?
• Am I skilled at identifying which of the above (and others!) is more effective in different contexts?

Lots of other options but as always just keen to get you thinking!

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