The Agile Business Innovation‘s Podcast

Executive Coaching: Step 4: Types of Intervention

What types of interventions can you do as an executive coach?.

I want to take you through Eric Berne’s eight operations to illustrate the types of interventions. I will illustrate interventions like crystallisation and confrontation. What you actually do is informed by the contract or agreement about goals that you made with your client.

Berne believed that doing the interventions in the right order would help you to realise the contract quickly. I don't think executive coaching is a linear process. It's an iterative process that goes round and round until the client is ready to embrace change.

Executive Coaching: Step 4: Intervention planning

How do you know what to do to get a client unstuck in executive coaching?

A lot of my students say: now I know what’s going on, but what do I actually do with a client? The ICF, International Coaching Federation has a guideline of criteria for interventions. In this vlog I would like to take you through possible interventions.

Executive Coaching: Step 3 is Problem Definition

Problem definition in executive coaching is a science and an art. Where should you focus your interventions? A client will tell you about all sorts of problems at all sorts of levels. It is really important in the coaching that you help them discern what problems are root causes, and which are symptoms. This influences the order of intervention.

In this podcast we will talk about three levels of problem definition. Clients can be stuck at the behavioural level - for instance in the way they communicate or express themselves. They can be stuck at the relational level - for instance in the games they play with themselves and others. Or they can be stuck at the existential level, in the narrative they have built up about themselves, others and life.

For an executive coach it is really important to understand at what level your client is stuck.

Executive Coaching: Step 2 is Contracting

Contracting is really important in executive coaching. In the contract the client and coach agree how they're going to work together. Obviously, in coaching, you cannot guarantee a result. But you can agree what you're aiming for, the steps you're going to take, and we can hold each other accountable regarding the process.

Eric Berne called the contract a “bilateral commitment to a well-defined course of action.” In that definition, you can see that Berne was very pragmatic. He focused on doing, not on thinking or feeling, as the result of coaching. A well-defined course of action means that you agree step one, step two, step three, etc. to reach the agreed goals.

There are three levels to contracting in executive coaching: the administrative contract, the professional contract and the psychological contract.

Executive Coaching: Step 1 is Contact

We talked about definitions and levels and what steps you take within an executive coaching process. In the following vlogs I want to take you through each executive coaching step one at a time. This first step is called the contact step.

From the moment an executive contacts me to be coached I am in some form of contract or alliance with them. Let's say they've heard someone else speak about me and they call me: Hi, Jim, has talked about you. I'm looking for an executive coach, are you willing to work with me? I always ask to see them live the first time.

Sometimes they make the appointment, sometimes their secretary does it, which is a complication in your executive coaching relationship, which I’ll talk about later. Then we meet or they call. I usually look at their company, or their own profile, or some of their blogs to get some sense of who they are beforehand. Then they call me and tell me their story. And so it starts....

TAO9: Conflict Resolution: How Can I Change MY Old Story?

I have talked about the ladder of conflict resolution. In this vlog I will talk about conflict resolution. Two of the things I want to talk about is learning from difficult behaviors and how to engage in problem resolution creatively.

Learning from difficult behaviors is important. My opponents have taught me more than my friends. They have strengthened my resolution to focus on what's important in my life. That's been an invaluable lesson. One of the things I've learned from opposition is to learn from difficult behaviors. There are three things I want to say about that.

TAO9: Conflict management : Are You In A Healthy Or Unhealthy Conflict?

Today, I'd like to talk about conflict. Last night, we had riots in the major cities in Holland against the COVID measures. We can support this as an expression of democracy? Or as a paradox: Because how can you demonstrate against a virus and then against the virus measures? I'm not sure about the answer. What I am sure about it is how to create creative conflict.

TA09: Types of Conflict

In a conflict, you're infinitely separate, but also at the same time inseparable, because you're dependent. You want different things, but you need each other to achieve your goals.

It’s really important to remember, the conflict seems to be in the relationship. Actually the conflict is also in you. You may be acting out whatever split you've got in yourself. It's good to check. Is this really a fight I'm having with this other person? Or is it a fight I'm having with me? The path to resolution is sometimes just making contact with the other and with yourself: “Where are you at? Where am I at? Do we actually need each other to resolve this or not?”.

TA09 - Phases of Conflict

There are riots in Holland against the COVID measures. There are riots in the United States on the White House steps. But what is going on? Is it that we're getting rigid under stress? Is it that people are losing a sense of perspective at the moment, because they're isolated in their own homes? It's time to talk about how to create healthy conflict. We've talked about what conflict is, and we've talked about the types of conflict at the moment. Now I want to talk about phases of conflict and conflict management styles.

TA09 - Conflict Management Styles

At the moment, I'm really interested in conflict, it's because of COVID, but also because of some of the ethical issues I'm faced with at the moment in my profession. People are sliding down the scale of stress and conflict in these extreme times. It's almost like there's a split between people who are going for individual well being and people who are going for communal well being. If we continue making that split worse, our conflicts will get worse as well.

This is difficult to deal with if we don't realize we're all dependent on each other. COVID almost becomes irrelevant if we didn't do anything about climate change. How is it that we can mobilize billions of euros for COVID vaccines in 6 months when we can't deal with climate change in the past 20 years?Is it that we don't recognize that we're dependent on each other and all the big problems are inter related? How can we stay in dialogue about this?