What is meant by
Transformational Coaching?
Let’s discuss
transformation at three levels: at the human level, in the process of
coaching, and within the Coach.
Even while a child is in the womb, a sense of self begins to
form – call it an ego. Within moments of
birth, a baby realizes that it is different in body, thought than the ‘other’
outside. It senses a notion of this is my body, my thoughts, etc.
Transformation is Change. (read Eric Ericson, Seven stages of Man).
This self forms an identity over time, a process that comes
from human interaction, through socialization and re-calibration. The movement
is two fold: socially at one level, for deeper engagement, both to relate and
express. At another level, the journey is inwards at the same time: a deeper
self awareness of the Self. The connect between the two, is crucial for social
and personal maturation. It is a process of seeking simultaneity, both for
validation and confirmation from outside and self affirmation from within. Even
as one exists socially at the circumference, one is in touch with the inner
center of one’s being.
The continuum of Identity and Self, exists on another
horizontal level: the continuum of location that creates Role Taking, and that
allows for evocation for role taking, meaning making, choice making, action
taking.
Let me show this visually below:
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Identity
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King Rama
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Location
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Role
Taking
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Lord Krishna
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Self
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As we journey from the Known to the Unknown, to each of us a
Journey of a 1000 faces (Joseph Campbell), we embark on a great adventure. At
one level, the goal is to seek financial success, achievement at work, etc, but
soon with time a sense of inner purpose gets discovered. Let’s call this
Personal Purpose.
The true aim of Transformational Coaching is to move the
Client to this path: towards discovering one’s Personal Purpose. Most Coaches
wonder what powerful questions to ask. Let’s pause here: There are No
Questions, one should ask, from a ‘tool kit’ – all exploration must come from
the emergent coaching process anchored in the ‘here and now’. It must come from
where the client is in the process and not drawn from outside. It is about
presence: meeting the client where he/she is at. The transformation process is a healing
process that allows the client to work with himself. To use the energy that exists and acts as a
mirror. Deep Coaching at this level creates disturbance in client, and the
coach must be the calming force while the tempest rages around. One has to
enter the doorways that are opened by the client, not creating one’s own
purpose doorways. Being where client is, staying with client, and going where
client wishes to go. Staying with heart rather than head. Attuning to the
clients deeper self, and going within, with one’s own vulnerability and with
authenticity.
Its like two dancers, soon the dance is what emerges, the
dancers disappear.
Just practice by itself will not do: Practice with bad habits is ineffective. It goes against the notion of practiced knowledge, of being a skilled technician.
For the coach too, it’s a very personal journey. On a
practical basis, one thinks, that clients come for solutions to issues, so its
important to help meet this expectation. However, its critical that the Coach
should be on a journey to support life providing ‘Choice and Opportunity’
rather than ‘drama and situation’. Clients come to Coaches because they feel
disempowered. Clients tend to explain the phenomenon, describes it as a ‘problem’
and searches for the ‘solution’. To help
explore the sub stratum of interpersonal, intrapersonal and intra psychic
dynamics surface for insights with client.
At a Vedantic level, there is the experience,
the experiencer, and the experiencer being aware of the experience itself. There
is no need for ‘seeking’ for something; we just have to remember who we are. We
are Lovable, Competent, and Compassionate and we are Unique beings.
