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As a little girl, I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. While playing outside, I would gather the younger kids, and we would ‘play school’. I ended up studying Mathematics at university, followed by seven years of teaching the subject.
So, when my daughter started having math homework, we spent many fine hours together, and I was always able to help out.
Until one day.
In her last year of high school, she was studying calculus. In the beginning, I was able to explain, when she needed help. Then came the day she wanted help on a pretty advanced topic, and I realized that I would have to spend hours and hours getting up to speed. I didn’t have the time, and frankly, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get on top of the material anyway.
I told her as much and asked her to give me a moment.
I looked at the material and said something vague like, “I wonder if these two things are connected or related in some way. And, this symbol reminds me of what you and I worked on a few weeks ago.”
We paused … with me being fairly clueless … but her wheels were turning!
Suddenly she said, “Wait! I get it now! Thanks Mom – that’s all I needed.” And she started furiously plowing through her homework.
What’s my point here?
This reminds me of a core component of coaching. We coaches do not need to know every detail of our coachee’s challenge or situation. Our job is to understand enough in order to start making possible connections, coming up with hypotheses, and noticing limiting assumptions. Coach, take a look from the balcony!
The next time you as coach (or leader, or colleague) find yourself wanting to understand every detail, think twice. Rather than fretting that you are unable, climb into the balcony and start noticing patterns that one can’t easily see when one is in the thick of it.
The chances are that when you communicate what you see from the balcony, you will have given your coachee a valuable clue or two, empowering them to find the path forward on their own.
In other words, when your lack of expertise around specific coachee details makes you feel vulnerable, remember what the real point is: coachee empowerment, not coach power.
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