Coaching for Impact by Vassilis Antonas

Author:Vassilis Antonas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Before concluding the section on giving feedback, it may be useful to share some tips in bullet-point form:

• Don’t take it for granted that your coachee wants to receive feedback. Ask first.

• Present your opinions and assumptions in context and not as facts.

• Give feedback on one issue at a time. Usually, there is one central theme anyway.

• Set your tone to suit your client’s style and personality.

• Timing is of the essence: too soon and rapport is lost. Too late and sensitivity is hindered.

• Focus primarily on the behaviour and then on the person.

And, of course, remember that unwanted feedback can be shaming and traumatic. Everyone has their own pace and style and, according to John Whitmore (1992, p. 150): “If resistance persists, coachees are either resisting being more aware or being more responsible.” Which conveniently moves us on to the next section.

Receiving feedback should form part of the coach’s (self-)assessment and should take place unofficially throughout the coaching or consulting engagement and officially, perhaps even statistically, at the end or during the follow-up phase. Did the coachee find the sessions useful? Did you challenge and support in equal measure? Was the outcome sustainable? Was rapport established? We should be open and try to receive feedback in a non-defensive way. After all, if we wish to pursue excellence, we need to constantly improve. For the narcissists among us, this is a good framework that will render our shortcomings bearable.

At the same time, it is vital that we “train” our clients in the art of collecting feedback. It is rare that I do not assign this task to my coachees after the third or fourth session, even after a 360 has been conducted. Written statistical surveys cannot replace a face-to-face exchange, and an executive proactively seeking to improve is far more powerful than an executive who has been assigned to collect feedback through a tool in the context of their coaching assignment.

The first thing I convey to my clients, especially the ones with a tendency to engage in endless defensive rhetoric regarding feedback they have received and the circumstances surrounding it, is that regardless of how well we explain or rationalise our behaviour, its impact remains the same. There is a very specific beginning to a sentence, which allows us to diagnose that someone is about to fight feedback (or helpful suggestions and recommendations): It goes something like this: “Yes, but …”

It is my opinion that this “Yes, but …” is possibly the most counterproductive position ever adopted (and yes, I have used absolutes deliberately in this statement). Eric Berne (1964) expanded on the theme of “Yes, but …” in his landmark text, Games People Play, concluding that a series of “yes, buts” leads either to silence or forces the recipient of the “yes, but” to agree with the – usually stubbornly helpless – position of the “yes, but-er”.

The trick here is to engage in the “yes, but …” dialogue for just about long enough to produce a respectable volume

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