In the first part of this article, titled Games Executive Coaches Play , we looked at what goes into the making of a good coach and, also, how coaches inadvertently play games with the individuals they coach that can have an undesirable impact. Today, we take a look at some of these games that executive coaches end up playing and how the problems can be addressed.

Going for games

Like with any growing profession, coaching has its challenges. The biggest challenge is when coaches play games without realising they do. This arises out of lack of strong fundamentals in coaching. With credentials as a license, they unleash these games on the unsuspecting coachees. I have captured many such interesting “games that coaches may play” and how organisations can guard against such possibilities by carefully screening potential coaches and by periodical review once a coach has been signed up.

China Clay: If not handled carefully, the coaching conversations can go out of control. It is an established approach in coaching that the “content belongs to the coachee” and the “process to the coach.” Having said this, the trained coach should guard against the content becoming too much to handle. This happens when the coachee delivers a laundry list of issues he or she is confronted with that require solutions. China clay as a game kicks in when the coach lets this gush happen on the part of the coachee. Guarding against the game requires that the coach listens attentively but sets expectations right in terms of the one or two issues that the coaching relationship should focus on and remind the coachee of the goal set for the coaching relationship at the outset and with the sponsor’s agreement.

Reverse Gear: Reverse gear is an interesting game coaches can get into. The manifestation of this is when the coach notices that the coachee has a special skill or talent that the coach has been wanting to develop and begins to use the meetings to learn that skill from the coachee. The focus shifts from the coachee being helped to the coach being helped.

Balloon-shooting: You have seen this in exhibitions in your town. Hundreds of little balloons are hosted on a board and you get a gun to shoot at them. And you get a false sense of joy in doing so. This appears to be an adult-to-adult transaction, but it actually is an adult-to-child relationship. The manifestation of this in coaching happens when the coach goes on addressing day-to-day issues and challenges of the coachee and both the coach and coachee feel good. The deeper problem for which the coaching contract was established remains unaddressed.

Top-gearing: This game is played when the coach challenges the coachee beyond their capacity. This is a difficult area for even a well-trained coach. Successful coaching demands that coaches employ challenging questions in order to get the coachees to come out of their “zone of complacence” and stop playing “wooden leg.” However, care needs to be exercised on how much to stretch the coachee. This is not something that can be taught but coaches gain this from experience. Following the rule-book and shooting challenging questions beyond the coachee’s capacity will lead to more problems than what the coaching is trying to solve.

Model-O-mania: This is the most popular of all the games that coaches may play. Most coaching frameworks involve an acronym of some sort that is meant to make the coaching framework easy to remember and practice. For no reason that I can fathom, many of them are four-lettered! It is not only fine, but is actually useful. However, the game kicks in when the half-baked coach follows the framework mindlessly and goes even to the extent of lecturing the coachee which stage of the framework they are now working on! Effective coaches just use the framework for what it is and do not get caught in the “cage.”

Brandanoia: Brandanoia is a game that some coaches regularly get into. This manifests when the coach often intellectualises with the coachee as to what their problem is. Profound demonstration of the theoretical thoroughness that the coach has comes into play, overwhelming the coachee. Just as any doctor will not scare the patient, but briefly describe the problem and focus more on reassurance and resolution; good coaches will desist from branding the challenge and showing it off to the coachee.

Chair-marking: A second cousin to benchmarking that all of us are familiar with. In benchmarking, there is a lot of data collection on best practices from around the industry. The version that our half-baked coaches play is chair-marking. Here, they do not go around but sit in their chair opposite the coachee and collect as much information about the ‘training and development’ practices in the coachee’s organisation, who are the other coaches, who are other potential candidates for coaching and the like. This is done during the precious coaching meeting time and is meant to explore how the coach can penetrate into other consulting possibilities within the organisation. When such a game is played, coachees gets frustrated and disengage with the coach sooner than later.

Correct the situation

Well, the best approach is to exercise care and caution in identifying and signing up with the right coach and seeing beyond the liberally-issued coaching certification. A reputation check for what the coach-to-be is a must. Secondly, the sponsor manager or the HR should review how the coaching is progressing once in two months or so during the coaching contract. This is not to suspect, but to inspect so that the progress is monitored and measured.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, these games are not necessarily played consciously by the less-than-effective coaches. In building competence, we do recognise four stages: (1) unconscious incompetence; (2) conscious incompetence; (3) conscious competence; and finally (4) unconscious competence. Learning interventions move people up from 1 to 4. So, functioning effectively becomes a habit and second nature.

With coaching professionals, the illustrative list of games presented play out from their unconscious incompetence. They just do not know they are victims of these games they play. Organisations have the responsibility to ensure they do not end up being hooked with such coaches.

Concluded.

(The author is an Executive Coach and an HR Advisor to corporate houses.)

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