Coaching Standards: Are You Coaching Or Quietly Influencing The Outcome?

Influence Means Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So everyone talks about influence, but nobody talks about the responsibility that actually comes with it. I found that like most people think leading is about having the right answers. And we know that it's not. The best coaches and leaders actually rarely give answers at all. They ask a question that helps their client or the person in front of them reframe everything. And the person across from them walks away different. Today we're going to talk about why questions are more powerful than giving advice and how sometimes we can accidentally think we're not giving advice by asking a question and indirectly plant some limiting beliefs and some things that get people to not move. So you ready to do that with me?

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Yep. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Let's go. So you're listening to the Modern Leadership Coaching Podcast. I'm Mark.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

I'm Teresa.

When “Questions” Become Advice

SPEAKER_00 0:45

And we talk about what it actually takes to lead and coach people well. So today we're talking about influence, right? Now, most of our audience knows that giving advice when it's not warranted is not a direction that we want to go, right? Because we're kind of guiding people and sometimes that can throw them off. I actually found a lot of times in a coaching space that can actually throw them off. But so can asking the wrong questions. And the reason why this comes up for me is because I noticed that a lot of people think that because they're asking questions, that they're not actually guiding or influencing people. However, when you notice the kind of questions that some people ask where they accidentally guide someone, it's kind of like a sneaky way for them to actually give advice as opposed to being genuinely curious, having a path to go down, but not having it be a, I'm going down this path because I want to do that. Let me ask you this. Like, let's start with just an example of this. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Yeah. So uh we were talking about this because this actually happened in a coaching session. This was in our certification. So the coach was asking questions just to kind of set it up, right? Like, hey, what's the situation? What's the issue you want to work through? And the person says something about, I'm overwhelmed. I really need to manage my time better. Yeah. Because there's just so much on my plate, right? But what ended up happening was that the questions the coach started asking were assuming that that was their issue. Yeah. Time. Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

And when we assume we make a I do you, this is not an explicit podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

But anyway, you know what I'm saying, right? So some of those questions were, for example, well, what journal are you using? Um, have you tried some type of time management tool?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Time blocking.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Time blocking, yeah. So we don't know if that's really what their issue is. Like if someone comes to us, we need to be curious, right? We need to say, well, when was the last time this happened? And we'll talk a little bit more about that later. But the questions that we're asking, sometimes we feel like, hey, like maybe this is important. But I think that establishing better what the situation is and what the problem could be is kind of a standard. And this is kind of the whole point of this. But that's just one example that I could think about where the questions are guiding the session, guiding the person into thinking that this is a problem that they have to solve when in reality it may not be. And most of the time it's not.

The Hidden Cost Of Steering

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yep. Let's follow us up with like what the implications of doing this could be. So, from that conversation, like let's say somebody's struggling with time management, right? If you believe them already and you don't actually jump into coach, you jump into steer, like you said, you're gonna start talking about journals, time blocking, and all this kind of stuff. And what you accidentally do is you give power to their reality, to their circumstances, to the facts, right? And so you take their power away as a human being who can think something different and show up entirely different in that situation.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Well, also you give more power to their perspective, right? Because it's their interpretation of whatever their reality is.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

100%. And as a coach, one of our standards is to not give power to things that people don't have control over.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah.

Standards That Prevent Bad Coaching

SPEAKER_00 4:03

It's like the outside waiting for the outside to change until the inside could change. You accidentally plant that in your client because of what you ask them. Now, this is also important when it comes to asking yourself these. It's why a lot of people need an environment. Like we teach inside of our high impact mastery academy, is because you have that environment to go into and people to challenge you a little bit. Because it's like, no, that's not a good question to ask yourself because you're literally trapping yourself like you'd be trapping your client. But because it's in your own brain, you're kind of like getting stuck there. And we see that happen a lot where a lot of people get stuck because they're really believing their perspective and they're only asking them questions that keep them stuck, as opposed to ones that can completely open it up. Now, when we get curious and we are not getting curious in terms of leading people down a path that we want them to go, when we get naturally curious of like what's holding them back, asking them to clarify things from that perspective, it helps to shift the ownership back to them. And we talk about this a lot. When we think about the things we can control, is the way that you think, the way that you talk, and the way that you act. Think, talk, and act. Everything really always stems back to think. But when you think about those three things, those are things that you have direct control over. Anytime you ask a question outside of those things, you're interpreting it to see what it is that they're telling themselves to really get themselves to not show up. And so when you think about through this process of giving them back ownership, that is the responsibility and standard that I believe that we have as coaches. Now, I really want to call this out because there isn't like a universal standard for coaching. There are some companies that try to claim that they're the gold standard, et cetera, which I know like having standards is really, really important. But then there's places that they don't think that frameworks actually help people through these situations. And so they're like, no, all we have to do is ask questions. And there's like this trap that's in there, right? And that might work for some people, but we know that for us, like that never worked. It was just like spinning and just asking random questions. But when you think about standards, there is no universal standard that everybody can say as a coach. That's why when we talk about this standard of influence and responsibility, is when we coach somebody and we ask somebody a question, we can accidentally take them down a path that we think that they should go. And we could plant limiting beliefs. We could get them to focus on the wrong things that actually don't change their life. Just like how we talk about how we can positively have this huge, amazing ripple effect in people's lives when we teach them how to coach, understand how their brain works, help them manage their mind, and then they can go out and help so many other people. But if you are in that same situation but you plant limiting beliefs, you're doing the opposite. And so it's one of these things where a lot of people do call themselves coaches and they have a lot of experience and things to give people, but they sometimes accidentally have those negative ripple effects because they don't realize that what they're doing is so important and meaningful and can really impact people for the positive and for the negative, they don't have any standards about it. They just go in and just ask random questions, or they just go in and give people random advice. And you can be a consultant and do that. But for me, I want a coaching aspect of everything that I do. Like even a consultant, I want them to understand that there isn't one right way to do anything. We used to say this all the time is like there's not one right best only way to do anything. We have to figure out based off of our strengths and what we do really, really well. And I feel like some people lose that when they get into the consulting space, which is why connecting consulting with coaching and knowing when you're doing one or the other and making sure your client knows when you're doing one or the other is really, really powerful. And it looks like you have something you want to share here.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Yeah, no, because I'm just thinking like there's a time and place, right? The outcomes are so much better when you can first coach someone without leading them, right? Having that standard for yourself and how you help people. And then once you establish that, once you kind of really figure out what's going on, then you can bring in your expertise. Then you say, you know what? This sounds like something that I went through, or this sounds like something someone else went through. Let me share with you some ideas that you can try on for size. So there's steps.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

First, figure out what's going on, being curious and not leading people in a direction. And then once you know that, then you can bring in those tools that can really help push them forward.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yep. I mean, that's one of the reasons why we always say like adding coaching to whatever you're doing is really, really powerful because it makes everything that you're currently doing even better because you're opening the door to finding out what's actually the person struggling with. And then you have all the tools, usually, because you've been through it yourself, that you can help them with.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

And you avoid the spinning because you're gonna know to tackle that one thing that's gonna keep them from actually taking your advice. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Right. 100%. I've seen well-intentioned coaches, leaders, parents, right? They start doing this. So let's talk a little bit about that, about like why does this happen? Because I don't think it happens because we want to influence people for the negative. That's not what we're here to do. We're here to make an impact. Why do you think this happens?

SPEAKER_02 8:47

I'm just gonna speak from my experience. I thought that because if someone was coming to me, then I had to have the answers. That whether they thought, oh, she's been through this before or she's an expert in this, and that if I didn't actually share an answer, that would be weird. I was trying to keep something from them. So I felt like I had to present something to someone in order to myself feel good about it, feel like I was helping someone, but also probably like an ego thing where I thought, well, I have to seem like I know what I'm talking about. So I have to give them something. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

It does. It does. It does. I think that happens for a lot of people where they're like, hey, if I'm giving them advice, then I'm helping them. If I'm not, then I'm not helping. And obviously we changed the way that we think about that because we know that by giving them advice, we actually hinder them. We don't empower them. Yeah. We make them become dependent on us as opposed to empowering them, asking them a great question, and then sharing some of our advice and strategies, right? I'm not gonna pretend like I don't have any experience. I'm gonna be like, hey, what did you mean by that? And I'm gonna get in deep and I'm gonna be able to see what perspective is driving the behavior and then get to say, hey, here's some other ideas too, not just in the perspective change, but also here's some other ideas because I've seen this work with a whole bunch of different people. It doesn't mean this is the one right way, but like I just want to share this with you. And it opens the door because not only do they now have tactics, but they've also overcome any uh resistance that could come up in their way and that will get them to take that action. Yeah. I mean, like we said, this is why this happens. We are well intentioned and we want to help people, but we think leading is standing at the front of the room telling everybody what to do. And that's not the definition of leadership.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

When we talk about standards, what do we mean? So I know we teach some of these inside of our certification. Can you maybe name a couple different things that we do in terms of teaching the standards?

SPEAKER_02 10:33

One of the things I can think about is like clean thinking. Yep. And that is when you go into a session or you you approach a conversation without any expectations and you kind of clear your mind of the me aspect of things and you focus on the person. Another thing is holding space. And I want you to talk about this because I think that you define this really well.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Holding space is not giving power to the circumstances or to the things that your clients are actually going through. So sometimes what we'll see happen is you'll go into a session, they'll be like, Oh my God, I'm so overwhelmed. I got all these things that I got going on. And then somebody will be like, oh man, I totally hear you. This week has been really crazy. So let's talk about it. Think about your experience as a client if that's what happened. Versus if you come to me and you go, Oh my God, this week has been crazy. I've been totally overwhelmed. And I'm like, okay, let's dive in. I'm gonna be able to help you through this. There's a different feel because now I'm not giving power to the fact that these things are going on and I'm experiencing them too. And oh my God, our lives are so tough. Of like, hey, you know what? This is my expertise and I'm gonna be able to help you with this. There's a different feel because I'm holding space. I'm not jumping into the pool with them. I'm like literally holding my hand on the outside and getting them to pull them out.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yeah. They both go hand in hand because when you're able to hold space is because you're already done the clin thinking.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yep. Right. 100%. One more thing I want to bring up in this space related to the standards is we actually follow a framework. It's called the growth model in HIMAA. And one of the things that people will often tell us, especially if they're ICF certified, which is amazing, by the way, is we don't believe in frameworks. We should just ask questions. So when I was learning how to do this for the first time, I didn't have a framework. And so I was just like kind of spinning and trying to hope that the other person was gonna come to some amazing conclusions on their own. And sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

And so when you have a framework, if it's a good framework, you're not guiding them down a path. You're asking them a question to show them how their brain is getting them to show up in that situation. And then you're gonna help them, if they choose, because they don't always have to choose, to reframe it so they can show up entirely different with a different level of energy, taking different actions. And so it helps you get to the root of what's actually going on and helps them reframe them so they can show up better next time. It's not a, hey, I'm guiding somebody down this exact path that I want them to go. It's more of like an awareness tool to get them to see what's actually going on through the situation. Yeah. So that's why I feel like the mixture of clean thinking and holding space and following some type of framework is really, really powerful. Sometimes we use the framework, sometimes we don't. It just depends on the situation and what they're bringing us. But by being able to practice this and getting really good with it, you take the pressure off of you having to know the answers and you start to really find out that you can have some of the answers, but really figuring out what the problem is first and helping to reframe that is really the most powerful thing.

What Great Questions Unlock

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

What does a good question actually do that advice can't?

SPEAKER_02 13:16

When you're giving advice, you're already assuming that you know the entire situation. You can see some of the gaps. So then you can put in some advice.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

So for me, what comes up is the answers are only limited to the advice that you give. They're not infinite. So for example, if somebody's like, I don't know how to grow this business, and you're like, okay, do this, this, and this, you're literally dead set on this is the only way for me to do this. But what if I asked you a powerful question of like, how could you grow this business in a way that gave you more time to spend with your family? Now you're like, oh wow, like I could do this and this and this and this, and maybe somebody you can give some advice in some situations. But what a great question does is it opens the possibilities. A bad question limits the possibilities. It says, this is the path that you need to go down. And what actually happens is when the person goes out and does it, it may or may not work. If it doesn't work, now they take it as a personal attack on them because they don't have a backup plan. This is the only plan that they had. So that's what comes up for me is like when you ask them a really great question, there's answers that you would have never been able to tell them. They would have come up with ideas that you would have never been able to think of because they're in their life, they know what makes them tick and they can really get creative in and of themselves and you empower people like that because people who come up with their own conclusions like that are usually the ones who actually go out and do it.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

So when do questions go wrong and how do you catch yourself doing it? So I know we kind of talked about this, is sometimes we accidentally start leading down that path. I'm curious, what do you do to catch yourself from doing it?

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Well, a lot of it is the clean thinking. I've done this enough times where I can kind of prepare myself for it and make sure that I don't go down that path. So it's more of a pre-session type practice that I have so that I don't go down that path.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah. I feel like mine is pretty much the same thing is like before I get on a call and make sure that I understand that I don't know the best advice for this person. Yeah. Right. I may have some like ideas and opinions, but I should keep those to myself because they are not the things that are going to be running the show. What's going to be running the show is me asking questions, getting curious, using a framework if it makes sense, but helping them identify something that they didn't realize before they got on a call. And usually that's getting them to see what's actually holding them back. Because when they see that, they're like, oh my God, I didn't even know that this was actually holding me back. And that's not something that I can tell them, something you have to experience your questions.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

So what's one question you come back to over and over when working with someone?

Apply, Then Practice Silence

SPEAKER_00 15:35

So when somebody brings up a word that has some type of meaning or interpretation, like let's say leadership or influence or I don't want to feel salesy, all of these things, I like to know what I'm working with. Yeah. So I just ask them, hey, what do you mean by that? So when you say leadership, what do you mean? Because as a coach, you have to be on the same wavelength as your client. And if you're functioning from two different wavelengths, like you believe the word leader is this and they believe the word leader is this, you're not going to be able to be in congruence at any point because you don't know how they think about it, right? Yeah. They don't know how you think about it, right? Which actually isn't important to this thing, but it is important to you as the coach to be able to understand what do they mean by that? What do they mean by overwhelmed? Because like 10 different people will tell you 10 different things happen with overwhelm. So one of the things that I do is I think that through. It's like, huh, what do they mean by that word? I want them to define it. And the second thing, and people instead of HIMA are gonna know this is the thing, is I say, tell me about the last time this came up for you. Tell me about the last time this happened. When we are clients, even coaches do this, we tend to generalize things. We group them all together. That's the always or never, like all this stuff. By the way, it's almost always never, ever, and never always. It's like those things usually don't exist in the world, right? They happen sometimes. But when you think about going back to the last time that this happened, now you can actually see what's actually going on in their brain. You can see how they're showing up, you can see the emotions they're experiencing, you can see what they're creating, using the whole growth model to be able to see what's actually causing them to be stuck. But you can't do that if you're in general. If you're just like, oh yeah, so you're so overwhelmed. What journal are you reading? All right. How about just pick the next thing you need to do and take action? And that's great if you're trying to be a cheerleader or motivation and stuff like that. Maybe sometimes people need that. But if you're actually having a coaching conversation, you need to find out what is actually creating that experience for them. What's going on in their brain that is creating that level of overwhelm? And you can't do that if you don't ask that question. So, okay, if you're somebody who's here and you know that you could get better at having these deeper conversations, allowing them to go deeper and really figuring out what the person needs in that moment. This is literally what we do in the High Impact Mastery Academy. This is where we help you lead conversations that actually change something. They're things that help you to not only transform yourself, but also transform others when you start to understand how to do this not only for them, but for yourself, for your family, for everybody that you lead. If you're interested in applying, you can go to modernleadership.us forward slash academy and you can apply. Our next cohort starts in the beginning of May. So if you fill out that application, we will get back to you, see if this is a really good fit for you. We'll share the details of how it works, when it starts, all that kind of stuff. But we do require an application because we're very specific in terms of who we add into the program. Just have to apply. It'll take you maybe two or three minutes to apply, and then we'll get back to you. So the next conversation you have with somebody that comes to you with a problem, don't solve it. I want you to just ask them about the last time that it happened. Then just be quiet. Don't say anything. Let the silence do the work. And see where they go when you stop leading and start listening. That's really where the power is. Thank you guys very much. Look forward to seeing you guys next week. Have a great week with your family and see you soon.