Choaching a difficult individual.
As we know coaching should be tailored to the individuals personality,goals,and attitudes of the individual. I had some challenges with one of my a student whom I was coaching on personal conduct during a job interview. I realized very early that for coaching to be truly effective, the person being coached requires an openness to change which my student wasn't. My student also lacked a high enough level of self awareness to be able to recognize and accept his current reality. I tried to work with this individual to make him realize that it is okay to let his guard down and also follow instructions and more importantly to trust that he is not being interrogated.
Philip,
great point made here, the coachee must be "coachable." Just like an individual's education or career, at some point the person must own their own improvement & success.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I have also come across this issue Phillip. I look at how you coach individuals on their will and skill. High will/Low skill people are open to change and want to improve. High skill/Low will people do not usually taking to coaching very well thinking that they do not need it. We all need coaching at some point and need to be open to improving ourselves.
Amelia ,
this is a great division of the people we will often coach & you are right, I'd much rather have the high will/low skill individual.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Yes the coachee must be coachable. You can lead a horse to the water but...Everyone learns differently and we come from varied backgrounds so we must be open to that upfront. Also, we as coaches must be aware of bias we may have so we can overcome those and teach fullfilled teaching
Samuel,
so true & remember that the coachee is not us!
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I come accross this issue regularly in Career Services, and I agree with Amelia; high will/low skill studens seem to be more open to, not only coaching, but also just communication in general. In my experience, they seem to take advice to heart and put it into application much more effectively than the high skill/low will students, who seem to have the "I know what I am doing" mentality.
I HAVE found, though, that by approaching/coaching the high skill/low will AFTER they have found that their standard or go-to measures have not found them success,that they are more receptive to suggestion. I have seen a student "do it his way" in approaching a job search, gain no success, and then was open to "doing it my way". Once they landed the job, "my way", the respect was then established (and they were THEN confident) that the suggested "tweaks" to their system were coming from a place of helpfulness and not because they were "wrong".
As many have stated, though, the correct attitude on both sides, being open to coaching and receiving a bit of help toward improvement, MUST be there for ANY coaching to be successful.
Amanda,
yes, even if they aren't completely willing to be coached, they must have at least a small amount of humility if we're going to be effective.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
