Wrestling with “I Don’t Know”

There you are – you’ve asked what you think is a great, insightful question. You sit back in your coaching chair, looking forward to hearing what your client has to say, and then comes the response: “I don’t know.”

I doubt there is a coach anywhere who hasn’t at some point been faced with a client’s blank stare and the words “I don’t know” in response to a challenging question.  (Of course, if you’re asking powerful questions, you probably should face a few “I don’t knows” once in a while!)

So, what do you say in that kind of situation? Often, the client is just temporarily stuck and unable to get past a self-judgment. Sometimes, it just takes a completely different question or simply phrasing the question in a slightly different way to help your client find a solution or to begin to work through the problem.

Here are a few possible answers and techniques to the “I don’t know” response that have proven helpful over the years.

• “Who does know?”  (Most of the time, the client will smile, laugh, and say “I guess I do.”)
• “How could you find out?”
• “Let me challenge that ... do you really not know?” (said with a smile)
• “Something is telling me you really do know – maybe the answer is just not bubbling up for you right now. How could you get at that answer that lies deep inside?”
• “Maybe you don’t know [that specific point], but what do you know that’s related to that situation?”
• “If you don’t know, who else do you know who might?”
• “If your [father, mother, boss, colleague, daughter, et al] were here, what would they say?”
• “If the wisest person you know were here with us right now, how would that person respond?”
• Repeat the question again.
• Remain silent.

Which ones of these have you tried? What were the outcomes? What other techniques or questions have you used with success? Please share below and help us build each other’s coaching tool chests!

Brenda Bence

Brenda Bence is an experienced senior executive coach, dynamic trainer and speaker, internationally-recognized branding expert, and author of four award-winning corporate and personal branding books.

With an MBA from Harvard Business School, Brenda spent the first 20 years of her career building mega brands for Fortune 100 companies, where she was a senior executive responsible for billion-dollar businesses across four continents and 50 countries.

In 2002, Brenda left the corporate world and founded BDA International. Now, with clients that span the globe and with offices in both the U.S. and Asia, Brenda travels the world speaking, training, and coaching individuals, entrepreneurs, and corporations to greater success through creative yet practical brand development.

April - Spring is here!

Spring has certainly arrived.Warmer weather, flowers everywhere and a fresh feeling in the air.

Whether you are celebrating Easter or Passover or any other seasonal festival, the chances are you've been doing some cleaning and sorting, organizing and maybe disposing.

I love that it's the perfect opportunity to think about what we really need; what we don't have space for and what we can let go of.

It seems to me that this is so important when we apply it to running a business.

It's also what happens in a good coaching session.

I want to explore this on a few levels.  Will you join me?

So let's take your physical space.  How do you feel when you go into your office and sit down to work? 
Is the space comfortable and clutter free? 
Do you feel stressed about the filing you need to do or the drawers filled with papers that you haven't yet sorted? 
Does your office become a storage place for toys, bags or junk belonging to other members of the family?  I can really relate to this one!

And let's consider your mental and emotional space.Are you living in stories of stress and overwhelm?
Do you have a scarcity mindset – are you worried about having enough income or the rising costs of your business and life?
Do you work too hard and support your clients, family and friends without considering your own needs?

Well, spring is here.
It's time to clean up your life!

Here are 2 simple ideas – no excuses, do it today!

1. Take a morning to sort out your physical space.  Clean out the drawers, tidy your table and get rid of the items that should not be there.  You've been avoiding this forever, but it'll only take a few hours to sort out. 
2. Acknowledge that we are living in an abundant universe.  We don't have to create abundance, we simply have to recognize and open up to what is already there.  Once you truly accept this, you're life and business will change, promise!!!

Lisa Bloom, PCC

Take a walk, breathe in the beautiful sounds and scents of spring, and create the story of your perfect spring day – rebirth, re-energize and celebrate as your story creates your reality!

Lisa Bloom, PCC is founder of Story Coach Inc. and the Certified Story Coach Program.  Download her ebook ‘Using Stories to Get Great Clients’ at http://www.story-coach.com.

Learn how to listen so that others can do the same

"Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery." Dr. Joyce Brothers

There is a big difference between being heard and being listened to. In any organization, it is fundamental that any decision or plan that is communicated, to be efficiently applied on time. However, my practical experience in business shows that all this can only be achieved with one cost, a cost that fewer and fewer managers are willing to pay for. Working with Alex as a coach, has given me the chance to observe the impact of turning a work environment into a complete “business machine.”

He was a manager whose decisions and actions were exclusively based on lists: of the tasks that must be fulfilled, of deadlines, programs etc. Almost every employee had a stash of papers on the desk with every task that must be finished by the end of the day. Usually, tasks were fulfilled and everyone always had something to do, leaving little time for communication or other explanations. The business was running like a machine. Sometimes, employees had to work twice as much, making them think only about ways of diminishing that stash of papers, without encouraging them to be creative or to bring new ideas…At one point however, this mechanism started to fall apart, as people became used with the work at the office, but with a pointless job as well. Always worrying about the work that they had to do left little time to focus on efficiency or bringing new clients. Nobody was stressed because there was no such thing as a priority; everyone always received an email or a list with all the things that they had to do, but without having a global view of the situation.

The business continued with this working system until Alex asked his key employees, as always, to finish a set of documents for the next day. But the deadline was not respected because everyone still had to finish the work that was left from the previous days when they couldn’t finish every task. But Alex became aware of the situation the next day, when he was supposed to use the required documents for an important press release. It was then when Alex realized that he was not being listened by his people.

There is, indeed, a big difference between being heard and being listened, but most people are too busy to notice it. In any successful business, every decision, action or even minute counts. Many managers believe that there is not enough time to reflect on what should be improved and waste important resources on making other people act on time. It’s easier to be heard, to teach people how to react mechanically, without showing them the big picture, but on a long term, this system will undoubtedly fail, making people lose their potential or the possibility to build performance. An easy, but inefficient way to run a business, is also the one in which you witness peoples’ regress, who prove that they don’t listen, and do nothing about it because you think “that’s just the way they are”. But without action, they will be like that for a long time.

In short, how can you put your soul into logic? How can you afford to invest in feedback or in follow-up sessions where you check what has been done and what not? How can you show your employees what the company objectives are?

The biggest difference between being heard and being listened to is that in the former situation, people act from a mechanical reflex and  are not responsible for the results -  in the latter, they act because they understand certain processes and are able to make connections.

Rodica Obancea, ACC

Listening is an active process which creates the environment for development and new ideas.

So before you invest in convincing your clients to listen and buy, make sure that you convinced your team to listen and act, and in order to achieve this, you must face the situation, and see if you are being heard or…listened to!

Rodica Obancea, ACC, is passionate about change, emergence, living systems. She works within business environment, with managers, teams for achieving ambitious results. For more information, visit www.successcoaching.ro.

Coaching Tool: When Your Client Feels Stuck

Appreciative Dialogue is based on the popular approach to organizational change called Appreciative Inquiry that focuses people on what’s working rather than trying to fix what’s not. This is an excellent technique to use when your client feels stuck and can’t solve a problem. Taking an appreciative approach, they see their issue through a new lens, not the normal critical lens assigned to problem solving. They jump outside of the box that their logical brain likes to play in.

In fact, the sorting and arranging of information involved in typical problem-solving processes works against their ability to see the problem in a new light. They can try to shift and rearrange what they know, but their thoughts end up swirling around in circles. Many times they will give up and keep doing what they have always done.

Appreciative Dialogue goes beyond assessing capabilities—what they can do—to being mindful of everything they can access to create a peak experience. As the coach, you guide them to explore everything that contributed to the creation of peak experiences in the past and then consciously apply those contributions—strengths, values, gifts, emotions, attitudes, and perspective—to a challenge they are currently facing.

As a result, your clients can align their best energies to powerfully conquer roadblocks and create amazing results. Here is the script you can use:

Step One: Set aside current issues. Instead, think of a time in your past when you felt energized, significant, and fulfilled. This moment could have happened yesterday or years ago. It could have been when you completed a project or event or when you were doing something special. Can you recall a particular peak experience?

Step Two: With this memory in mind, answer the following question:

What five things did you contribute to creating this peak experience?
- Strengths, Talents, Gifts
- Emotions/Attitude
- Values
- Unique Sense/Perspective

Step Three: Looking at your list of contributions, what can you carry forward to the challenge you are now facing? What is possible for you now?

The intent of Appreciative Dialogue is to teach the brain how to make the shift from problems to possibilities. How can your client look at the present moment in light of their past peak experiences? New ideas will appear in the conversation as you connect the positive past with the present moment.

You can also use Appreciative Dialogue to extend and repeat a positive experience. The focus is on “what can I continue?” Your clients detail what they did to create the glorious moment so they know specifically what to repeat.

Remember to have these conversations often so your clients can determine what mindset and energy patterns will best serve them. The results will help them adjust and revitalize their daily activities.

Adapted from Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction by Marcia Reynolds, PsyD, MCC and a past president of the ICF. Contact her at Marcia@outsmartyourbrain.com.