THE ART OF CHALLENGING CLIENTS

Coaching is about challenging. That’s fundamental. In fact, the Meta-Coaching System itself was structured from the beginning with challenge at its center. Modeling coaching after Graham Richardson, I picked up on his style as being “ruthless challenging” and later designed the Facilitation Model around two themes—compassion and challenge. The result is that the coach should be compassionately challenging. How about you and your skill of challenging?

Challenge shows up in the coaching skills. We put it under “support.” One way to support your client is to challenge her. It is to refuse to let him sell himself short. People tend to do that. Many clients, even coaching clients, have a tendency to opt for “the path of the least resistance,” to get back to their comfort zone and to what’s familiar. What they need is challenge. They need to be challenged to catch a bigger and bolder vision of life, of what they are capable of, of what they can contribute and achieve.