Part three coaching_j_flaherty_09102105

James Flaherty (Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann (third edition)
2010)

1.What conversations,
actions, or relationships
did you initiate?
2.What other actions or
conversations did you
want to initiate but
didn’t? Justifications?
3.What will you initiate
next? How can you ensure
that it will be effective?
4.What are you learning
about yourself and
initiating?
1.What decisions did you
make today? How did you
make them?
2.Was there conflict? How did
you deal with it?
3.How do you feel about the
decisions you made today?
What are you learning
about decision making?
4.What decisions did you
avoid making today? Why?
What decisions will you
make tomorrow?
1.What requests did you make
today? How successful were
you? Why?
2.How do you feel about your
requests? What are you
learning about yourself?
3.When and how will you take
what you’re learning into
action?
4.What requests did you avoid
making? What requests will
you make tomorrow? Write
them down?
5/12/2015jgillis767@aol.com Coaching - James Flaherty - B/H - 3rd ed. - 2010
2

1.In what ways did you push
back in relationships,
conversations, meetings?
2.What happened? How did
you feel? Conflict? How did
you respond?
3.Did you fell like pushing
back and not do it? How
are you justifying that?
4.What are the consequences
(emotions, mood, energy)
of not pushing back ? What
are you learning?
1.My greatest professional
and personal strengths?
2.Who is in my network of
support, and what specific
support does each person
provide?
3.Resources for expenses,
working hours, family time,
meals, self-care, emotional
energy?
4.Does your cost/resource
balance need adjustment?
1.What do you want to be
doing? Whom do you want
in your life? In what
capacity?
2.What resources do you want
to have? What experiences
do you want to be having?
3.In what ways do you want
to be growing/learning?
4.In what other ways could
you describe your life – the
way it is and the way you
would like it to be.
3

1.What did I actually
accomplish at work today?
2.What results or other
actions will this
accomplishment move
forward?
3.How did I decide to get
this done today?
4.What action will I take
from what I observed in
this exercise?
1.Whom did I challenge
today?
2.Why?
3.What were all the
outcomes of this
challenge? Any conflict?
4.What actions will I take
from what I observed
and learned from these
actions and this
exercise?
1.What did I insist upon
today?
2.How did I justify the
insistence?
3.What were the effects of
the insistence? On me?
On my work relationships?
4.What actions will I take
from what I observed
and learned from this
exercise?
4

 If you have done a thorough job of addressing Question #2 –
then you will have an
easier job of designing Practices.
 Practices are meant to give the client a chance to make the new
distinctions over and over again, and then to follow up with an
which flows from that new observation.
5

Your peers
Your boss
Your boss’s boss
Your subordinates
Your top 3 internal and external
customers
Your CEO (and Chairperson)
The person holding the job you
want next
1.What are the top three business
concerns of this person?
2.What is the career path of this
person (past and future)?
3.What does this person value in a
business associate?
4.What is this person’s agenda for
the next six months, year?
5.What is this person’s style – of
working, of leadership, of
communicating?
6

Your peers
Your boss
Your boss’s boss
Your subordinates
Your top 3 internal and external
customers
Your CEO (and Chairperson)
The person holding the job you
want next
1.What concerns or breakdowns
can I alleviate for this person?
2.What information, support or
guidance can I offer to this
person?
3.In what other ways can I support
this person?
7

Your counterparts in other parts of
the company.
Experts in the political
environment of the company.
The people you admire at work.
The people making decisions
about your career.
1.What concerns or breakdowns
can I alleviate for this person?
2.What information, support or
guidance can I offer to this
person?
3.In what other ways can I support
this person?
8

Your network of core people.
Your network of additional people.
1.What concerns/breakdowns do I
currently have or anticipate
having that someone can
support me in?
2.What input, information, or
guidance would make my
current work easier? My future
clearer?
3.Whose actions don’t I
understand? Who could shed
light on them for me?
9

 What are the top five specific threats to your company during the
next year/five years? What should your company do about them?
 What specific economic or political situations will impact your
company in the future? For the company as a whole, and for the
segmented businesses and geographic distributions? What should
your company do about them?
 What people (within and outside) will have the most influence on the
company? What will the influence be?
10

 The breakdowns will be in both beliefs and emotions, as well as in
the existing constraints of time and energy, priorities, resources, and
so on.
 It will take observation of your client over time to determine what
these potential breakdowns might be.
 Discouragement, impatience, misjudgments, uncertainties, may be
some of them.
11

 Breakdowns aren’t bad. Research shows that it is within breakdowns
that leaders learn the most.
 If a breakdown is too disruptive to your client, she may stop the
coaching program.
 Weigh the benefits of what will be revealed against the emotional and
situational impact of the breakdown.
12

 Prepare for the unexpected as well as the expected..
 Others besides you can provide support. It makes sense to have
other people available to provide information and emotional support.
 Do not leave yourself unnecessarily constricted in your freedom of
action and do leave your client relatively independent and
and
13

 What will be its duration?
 How often will you and your client meet? Meeting duration time?
 How much time will this program demand of your client?
 What other resources will be needed?
 How often will you communicate? In what form?
 How available will you make yourself to your client?
 Address these points in your design and be open to changing them
according to what happens as the program progresses.
14

 A pipe full of steam that has loose joints that allow the steam to escape.
 Like reading a book and picking up where you left off, rather than
starting anew every time.
 A diamond covered with dust. Clean it off so the true brilliance can
shine. (Not Hiding your light under a bushel basket!)
 Oil buried deep in the ground which would only become valuable when it
was brought to the surface.
15

 The more support you can give the client the better. What have you
used to remind yourself, keep yourself organized or focused.
 Take as much care in the presentation of your program as you did in
designing it. In a sense it is a microcosm of the process, and it should
ease your client’s acceptance and inclusion in the design.
16

2. What new competence or quality must your client
have to address the situation described in #1
above (Cell 31, Part Two)
3. What is your potential client’s current competence
in doing this? Write down at least three examples
of behavior that verify your assessment.
4. Determine the
of your potential client:
1.What opening did you
observe for coaching?
 Breakdown? (specify)
 Enhancing a competence?
 New possibility for client?
 Threat to social identity?
(specify)
17

Sample Self-Observation Exercise
Beginning Date: (Today)
Invent, by declaration, an internal separation in
yourself. Divide yourself into two persons, one who
acts/reacts in life and one who observes and is
passive in life.
1. Begin to observe how you react in life.
Observe what happens and what you do, say,
feel, think, your reactions, etc. Observe
quietly, passively. Keep noticing your
judgments about yourself, about others, about
life. Observe your internal states as well as
what you show the world. Take notes.
2. At the end of each day, review your day and
note what happened and how you reacted.
3. Do this exercise for ten days.
1. What is to be observed?
2. What is the duration of the
exercise?
3. What is the frequency of
observation?
4. What are the exact
instructions for the
exercise?
18

1.List all the activities you actually do at work.
a. Divide them into categories of relative importance.
b. Within each category number the activities
(prioritize).
c. How much time do you spend on each.
2.Then ask yourself:
a. Can I allocate my time more effectively? How?
b. What activities can I give to someone else?
c. What is my job at my company, really?
3.List all the activities you should be doing but
never get around to. Be exhaustive. Categorize
as in 1. above. Then ask yourself what would
be the benefit of doing these activities?
4.What did you learn by doing this?
1.What repeated behavior can
your client do that will improve
his competence?
2.How will your client know if
the actions are successful?
What are the standards?
3.What will be the duration and
structure of the practice?
4.What are the exact
instructions?
19

When the focus of the coaching is the client being stuck in
his or her job or life OR what to do when our coaching (which
to us seems, of course, brilliant) is somehow leaving the
client stuck.

 Clients can feel that they are bored, not learning anything, and don’t see
a future for themselves.
 Or, they are attempting to accomplish something and can’t seem to get
it to happen.
 Or they are seeing the same cycles of behavior return again and again,
at their work, or in their relationships, or in how they take care of
themselves.
 It could even be existential dread or angst, the feeling of no grounding
or support or meaning in their lives.
21

 People in this state tend to judge themselves negatively, disparage
others, and cynically turn away from whatever support is offered.
 They are certain that their experience is unique and very complex and
that what they are going through has never happened to the same
extent to anyone else.
 They feel that they have to get out.
 But they feel there is no way out because if there was, they would have
figured it out by now.
 The root, though, is feeling “un-held by the world.”
22

 Invite the client to investigate the experience of being un-held is like
– lonely, misunderstood, out of place, unnoticed, unloved, abandoned.
 The key to unlocking this is to acknowledge the truth in the point of
view, and to help the client discover that what they are seeing is not
the whole story, even though it seems like it is at the time.
 We are alone, as the existentialists say. No one can feel what we are
feeling, or go through what we have to go through, or live with the
consequences of the choices we make.
 This is unarguably the case, but it is also true that we are conjoined
with others, inseparably and forever.
23

1. Do not skip over the existential realities.
2. Design Practices that support the client to build exquisite self-care for
himself. Being stuck is often started by neglecting sleep, food,
companionship, self-expression, exercise, and openness to beauty.
3. Design Exercises that help the client scale her expectations. We have
images of “perfection,” and people are not perfect, ever.
4. Once our client has taken care of his genuine needs, and has set
realistic expectations, life begins to flow effortlessly and she begins to
harmonize with the people around her.
5. Stuckness is gone – by dissolving its roots.
24

 Even if you are fabulously successful at your coaching work, sooner or
later you will find yourself in a stuck place with a client.
 At that point you will be glad you have done your own work and have
kept educating yourself.
 It is often easy to blame the client as “un-coachable,” or “uncommitted,”
or “not in enough pain yet.”
 Sometimes it may be necessary to end the coaching, but there is a lot to
try out first that my lead to a developmental breakthrough (for you as
well as the client).
25

1. Reexamine (and consider redoing) your intake interview. What
assumptions did you make, and why? What client actions were not
accounted for?
2. Your “shadow” is a series of unwanted qualities that you tend to
sublimate in yourself, but recognize (projection) as moral negatives in
someone else. If you have strong negative emotions about client
actions, you should make sure (3rd party) that this is not the cause.
3. Is the client capable of going through with the program? Does she
have enough physical energy, emotional reserves and relational
support? If not, address these issues before continuing coaching.
26

4. Change the venue. Take walks. Sit at the beach. Stroll through
nature. Shifting the environment and moving the body frees people.
5. Do the coaching work in the session itself. Instead of asking your client
to go to the gym, have your next session at the gym.
6. Form a partnership with the client and go through a forensic review of
all the work you have done together. Methodically go through each
conversation, each assignment – looking for what was unsaid, unheard,
misunderstood, or not addressed.
27

7. Has your coaching somehow brought to the surface abuse in the client’s
background? If you get any inkling of this, refer your client to a
competent therapist. If unsure, find a delicate way to approach it.
8. Study the client’s emotions connected with your coaching. Emotions are
directly tied to action, and many clients tend to bypass or suppress
their emotions, which makes it difficult to do new activities.
9. Your client may have conflicting commitments. For example, she may
want the promotion but simultaneously be committed to working less
hours.
28

Shift the content of your coaching radically. If the content has been
primarily cognitive, move it fully into the body realm. Or if it has
been about emotions, make it about learning new ideas for a while.
Open your creativity and expand your palette of practices. Invite
your client to do art, visit museums, travel, listen to different music,
anything that will require him to stand in a new identity at least
while doing the practice.
29
10.

. Strangers to Ourselves (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2002).
and . How the Way We Talk Can
Change the Way We Work (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2001).
. Relax and Renew (Berkeley, CA: Rodmell Press, 1995).
. The Pathway (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2003).
. Yoga as Medicine (New York, NY: Bantam, 2007).
. Senses Wide Open (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses, 2000).
. The Mindful Brain (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2007).
30

Being in means that clients have reserves
of attention, physical and emotional energy, and social support.
No amount of circumstance or “will power” will overcome a lack of
readiness.

 The building of the necessary reserves to allow coaching to be successful
is extremely challenging in the 21st century.
 Most of us feel pressed in our personal, business, relational, and
financial domains; and we usually maximize our activities so that at the
end of the week, there is nothing left.
 Then something goes wrong, or we have a new opportunity, and we
consider working with a coach.
 Somehow we imagine that the coach knows something that will make
this unworkable situation turn out just fine.
32

 Clients cannot sustain an effort beyond their current capacity without
doing damage to their health, mental state, mood or relationships.
 Remember that the results of coaching are
, and
 Rather than pretending, ask up-front what activities does it make sense
for the client to end? What relationships must be altered?
 What aspects of the client’s self-care should be addressed? Nothing
long term can take root unless all these conditions are harmonized.
 Bruce Lee wasn’t built in a day.
33

 We coaches have to base our work on solid principles, and not on
salesmanship.
 If we put our client into a pressurized situation in which she does
perform, and achieve results – are we neglecting the long-term?
 Are we forgetting that the client didn’t become self-correcting and never
discovered her own source of inner power or outer support?
 And consequently, that we have not helped to allow a self-generating
success? A success that is sustainable?
 Do not forget that we are biological beings – not electronic ones.
34

How many hours of sleep?
How many hours of exercise?
What for breakfast? How much
time? Time for lunch? Dinner?
Average workweek? Workday?
How many days off per week?
How does the client refresh and
renew? (Not decompress,
unwind).
Vacations? How often/long?
Smoke? Alcohol? How much?
Caffeine? How much?
How much external stimulation a
day (email, text, meetings, etc.)
Hours commuting?
Last comprehensive physical
exam?
Nights away from home?
35

How deep and close is your network of
support?
Whose well-being are you responsible
for?
How much time in non-work related
conversations?
Who can you be open, vulnerable, and
undefended with?
Who are people toxic to you? What can
you do to reduce contact with these
people?
How often are you in nature? (non-golf).
When do you encounter beauty? (either
natural or artistic)
How much chaos and disorder in your
personal and work life?
How do you stay educated beyond
business reading?
Dedications other than family? Activities
to cultivate creativity?
Organizations for support and renewal?
(church, philanthropy, sports)
36

Simplify life as much as possible.
Regular routines of sleep, eating,
and exercise. (for resilience to
change).
Develop a strong network of
support. (reach out and set up).
Renew the mind, heart, and spirit.
(Mozart and Bach).
Reduce chemical and electronic
stimulation. (greater calm).
Mental hygiene. Block recurring
anxious thoughts, second-
guessing, worst-case scenario
thinking. (redirect thoughts).
What will you give up or cut back
on to make time and space for
coaching to occur?
Display physical props of a deeper
world outside the current activity.
(nature, family pictures, beauty)
37

Assess your coaching skills and qualities and design a
program to improve them. It is vital to your effectiveness
to continue to develop yourself while simultaneously
coaching your clients.

…have I learned? About relationships?
…makes my coaching most potent?
…makes me most uncomfortable?
…is mysterious about people?
…ideas of mine are being challenged?
…mood of mine seems to work best?
…don’t I understand about my client?
…does this show me about myself?
…did I learn about coaching?
…did I learn about my competence?
…are my strengths?
…can I improve on?
…surprised me?
…does that show me about myself?
39

– Means to point out to
your client new distinctions that
will allow him to make new
(inspirational) observations.
– The two main intents
are to understand the uniqueness
of the client and situation, and to
discern the root cause.
– Stay
out of emotional reactions.
Generate many possibilities.
– Take the time to
observe, know what the standards
are, and keep your own prejudice
out as much as you can. Focus on
the attempt, the success (or not),
the actions, and the outcomes.
– Create the
connection between current reality
and the desired outcomes. The
coach designs the path between
understanding the client and
achieving the desired outcomes.
40

– Scrupulously fair and
dedicated to the highest standards.
Balance with the qualities of
patience and flexibility. Are you too
rigorous (harsh), or are you too
patient (wishy-washy).
– People change in
biological time. Habitual actions
are embedded. Even after insight,
integration takes time. Patience is
waiting without complaining.
– Apply the same
standards to ourselves as to our
clients. In one-to-one coaching, there
is no escaping close scrutiny. Walk
the talk.
– Efforts will
not turn out exactly as planned.
Nurture the client’s attempts,
encourage progress. Different people
adapt at different rates. Make the
coaching fit without diluting
commitment to the outcome.
41

(on each skill/quality) – Make a scale of one-to-five
and then calibrate the scale. What would a five be, or who would a five
be?
(on each skill/quality) – What are the specific actions
you are taking that display your level of competence?
(in behavioral terms) – What actions would you
be doing as an expression of that skill or quality if you were as
competent as you would like to be?
– Between current reality and the intended
outcome. This should consists of , a ,
and a .
42

 Behavior done again and again
with the intention to improve.
 What observable behavior will
be part of the practice?
 What are the standards for the
performance of that behavior?
 What should your client to
observe to tell how well she
is performing?
How often will you have the client
do the practice? How long each
session? Duration of Practice
itself? Milestones?
How often will the client stop and
assess progress? Progress criteria?
People and groups to call on when
there is a breakdown or a question.
43

 It is by continually asking this question “How can I contribute?” that our
identity and competence as coaches will continue to unfold.
 This book is a series of distinctions that point to a way of understanding
and working with people that is satisfying for both client and coach.
 Please do not get caught up in the words, but instead look for the intent.
 Steady practicing will lead to a high level of competence. You will be able
to be of great assistance to others, and deeply fulfilled yourself.
 Your openness to allowing this book to contribute to you is a gift to me.
For that I thank you.
44

The book includes several excellent business, relationship,
and personal samples in ;
and several excellent business, relationship, and personal
samples in . Included here is an
example from each Appendix.

– To become more aware of how I feel during the workday,
and what I accomplish on a daily basis.
- Stop twice each day – at midday and at the end of the
day –and ask yourself the following questions. Anticipate this exercise
by observing yourself throughout your day. Record your responses.
1. What energized me most at work today?
2. What discouraged me most at work today?
3. In what ways did #1 and #2 above affect how I spent my time?
What did I accomplish?
4. What patterns do I see emerging from what I am observing in this
exercise? What action will I take about what I have observed?
46

 Sitting is a practice in observation, in acceptance, in compassion, in
stillness, in discovering our true nature. Because it is simple, it can be
difficult to do. It is impossible to do wrong – if done with sincerity (Do
not continually assess and/or berate yourself). Please do this exercise
for 20 minutes each day for the next three months.
1. Sit up straight in a chair with your feet flat on the floor.
2. Close your eyes or gaze at a spot on the floor 6-8 feet in front of you.
3. Bring your awareness to your breathing – focus either on your
abdomen, which rises and falls as you breathe, or on your nostrils,
where the air enters and leaves your nose. Do not change your
breathing, just observe it.
47

4. Say quietly to yourself “in” when you inhale and “out” when you
exhale.
5. Focus all your attention on your breath. If your attention wanders,
simply say “thought” to yourself and bring your attention back to
your breathing.
6. Acknowledge any sensations in your body by saying “sensation” and
returning your attention to breathing. Do the same with any
emotions or feelings that may occur.
– Each week, take about 15 minutes to write out
what you have learned about yourself by sitting and how you will take
this knowledge into action.
48

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