Have you ever wondered what the role of a coach really is?
Do you have a clear definition? Do you use words such as facilitate, support, challenge, be a sounding board, or perhaps even mentor? What words do you use — and do they really capture what great coaching does?
One of the most powerful tools a coach can use to help a client is storytelling. (See my Epoch Times article, Classical Wisdom – When truth becomes a story, for more on the extraordinary power of stories.) Stories can demonstrate in a few memorable images what pages of abstract explanation may fail to communicate.
So let me tell you a story about the real role of a coach: there is an old Arab story that wonderfully illustrates what a coach should do.
A man died leaving his wealth — seventeen camels — to his three sons. In his will, he stipulated that the eldest should receive half of his camels, the second son a third, and the youngest a ninth. The sons were baffled. Seventeen simply would not divide according to their father’s instructions. They argued, calculated and recalculated, but could find no satisfactory solution.
Eventually they sought the advice of a wise old friend of their father. He listened to their problem and then said, “I have a camel of my own. Take it and add it to your herd. Then see what happens.” Now there were eighteen camels.
Suddenly everything worked. The eldest took half — nine camels. The second took a third — six camels. The youngest took a ninth — two camels. Nine plus six plus two made seventeen.
And there, standing before them, was the eighteenth camel. They gratefully returned it to the old man! What a wonderful image this is for coaching.
The wise man did not tell the brothers how to divide their inheritance. He did not take control of their problem. He did not make them dependent upon him. Instead, he temporarily introduced something into their situation that enabled them to see and achieve a solution that had previously seemed impossible.
The coach, then, is the eighteenth camel.
At our best as coaches, we bring something that may be missing: a question, a perspective, a challenge, a distinction, perhaps even a way of understanding ourselves that we have never encountered before. That temporary addition changes the whole configuration of the problem.
And then something important happens: we give the camel back.
The purpose of coaching is not to make the coach indispensable. It is to enable the client to become more resourceful, more aware and more capable of acting without us. The solution belongs to them, not to us.
And this is where Motivational Maps become especially interesting: what if the Map itself is the eighteenth camel?
A client comes to us with seventeen camels: the facts as they understand them, the problem as they have framed it, the options they believe are available, and perhaps the assumptions they have already made about themselves and other people. They may have thought about the problem repeatedly and still be unable to make the arithmetic work.
Then we introduce something new: their Motivational Map.
The Map does not solve the problem for them. It does not issue instructions or prescribe a course of action. Instead, it introduces information that was previously invisible. It may reveal that a motivator they thought important is actually weak; that something they have neglected is fundamental to their energy; that two powerful motivators are pulling them in different directions; or simply that the problem they thought they had is not quite the real problem at all.
The Map becomes the eighteenth camel.
With that additional piece of information, the original seventeen can suddenly be rearranged. A situation that seemed insoluble begins to make sense. New questions become possible. New choices appear.
And, crucially, the Map still does not make the decision.
The coach does not make the decision.
The client does.
That, surely, is one of the marks of great coaching: we introduce what is needed for insight to occur, but we do not appropriate the insight or create dependence upon ourselves.
We lend the eighteenth camel.
And when the work is done, the client keeps the solution. The camel comes home.
For more information about coaching with Motivational Maps contact one of our community of practitioners.
