I’ve been lucky to observe hundreds of careers interactions in my work, some of them brilliant, some of them not so much. The brilliant interviews make my day and remind me why I came into this profession. The show what a difference we can make. The less brilliant encounters can be frustrating, as it is often not easy to put your finger on where it went wrong. I’ve started to see a few common themes in those interactions that don’t have so much impact.
A typical problem can be this: the discussion starts really well and the practitioner shows a lot of empathy, is a skilled active listener and takes a genuine interest in the client. They lay all the right foundations, explore the story in lots of depth, identify a whole range of issues, but somehow they never move forward. The client leaves feeling they have got some things off their chest, but they are no further forward in terms of thinking differently or knowing what to do next.
Depending on your perspective you might diagnose a few problems:
- Not finding the right powerful question
- Not making useful suggestions or broadening out ideas
- Not sharing information about the labour market
- Asking too many questions, interrupting the clients thinking
- Not finding connections or drawing out themes in the story.
I think that any of these issues could be at the root of the problem, but what is really needed is for the coach to take a pause and give themselves time to think about what is needed. This can be the real value of a summary. It is time to stop and reflect on what has been said. This is also a good time to revisit the original purpose of the interaction – has it changed? A lot of issues and problems have been discussed – now is the time to rephrase those issues as positive goals.
So, to give yourself time to pause and focsus:
- Summarise the story so far
- Remind your client of the original purpose and see if it has changed
- Re-frame the issues and problems you have identified as needs that can be supported
- Agree what you aim to accomplish in the time you have left
EXAMPLE
“We have talked about how you have lost confidence in the time you have been caring for your family, and you aren’t sure how to approach the jobs market. You are not sure if you want to go back into a finance job or maybe do something else that uses your skills. At the beginning, you said you wanted information about accountancy jobs in the area, but I wonder whether it might be more useful to look at other ideas first – what do you think?”
“Yes, i thought that I wanted to go straight back into accountancy, but the more I think about it, the more I want a change of direction. But I just don’t feel confident about applying for jobs and my skills seem out of date.”
“You’ve talked about lack of confidence several times. Is that something that you would like to work on? We could spend the rest of the time looking at how to build your confidence and also thinking of some alternative directions that you could explore.”
“Yes, that sounds like a good idea. If I felt more confident, and had some ideas, I think I could do the research myself really.”
In this example, the lack of confidence is the high leverage issue that will make the most difference to the client (who is perfectly capable of researching the jobs market herself if sufficiently motivated). However, without this pause, the coach and client might easily have spent their time looking at job vacancies instead of addressing it.
This time taken to pause and refocus will ensure that both coach and client are clear about what they want to achieve with the remaining time, whether that is new ideas, new skills, more information or a clear plan of action.
Career Coach Express 