My Challenging Client — again

After fighting with myself with my “challenging” client, I have come to a different position: what this client wants is for me to be a sort of consultant, and I was really reacting negatively to this. Last week we had a session where I spoke of my experience as a business owner, of the path I took, of the different difficulties that business owners go through, and at the end she said: Again, I learned a lot from you, why can’t all the sessions be like this?

Of course, I feel we did not advance much in the way of her agreeing to do specific field work, but I did notice a bit of less resistance to do so. And I wonder whether, if we continued this way for a while, it would be easier for her to actually get around to doing it.

The issue is, naturally, that we are both students in an academic situation, and we are both supposed to know what is expected of us in this peer-client work. And I believe that if I suggested to her that we drop it, and to please give me an evaluation as if we had done the 12 sessions, she would do it (there was a point at which she was really saying things like: we still have xxx sessions? I was hoping there were less!). But I do not want to do that, and I have made enough noise in several classes about this to ensure that now I will not even be tempted to do it!

At any rate,  one of the clearest benefits I am getting from this is living a situation where I am getting resistances from the client, without being able to drop her, at least not without paying a relatively high price. And how to make the best of this.

So, when a client wants mostly consulting, what should we do? Actually, in my real world coaching practice, I offer a mix of consulting and coaching without calling it consulting. It’s just that it seems difficult to offer business coaching without some sort of consulting or directives: a book to read, some activities to do, etc. And the activities are not what the client came up with (it might take a few months before the client comes up with something like: defining my services from the point of view of the client, and focusing on pains with emotional content). I even have a sort of path that I use as a guide. How much more directive can I get?

With my peer client, however, the issue was not just that I was being directive, but rather that she would not do what I had suggested (and she had agreed to) as field work, so perhaps I was being too directive and not letting her come up with her own ideas. It’s true that she always rather I speak than her, but there is something here different than just not doing field work.

I still do not know what it is. I do know that until now I wished the problem would go away. Right now, I rather think that it is here for a reason, which I still have not figured out.

The listening place

I am slowly getting more and more classes under my belt, but especially I am getting much more coaching under by belt: I coach at every opportunity I get in class or in the CoP, and I am also doing my peer clients, and my paying clients.

Slowly things are falling into place, or at least into “a” place where I am getting more confidence. I remember one man in one of the classes, quite a while ago, said to me that he always volunteered to coach, when the opportunity came up in class, and he coached me on the issue that I was reticent (i.e. embarrased) to coach “in front” of so many people.

While I did not really like his way of approaching the coaching with me, since I found it a bit mechanically inclined, with one NLP technique after another, and trying to get them all in — or so it seemed to me, he did one thing that was very interesting. He said he had a problem with something, and would I be willing to coach him on it, for a few minutes. I said I would and started to ask him questions… and immediately got so involved in the talk that I forgot about the others.

At the end he said something to the effect that if you just concentrate on the client, on helping him, on being there for him, the rest will fall away.

After that class I started to volunteer to coach at every opportunity. One day, I came across Angela Bird’s class (my first experience with her) where she spoke about different levels of listening. When she said: “listen so hard that you forget you exist”, something seemed to really fall into place for me again.

So, I have found a place where I can go to when I am with a client: the listening place. When I am there, all sorts of intuitions, ideas, and structures start to come into my mind… and I know it’s the other person who is putting them there. At least I can tell when it is so, and when it is probably my mind trying to do it.

The listening place, a place where I connect with what is common between me and the other person.

Challenging Client

One of my peer clients is really giving me a hard time, or rather “I am having a hard time with her”! I get the feeling that she tries to get to the limit as much as she can. What do I mean by this? For instance, she tries to hang up without agreeing to a next session, saying that she does not know her schedule, and then does not call or write for a week, when I email her she says, “sorry” I forgot, or I was busy and did not do my homework, then she says “can we do it this evening?”. She also says that she would rather not use email, but call (but since we are using Skype, we need to be connected at the same time). She just said that she did not know her schedule and that there was someone very important that she had to attend to, so she had to hang up.

During the sessions, also, she seems to be a little bit “all over the place”. She never yet has brought the “homework” done, and she always has reasons, like “I was doing it, but I am very practical and I can’t decide how my business will be if I don’t know if my employees will be on salary or on commision”. Or “I am not really practical and can’t concentrate on this sort of thing”.

Lately, she has decided that she really did not want, or need, a business coach. She really has difficulty focusing on what she wants to achieve, from my point of view.  But really that is not the issue, or where I perceive the difficulty.

I perceive it mostly in the way she seems to resist commiting to specific homework, agreeing to write down what she understands she is supposed to do, showing up for most of the sessions (on one occasion she did not answer emails for about two weeks, while I was waiting to arrange the next session, and then it turned out that she had gone on holiday without warning… and without much apology for not letting me know when she returned)… Last week she missed her session, and eventually — two hours late – she sent an email with the text: “sorry I just got home, what about tomorrow, are  you available?”. When I answered back for her to please confirm next day at 6 p.m.  she did not answer until the next day! Actually, anything that smells of committing to something, or being precise, seems to really put her off, and she starts to squirm.

During one of my ICA classes, I brought up the issue, and one of my peer students seemed to recognize the peer client and said that she had had a similar problem. We exchanged notes, and it turned out that it was the same client. I think she’s going to drop her, but I am already at session 9 and I am hanging on to get my 12 sessions… So, there is a sense of incongruency: if this was a paying client I would certainly have dropped her by now, but since I have an interest beyond the client’s advancement (my graduation requirements) I am putting up with situations that I would not normally admit.

And, worse, I am perhaps not modelling being a coach, or coaching, in a way that could be of benefit both to her and to me. My personal view is that there are other types of psychological problems at play, and I can’t really do very much with this. I am afraid that, no matter how it ends, the resulting sensation will not turn out to be very positive.

Graduation Requirements – Moving Forward

I managed to finish what I call a first draft of the ICA Research Paper. I read, and re-read it. I sent it to DeeDee, my peer coach, for review and she got back to me in a few hours!

Anyways, I think I will read it again and either send it in, or, at least, consider it “done”. I did a lot of work on extracting the information I was looking for from differente sources, but I am left with the following doubt: Did I just look for the quotes and information that underlined my starting point of view? Did I not skip over or jump anything that undermined my assertion?

It may feel silly to ask this question, in a way, since that is exactly what I am supposed to be doing in a Research Paper, right? Putting forth a point of view, or investigating something. However, I think there was no possibility of coming to an opposing conclusion from the one I started with. Among other things, it would mean that I might need to start over again with a different paper.

Next step is the Coaching Model, and, after that, the Power Tool. I am totally at a loss with the latter. And with the former, I am having quite a bit of discussion in teleclasses and with peer coaches: what ICA asks as a coaching model doesn’t really coincide with what they teach IS a model.

The models I am seeing sent by other students and mentioned in classes are more along the lines of “Processes”, i.e. what happens over time, in a vectorial type of way: we go from here to here, stopping here, here and here. The models in the course notes, however, are more regarding how we do it: Listen, Acknowledge, Feedback, Action. Or Explore Values, Set Goals, Design Action, Check Results… rince, and repeat. 

So they are very different things, and I am at a slight loss. I have come to decide that it is the latter that they are looking for, although this would be a sort of inconsistency with their course notes.

My Peer Clients

I finally seem to have found the two peer clients I was missing. Both are women, and both seem to want to develop their business. Actually, all three of my peer clients are women (including Mary, whom I had from a bit before).

I am noticing “S” a bit on the down side after her 4th session. I think I have to bring up the subject of the initial euphoria and the subsequent “letdown”. I did not do it at the beginning because she seemed really gung-ho, ready to go, waiting a week was too much for her, etc. and I did not go through my usual talk about what to expect, highs-lows, the saboteur, session intake, etc. I think the fact that she is a therapist also had something to do with my not doing it. As if I did not want to go into “trivial” details. I will do it next session.

What I am doing now much more is the Value search, and not by asking what values they have, but by indirect questioning (Three people you admire; three reasons, or characteristics you admire in them, the 5 box Real Goal Exercise, etc.) that really help me get an idea of who they are, and what they actually believe in. What they like and enjoy. I think it also helps them progress in that direction. The idea that any movement, in any direction, will need to be based on their values, is a really solid foundation and it seems to really ring true with them.

It also helps me to see if I can/should push more here or there….

So, with all this, what I see is that I need to stick by my “model” or procedure, or at least if I move away from it, that it be for a good reason… and I can’t really think of a good one right now, actually.

Action Steps:

1. Write down, if I don’t have it, these initial steps (value identification, what they really like to do, real goals, etc. — also Process (highs, lows) and the Saboteur) and have them handy when I am coaching.
2. Write the quote on stepping back, and about going into an empty space and about letting intution work, and listening in Level III, and have THAT handy.
3. Really keep the list of coaching skills and competencies handy and see, after the session, which I have used.