Take a YES! Approach to Coaching

In improv, the term side coaching refers to in-the-moment directions called out by a workshop director as performers practice onstage scenes. Side coaching requires the performers to absorb the director’s words while continuing uninterrupted with the scene – a pure multitasking situation if there ever was one.

It seems as if the word “coaching” is used in many different contexts these days - life coaching, business coaching, performance coaching, sports coaching, etc. – each of which carries its own special set of meanings.

For the Yes! Leader who wants to make a positive difference in the lives of his followers, I think it pays to focus on three key aspects of coaching:

1 – The coach’s role is to help the coachee bridge the gap between where he is (the Current Reality) and where he wants to go (the Goal). This is called “Coaching Through the Gap.” Quite simply, coaching is a vehicle to help the coachee on his journey to improved performance.

2 – The coach is more a Facilitator than an Advisor. Coaching proceeds on the presumption that the coachee has the best answers to her own issues. The coach’s primary role is not to advise the coachee what to do but to ask powerful questions to stimulate the coachee’s thinking toward finding those answers. This “teach them to fish” approach builds the coachee’s confidence in her own abilities and leads to sustained performance.

3 – The coach should encourage the coachee not to get bogged down in the Current Reality. Focusing on why things aren’t working can keep the coachee mired in a sense of his own powerlessness to advance through the gap. By contrast, having a clear, well-defined goal will help energize the coachee, inspire him to overcome barriers, and provide a beacon to lead him forward. By asking future-focused questions such as “What will be the benefits to you when you reach your goal?”, the coach can help the coachee paint a vivid mental picture of the goal he wants to attain.

The Active Questioning method I described in my previous article can be particularly helpful to the Yes! Leader who wants to realize this positive, empowering approach to coaching. For example, in a coaching conversation, it’s very common for a coachee to start listing all of the barriers (usually external to the coachee) that are causing the Current Reality and keeping him from working through the gap. This tendency can quickly lead to griping, finger-pointing, and shirking of personal responsibility for changing the situation. 


To keep the coachee from getting stuck in this negative, disempowering spiral, the coach can counter each supposed barrier by asking Active Questions such as, “What are you doing to overcome that barrier? What can you do to overcome it?” Such a challenge can remind the coachee of his accountability (and capacity) for making change happen.