A Surprising Thing About Coaching

Surprise is an interesting emotion! Unlike disgust, which always carries a negative theme, and happiness, which emotes such a positive feeling. 

Surprise is an emotion that can go either way, positive or negative, and can shift from negative to positive in the blink of an eye.

Here is what I mean:

“Surprise, you are getting a raise!” Unexpected and positive. How fun!

“Surprise, we are downsizing and your services are no longer needed.” Unexpected and not so fun.

I can even recall when my wife Kim told me we were going to have our third child around 27 years ago…”Surprise, I am pregnant!” I think were her words. 

“Holy Crap!” Unexpected and a feeling of fear, replaced in a nanosecond by the feeling of overwhelming joy. “Really, that is amazing!” followed by an unexplainable feeling of love and closeness with my spouse.

Surprise has a way of intensifying our other emotions.  According to Ingred Fatell Lee, author of the book Joyful: The Surprising Power Of Ordinary Things To Create Extraordinary Happiness, surprise acts like a magnifying glass for joy by giving the tiny pleasure heightened significance.

Surprise is one of the six primary emotions identified by psychologist Paul Ekman and is so necessary as a human because it can quickly divert our attention from one thing to another. Surprise is a kind of a warning signal to say “Hey, pay attention to this new thing, that other thing you were concentrating on needs to be deprioritized and this new thing needs some focus.”

Surprise ranges in intensity from amazement to a mild distraction.  

I Was Surprised

I was recently having a conversation with a friend who was trying to get a better idea of what my coaching business was all about.

“Tell me what you do again?” he asked.

“I help people get an idea of what their leadership looks like,” I told him.  “By using some assessments, and interviewing people they interact with, I give them a mosaic of what their leadership looks like. I then come alongside them and help them make any changes they see in their approach.  In a nutshell, that is what I do.”

“And they pay you for that?” He said to me, rather surprised!  “Sounds like you get paid to be people’s friend.”

Interestingly, I had just read an interesting and quite provocative article by Christopher Shelly titled “A Friend Officiated Our Wedding And Now My Husband’s Dead.” (Isn’t that title a bit surprising?)

Here is a link to the article if you are interested A Friend Officiated Our Wedding And Now My Husband’s Dead. It is about a 4-minute read but in case you don’t want to click through, here are the highlights…

To save money this couple….

• Hires a fried to do their wedding. It is a disaster, but they save money.

• Hires a friend to cater the reception. It is a disaster, but they save money.

• Hires a friend to fix the transmission in their car. It is a disaster but they save money.

• Hire a friend to do open heart surgery on her new husband….

I think you can see where this is going.

I heard Dave Ramsey, the author of Total Money Makeover, say one time, “If you own a $200 car then you can afford to try and fix it yourself. If you own a $20,000 car then you probably should have a professional work on it.”

Can you coach people in your own organization? Sure you can! And I would even argue that a culture of coaching in an organization is a very positive thing. 

But, when you need a professional, hire one. 

A Surprising Thing About Coaching

Surprise is an interesting emotion! Unlike disgust, which always carries a negative theme, and happiness, which emotes such a positive feeling. 

Surprise is an emotion that can go either way, positive or negative, and can shift from negative to positive in the blink of an eye.

Here is what I mean:

“Surprise, you are getting a raise!” Unexpected and positive. How fun!

“Surprise, we are downsizing and your services are no longer needed.” Unexpected and not so fun.

I can even recall when my wife Kim told me we were going to have our third child around 27 years ago… ”Surprise, I am pregnant!” I think were her words. 

“Holy Crap!” Unexpected and a feeling of fear, replaced in a nanosecond by the feeling of overwhelming joy. “Really, that is amazing!” followed by an unexplainable feeling of love and closeness with my spouse.

Surprise has a way of intensifying our other emotions.  According to Ingred Fatell Lee, author of the book Joyful: The Surprising Power Of Ordinary Things To Create Extraordinary Happiness, surprise acts like a magnifying glass for joy by giving the tiny pleasure heightened significance.

Surprise is one of the six primary emotions identified by psychologist Paul Ekman and is so necessary as a human because it can quickly divert our attention from one thing to another. Surprise is a kind of a warning signal to say “Hey, pay attention to this new thing, that other thing you were concentrating on needs to be deprioritized and this new thing needs some focus.”

Surprise ranges in intensity from amazement to a mild distraction.  

I Was Surprised

I was recently having a conversation with a friend who was trying to get a better idea of what my coaching business was all about.

“Tell me what you do again?” he asked.

“I help people get an idea of what their leadership looks like,” I told him.  “By using some assessments, and interviewing people they interact with, I give them a mosaic of what their leadership looks like. I then come alongside them and help them make any changes they see in their approach.  In a nutshell, that is what I do.”

“And they pay you for that?” He said to me, rather surprised!  “Sounds like you get paid to be people’s friend.”

Interestingly, I had just read an interesting and quite provocative article by Christopher Shelly titled “A Friend Officiated Our Wedding And Now My Husband’s Dead.” (Isn’t that title a bit surprising?)

Here is a link to the article if you are interested A Friend Officiated Our Wedding And Now My Husband’s Dead. It is about a 4-minute read but in case you don’t want to click through, here are the highlights…

To save money this couple….

• Hires a fried to do their wedding. It is a disaster, but they save money.

• Hires a friend to cater the reception. It is a disaster, but they save money.

• Hires a friend to fix the transmission in their car. It is a disaster but they save money.

• Hire a friend to do open heart surgery on her new husband….

I think you can see where this is going.

I heard Dave Ramsey, the author of Total Money Makeover, say one time, “If you own a $200 car then you can afford to try and fix it yourself. If you own a $20,000 car then you probably should have a professional work on it.”

Can you coach people in your own organization? Sure you can! And I would even argue that a culture of coaching in an organization is a very positive thing. 

But, when you need a professional, hire one. 

Have you ever been surprised by this?

This is my third and final post in a series on the emotion of surprise. If you missed the first two, you can click here to catch up.

To be surprised by something is to have your attention shifted from one sense of reality to another. 

In organizations, it is popular to say that feedback is a gift. I have even said it myself! And, it is true…feedback is a gift. Sometimes, however, that gift is not appreciated at the time.  Sometimes feedback is like a good stew, and it has to simmer with the rest of the ingredients in order for us to be able to appreciate the overall flavor.  It takes time.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know my favorite book on the subject of feedback, is one by Douglas Stone and Shelia Heen; Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well.

In their work, Doug and Shelia say feedback includes any information you get about yourself. It not only includes what gets ranked, but what gets thanked, commented on, and invited back or dropped. It can be formal, informal, direct, or implicit. It can be blunt or baroque (I had to look this word up if I am honest), totally obvious or so subtle you’re not sure what it is.

I think you can feel the complexity as Doug and Shelia unpack the idea a bit.

The other day my wife said to me from the kitchen, “Are you still in your office working?”  What do you mean am I still in my office working? Was my thought. Are you checking on me because you know how important this project is, or was that a passive-aggressive way to say stop working and come spend some time with me fixing dinner?  Are you excited about the project I am working on because you know how good it will be for the business, or are you sick of me spending so much time working and you want me to spend more time with you?

Now that is complex!

“Are you still in your office working?” Seven simple words. It could be she has just lost track of me and wants to know where I am. It could be that she has about had it with my “work ethic” and is going to make me choose between work and her.

She simply said the words, I am the one who is in the process of assigning the meaning to the words. 

Measuring the Tone of Feedback

I think feedback takes on this tenor. So many times we get feedback like, “Jerry takes a long time to get to the point.” This could mean I appreciate his level of detail, or he needs to be more concise. 

The deliverer of the feedback has an intention for sharing, the receiver of the feedback is impacted.  However, these two things, the intention and the impact, do not always come together.  

This is why feedback needs to be a conversation. It has to be reserved for those times when the intention of the deliverer and the impact it has on the receiver can be aligned.  If there is not time for the alignment, much like putting on a new set of tires on a car without balancing them, they might roll but the ride will be rough and you will not get as good of gas mileage as you would had you taken the time to align the tires from the start.

My Feedback Gift

At Christmas time every year, my mother-in-law gives my wife and me a card.  That is no surprise.

The cards are beautiful expressions of the season of Christmas and come complete with words from Hallmark where the important words are underlined and circled. In addition, there is a handwritten bible verse along with some personal expressions of love and gratitude.  These cards are priceless. I really cherish the thoughts and the sentiments that are shared.

The surprise this year is that in the card my mother-in-law did an acrostic of both mine and my wife’s names.  I know you know what an acrostic is, but just in case, it is where the first letter of each line spells out a specific word. 

In the card was our Names:

S

C

O

T

T

&

K

I

M

M

I

J

O

Then what she did was to put a word that described us next to each letter. Now I am not going to share what was written for each letter. But I am going to share two of the letters in my name. To me, they were very interesting because they represented feedback on how I show up.  Also interesting because in my mind some contrast is present.

C-Candid

T-Tolerant

Here is the thing about surprise, what did she mean when she put candid and tolerant together?

Candid, am I too forthright with my opinion? Usually, candid means truthful and straightforward, but it could also be hurtful if not accompanied by empathy.

Tolerant, am I too accepting of opinions I do not agree with? Or am I patient with people not like me?

Norma’s perspective of me is that I am both candid and tolerant.  This is just such good feedback.  I think what is needed is to sit down with her over a hot cup of tea and explore what she means by this so I can make sure I am showing up as intended….honest, caring, and compassionate.

Surprise: A Requirement for Getting Unstuck

Last week I wrote a bit on the emotion of surprise and the value that a professional coach can bring to an organization.

This week, I want to give you a specific example of how using the emotion of surprise can be a valuable tool to have in your tool belt as a coach. 

A Story

I am currently working with the most amazing individual. Super talented. Highly prized by the organization. Gifted with skills in finance. Gifted with people.  

There is just this one thing that is constantly nagging, pulling this leader down into the depths of almost despair. It is noticeable by me and by others I have interviewed in the organization.

This leader shows up in the dumps, a little bit like the fictional character Eeyore from Winnie The Pooh. Eeyore, who is famously known for saying things like, “It’s not much of a tail, but I’m sort of attached to it.”  My client would say, “I did the best I could with the time I had."

Eeyore: “If it is a good morning, which I doubt.”
My client: “I will have to wait until the end of the day to tell you if it was good or not.”

Eeyore: “Thanks for noticin’ me.”;
My client: “It was nothin.’”

 The conversations are always a bit on the negative side.  When we talked about this, the client’s reaction was “I’m just trying to be humble. I really don’t want to be seen as bragging, taking credit, or a know-it-all.”

Then came this, “Dr. Livingston, you are one of the smartest people I know, I hope you can help me with this.”  

The Surprise

"I understand your desire to be seen as humble,” I empathized, “it is really a noble character trait.”

“Although I have to say if you think I am one of the smartest people you know, you need to get out and meet more people. I know it feels to you like you have a sense of inferiority and you are positioning this as humility.”

Then I asked the surprising question, to try to help get the leader unstuck: What if this inferiority you are feeling is a facade that is really masking a deeper felt (sometimes unconscious) sense of superiority?

Long pause…..deafening silence….almost a full minute.

"What do you mean?” the client asked.

What if this Eeyore facade is really masking what you really feel, which is that you are pretty good. Is it possible you do not want to be seen as arrogant, so to guard against this you show up as what you are calling humble, but is actually experienced by others as inferiority.*

Long pause…More deafening silence….felt like an hour.

“I have never really thought about it that way before. I don’t know if you are right or not but it is interesting.”

Coaching goal accomplished.  

By bringing an element of surprise into the discussion, the client is now unstuck. Since a safe space had been created with the client, and an air of trust existed, the element of surprise was a great emotion to lean on.  

As an external coach, I don’t need to be right.  In my mind, it is not about being right or wrong, it is about helping the client to get unstuck and move.

Often times, the emotion of surprise is useful as it jars the client from what they are seeing or experiencing into a new reality.  

As an internal coach, consider cautiously using this technique, because of the need to have a longterm relationship. However, I do think it is possible to be used from time to time to help a person get a glimpse of a different reality.

---

*The theory I was using here was not out of left field. While I didn’t need to be right, it is at least important to be grounded. According to Dr. Aqualus Gordon, "While not necessarily evidence of a full complex, examples of this inferiority dynamic are observable when we do things like:

• Reject praise we duly deserve.

• Fish for compliments via self-deprecation (e.g., humble-bragging).

• Or portray helplessness during situations in which we have power.

The client was rejecting praise and did show up as helpless when in complete control. So this was a risk worth taking in my mind to help the client get unstuck.

A Surprising Thing About Coaching

Surprise is an interesting emotion! Unlike disgust, which always carries a negative theme, and happiness, which emotes such a positive feeling. 

Surprise is an emotion that can go either way, positive or negative, and can shift from negative to positive in the blink of an eye.

Here is what I mean:

“Surprise, you are getting a raise!” Unexpected and positive. How fun!

“Surprise, we are downsizing and your services are no longer needed.” Unexpected and not so fun.

I can even recall when my wife Kim told me we were going to have our third child around 27 years ago…”Surprise, I am pregnant!” I think were her words. 

“Holy Crap!” Unexpected and a feeling of fear, replaced in a nanosecond by the feeling of overwhelming joy. “Really, that is amazing!” followed by an unexplainable feeling of love and closeness with my spouse.

Surprise has a way of intensifying our other emotions.  According to Ingred Fatell Lee, author of the book Joyful: The Surprising Power Of Ordinary Things To Create Extraordinary Happiness, surprise acts like a magnifying glass for joy by giving the tiny pleasure heightened significance.

Surprise is one of the six primary emotions identified by psychologist Paul Ekman and is so necessary as a human because it can quickly divert our attention from one thing to another. Surprise is a kind of a warning signal to say “Hey, pay attention to this new thing, that other thing you were concentrating on needs to be deprioritized and this new thing needs some focus.”

Surprise ranges in intensity from amazement to a mild distraction.  

I Was Surprised

I was recently having a conversation with a friend who was trying to get a better idea of what my coaching business was all about.

“Tell me what you do again?” he asked.

“I help people get an idea of what their leadership looks like,” I told him.  “By using some assessments, and interviewing people they interact with, I give them a mosaic of what their leadership looks like. I then come alongside them and help them make any changes they see in their approach.  In a nutshell, that is what I do.”

“And they pay you for that?” He said to me, rather surprised!  “Sounds like you get paid to be people’s friend.”

Interestingly, I had just read an interesting and quite provocative article by Christopher Shelly titled “A Friend Officiated Our Wedding And Now My Husband’s Dead.” (Isn’t that title a bit surprising?)

Here is a link to the article if you are interested A Friend Officiated Our Wedding And Now My Husband’s Dead. It is about a 4-minute read but in case you don’t want to click through, here are the highlights…

To save money this couple….

• Hires a fried to do their wedding. It is a disaster, but they save money.

• Hires a friend to cater the reception. It is a disaster, but they save money.

• Hires a friend to fix the transmission in their car. It is a disaster but they save money.

• Hire a friend to do open heart surgery on her new husband….

I think you can see where this is going.

I heard Dave Ramsey, the author of Total Money Makeover, say one time, “If you own a $200 car then you can afford to try and fix it yourself. If you own a $20,000 car then you probably should have a professional work on it.”

Can you coach people in your own organization? Sure you can! And I would even argue that a culture of coaching in an organization is a very positive thing. 

But, when you need a professional, hire one.