THE CLIENT WISDOM BLOG PUBLISHED BY MBT MORE BUSINESS TODAY LLC
Every month, I meet with two incredible coach friends. One is from Manchester, England, and the other is from China. The three of us met almost five years ago while earning our Conversational Intelligence (CIQ) coaching certifications and were part of the same cohort. We love to get together to talk about CIQ, our coaching businesses, and our newest learnings.
Today we talked about Gestalt and theories about boundaries from his teachings. One of our threesome has been studying Gestalt for nearly three years. The information she shared aligned perfectly with the extremes I see in my coaching practice lately. A trend I noticed is my clients seem to demonstrate the two extremes of boundaries: either having no boundaries – afraid to speak up for themselves, putting everyone else before themselves, not knowing when to say “no” – or insulating themselves from the thoughts, opinions, and insights of other people.
I find it interesting that my clients are trending at the two extreme ends. So did my colleagues this morning who enlightened me as they always do. The input expanded my mind to continue to dig for more information about Gestalt and boundaries to better help my clients.
The conversation led me to think about the value coaching brings to clients. I believe it illustrates why coaching is so enormously popular. I concluded this:
The individualized shorthand a coach creates for a client adds immediate value by bringing exactly the right tool or concept to the coaching session and helping the client use it to improve their situation.
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Coaching works when the coach is part of your team. Imagine finding time in your role as an executive in a business or organization to study all the new ideas in leadership. There is no time for that. It seems a new leadership book is published every day. As a leader, you need your team to bring you their expertise and knowledge to you so you make informed decisions. The coach is part of your team supplying valuable information for you to use daily.
The scenario changes from client to client, yet in each situation, I tailor my approach to the client. The adjustments include which pieces of information fit the individual personality, goals, needs, position, and business of the client.
I create a shorthand so you preserve your time to focus on your job, company or organization, and team.
This is especially true when the coach works with an organization over a period of time getting to know the goals, leaders, team dynamics, and culture. A coach studies the latest ideas, assessments, and tools and applies that information directly to the situation.
A coaching concept for this is dancing in the moment. When I pull the information from my knowledge grabbing exactly the right piece of the puzzle and offering it to my client, and then, my client responds with affirmation (and sometimes extreme excitement), I am dancing. It is the greatest feeling for me and also for my clients.
As a result, the clients may see things through a new lens, or find the key to a struggle in that moment. Then, they realize the magic of coaching.
For more information contact Mary Balistreri, The Mindful Business Coach at mary@mbtmorebusinesstodayllc.com