Coaching Can Kill (eBook)

Chapter 1

“I’m going to get fired!” The woman sitting in the chair across from me blurted this out when I asked what she wanted my help with today. Her name was Maggie, and she was a first-time client, in Pineville on vacation. She had come to the yoga studio for a class the day before and signed up for a free twenty-minute gift coaching session. She was on the verge of tears, and we were only ten seconds in.

“Okay, take a step back and tell me what happened. You didn’t actually get fired, right?” I kept my voice steady to give her a sense of calm. This was a safe space.

“Well no, not yet,” she said. “But I got a really bad review, so it’s only a matter of time. I don’t know why I thought I could do this job. I knew it was a mistake when they hired me. I’m just not cut out for it. It’s too hard, too much pressure, and I’m not good enough to handle it all. Maybe I should quit before they let me go?” She looked at me expectantly, that last phrase a question.

I could feel the anxiety oozing off her. She was looking to have me tell her exactly what to do. As a life coach, though, my job isn’t to tell people what to do, but to help them look at situations in a different way and give them the tools they can use to figure things out on their own.

“Before you make any decisions, tell me a little more about your review. What was bad about it?” I asked.

Maggie took a deep breath. “They told me I have to do a better job building client relationships, that I’m great with the internal team but I need to connect more with the client. Higher-level positions are all about relationship building, and I can’t rely on my analysis and recommendations to grow the business.”

“So, you’re doing well with your team relationships, but you need to work on your client relationships in order to achieve a higher-level position. Is that right?” I repeated back what she told me but emphasized the positive feedback in addition to the critical feedback. 

Maggie nodded in agreement.

“What other feedback did you get?” I asked.

“They told me that I need to improve my messaging skills, that my presentations could be clearer and more streamlined, and that there is too much information and too much detail. I need to focus on the bigger picture.” Maggie started to explain the feedback but quickly transitioned to sharing her concern about it. “I don’t have any idea how I’d even go about changing this. I feel like I’m doing the best job I can now and I’m working so hard as it is!”

“So, it sounds like when it comes to your presentations, it’s a matter of working on how the information is packaged up and presented back to the client and turning your focus from the details to a broader perspective, which is probably what the clients are looking for. Does that sound right?”

“Yes, I think so.” Maggie started to calm down.

“What else?” I asked.

“I guess that was really it. Those were the two big things they told me I have to work on over the next year if I want to be considered for the next level. And this is an up-or-out agency, so if I don’t improve, I really will be fired. And my rating was a 7 out of 10, which is like a C−, which is like the worst grade I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. I’ve never been such a failure at anything!” Maggie started tearing up again.

I offered her the box of tissues I keep on my desk, and she took one.

As she wiped her tears, I started to share a perspective on the situation that I believed would help her. “I know you’re really upset about the review, but the first thing I’d like you to consider is that the review itself isn’t the problem.” For clients I haven’t worked with before, this is usually the first area that we spend time on. It’s a concept that most people aren’t aware of and learning it can open them up to seeing the world in an entirely new way. 

“I’m not sure what you mean.” Maggie looked perplexed but interested.

“There is the feedback you got in the review, the words themselves, the information provided to you, the suggestions for things to work on or to change.” I paused for emphasis, and Maggie nodded slightly. I could tell she was with me. “And then there is what you’re making it mean. And it sounds like you’re making it mean that you’re not good enough, or that you’re destined to fail. So of course, that must feel terrible.”

Maggie’s expression held still. I could see she was processing what I had to say. After a moment of silence, realization hit, and her eyes grew wide. “It does feel terrible! Why am I doing that to myself?”

I smiled and reassured her, “It’s totally normal. It’s just what the brain does. It’s trying to protect you. Having a review, hearing feedback, that’s scary stuff for the brain. And the easiest way to avoid that scary stuff is to quit. If you quit, then you won’t have to face the review. You won’t have to work on changing things or doing them in a new way. You also won’t have to face the next review. Do you really want to quit?”

“No, I love my job!” Maggie responded immediately, and I felt the truth in her statement. “I just want to feel like I’m doing it well.”

“Then the way to approach this is to look at it in pieces. First, do you agree that as a company they have a way that they want things done, and it’s a good thing for them to provide their employees feedback and direction on how to work the way they feel is most successful for them?”

Maggie nodded her head. “Yes, intellectually I agree, but it just feels terrible.”

I corrected her gently. “You’re making it feel terrible because you’re interpreting the feedback you got as a message that you, as a person, aren’t good enough. That isn’t true. Let that sink in.” I paused for a few seconds before continuing. “There is who you are as a person, and there is what you do in your job. Those two things are not at all related to each other. This job feedback has nothing to do with who you are as a person. It isn’t about you at all. It’s about what you do at this job, and they are just asking you to do things a little differently.”

Tears streamed down Maggie’s face as she allowed my words to sink in. After a good ten seconds, she wiped her cheeks with the same tissue she still held in her hand. Then she took in a big breath of air and let it out. Her voice was soft when she finally spoke. “So, what do I do? How do I stop making it mean something about me?”

“What we can do right now is take another look at that feedback and see if we can think about it in a way that will serve you. Does that sound okay?” I offered.

Maggie nodded but didn’t say anything.

I glanced down at the notepad on my desk where I had jotted down the general aspects of the review, but I wanted to hear the words directly from Maggie again. It’s best for the client to be engaged without me feeding information back to them. “Let’s talk about the feedback on your presentations. What were the exact words in your review?”

“They said the presentations could be clearer and more streamlined and that they’re too detailed. I need to focus on the bigger picture.” Maggie’s voice quavered slightly as she spoke the words. There was still emotion charging her statement.

“They are just words, Maggie. They can’t hurt you, and in fact they’re intended to help you. They want to help you succeed in your job. Can you see that might be true?” I could hear the soft sounds of music coming from the yoga studio just on the other side of my office door. It was a soothing addition to the background of our conversation. It also meant that the class was nearly over.

“I think so.” Maggie said.

“So instead of taking these words and making them mean you’re not good enough, what else could you make them mean?” I asked.

There was another pause as she thought about my question and then answered hesitantly, “Um, I guess they could mean that I just need to work on changing my presentations a bit?”

I smiled broadly as I responded, “Exactly! What if these words are just feedback to help you move toward that next position? What if you could take them as goals for how to grow your capabilities within this job at this company? What if the feedback wasn’t emotional at all?”

“It could really be that way?” she asked uncertainly.

I nodded. “If you decide that’s how you want to see it, then sure, it could be. It’s a choice that you can make. You don’t have control over the feedback they gave you or what they ultimately decide to do. What you do have control over is what you make the feedback mean and what you do with it now that you have it.”

“But what about the fact that I don’t have any idea how to do what they want me to do? I don’t know how to think about the big picture. What does ‘too detailed’ even mean?” Maggie threw her hands in the air as she spoke.

I could tell she was starting to spin in a direction that wouldn’t be productive. “Let me stop you,” I said. “You do know what to do. Let’s say you take this feedback, and you decide to think about it as a challenge, a way to become an even better employee than you are right now. And a way to set yourself up for that next level, that future promotion. You’re going to make presentations that have a big picture message for the clients with just the right level of detail. If you thought about it that way, how would that make you...