Power Up!: The Guide to Leadership Coaching with Strengths

Copyright © 2012 by Gene Knott, PhD, ABPP.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-4153-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-4154-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-4155-8 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011918534

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 12/17/2011

Contents

Introduction

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Conclusion

Appendix

EndNotes

Further Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

What They Are Saying About Power Up!

This is a fantastic book. Knott takes us back to the roots of strengths-based coaching, and then leads the reader through the seminal writing of today’s leaders in the field. The author uses mnemonic devices and an inviting writing style to introduce powerful concepts foundational to strength-based, positive coaching. A clear, scholarly, science-based approach to the profession for the novice as well as the seasoned coach. Books like Gene Knott’s Power Up! are bringing a new level of credibility to executive coaching.

—John S. Stephenson, PhD, Executive Coach/Consultant

I immediately started highlighting and dog-earring pages; the book will be greatly appreciated by those of us who attempt to serve as coaches. A positive and potent strongbox of resources for anyone working to serve as a successful strengths-based coach, Power Up! builds upon existing strength-based research to incorporate key tenets of change models, positive psychology and successful coaching strategies in order to produce a purposeful and practical guide for those interested in facilitating real change.

—Melissa Boyd-Colvin, Leadership Educator and Strengths Consultant

As current research in neuroscience and positive psychology tells us, there is a correlation between positive image and positive action. What we look for, we find; and what we pay attention to, grows. Power Up!: The Guide to Leadership Coaching with Strengths is a compelling, insightful collection of real-life stories and techniques for understanding and applying the strengths paradigm—highly recommended for anyone who wants to flourish at work and in life.

—Jen Hetzel Silbert, Co-author of Positive Family Dynamics: Appreciative Inquiry Questions to Bring Out the Best in Families, Co-founder & Partner at Innovation Partners International

This book is a gem for coaches, supervisors, mentors and those who want to enhance the quality of their helping relationships. Packed with useful tools, tips, and tales of the coaching trade, Power Up!: The Guide to Leadership Coaching with Strengths skillfully guides both the seasoned and beginning coach to an appreciative method of coaching that is truly transformational. Read it and unleash the power of personal strengths!

—Sylvia C. Spears, PhD, former Dean of the College, Dartmouth College

Gene Knott is a master coach, bringing to life the power of strength-based methods in the coaching process. His straightforward approach makes the theory and research easily understandable, with practical activities, insightful stories, and key takeaways in every chapter. Anyone interested in coaching and being part of the strengths revolution will profit from this book.

—Tony Silbert, MSOD, Founding Partner, Innovation Partners International; co-author of Healing Conversations Now

For Nancy,

my strength, inspiration and

role model for appreciation

Introduction

Power Up: The Guide to Leadership Coaching with Strengths is a comprehensive description of a strengths-oriented, positive professional coaching approach that re-focuses the tenor of transactions for both leader/client and coach, thereby yielding substantially better outcomes. While I am, by no means, a pioneer or sole practitioner of the positivist or strengths approach to coaching, the development of my practice over 24 years has yielded some frameworks and practical approaches that will prove helpful and constructive to any coach.

Power Up gives coaches and, in turn, their coachees or clients—terms I will use interchangeably throughout, a guidebook for implementing coaching with strengths. This is a framework that will alter your way of thinking and the resulting dialogues between you and those you coach. I firmly believe it can enable more certain and more lasting personal growth and development, as it is built on recently emerging evidence from compelling, cutting edge work by both behavioral scientists and management professionals. For those already initiated into the advantages of using strengths, what follows offers a set of reinforcing notions, and a number of expansive tools and techniques for enriching your coaching work. In short, it provides frameworks, guides and tools that can lead to a more satisfying, successful, and rewarding experience in coaching others.

In these seven chapters, first you will find a brief orientation to coaching, including a summary of the case for coaching intervention, and an introduction to how I use strengths and the positive framework, an approach some have referred to as appreciative or asset-based. Following that we’ll address the key knowledge sets, instrumental and narrative tools, overarching procedures, sometimes knotty issues and necessary boundaries for strengths coaching. I have intentionally chosen not to write here of the related matters of marketing and the logistics for a full time coaching practice, concentrating instead on the actual coaching process itself, using a strengths paradigm. This one-to-one coaching guide is further enhanced with a chapter that explicitly addresses leadership role coaching, considers the vagaries and variances of coaching teams and groups, and suggests how to enroll an entire organization and its culture in a strengths coaching mindset and practice. In sum, this is a Guide for the coach who would fortify him—or herself in their coaching role, and look at the same time to use the potency of this approach to empower their supervisees or anyone they coach as clients.

Strongboxes

Throughout the book, I have inserted what I call strongboxes, like the ones at the start and close of each chapter, as well as sprinkled strategically throughout. This familiar term originally referred to a small, rectangular, usually metal box that was stoutly made, had a lock, and was a secure and portable holder for valuables, most often money. This approach to highlighting pertinent quotes and key features of a chapter calls to mind a family story and personal lesson from my youth. My Dad’s father, Grandpa Joe, was reputedly a master salesman who, for much of his life, sold major appliances for a small business in the city in western Maryland where I was raised. My parents and I lived for my first few years with him and my paternal grandmother. As a tyke then, I vividly recall seeing him carry into the house each evening a small, metal strongbox containing his receipts—checks and cash—that he’d taken in that day. Each night after dinner, he would sit down with its contents and make an accounting of his day’s sales, using it both for record-keeping and to help him set his next day’s goals, so my father told me, always looking to better the take each succeeding day. He also had a habit of preparing a comprehensive set of weekly objectives for his business life and his family. This set of routine scribbles, along with those daily receipts, found their way to and from home in his dark green strongbox.

I’ll seek to mirror that intent analogously throughout this book, as the contents of the strongbox inserts in Power Up! are either positive tips, highlights from the section under discussion, or pertinent quotes that supplement the learning to be gained. As their name denotes, the summary ideas, findings, and provocative thoughts to ponder that are contained in the shaded strongboxes are there to help strengthen the reader to carry out better, more effective coaching. Hopefully, they offer others’ wisdom, and spotlight key points from the chapters about the use of strengths in coaching, highlighting some specific practices to assist the reader with bettering their coaching each time out.

Language and Memory Aids

Another aid to learning and using the many cognitive devices and tools for coaching that is employed extensively in the core chapters of Power Up! is mnemonics. Named for the Greek goddess of memory, this category of aids for the mind includes the frequently used recall tool, the acronym, where a familiar term is spelled out by the first letters of the main elements in the set or topic under discussion. Our younger years of schooling and tutoring were filled with such devices, including those often found in musical education, biology, and for such rote tasks as remembering strings of numbers or chemical elements. Research on effective training and teaching has noted the importance of structured and organized memory units for improving recall and learning.

Less frequently resorted to, but of equal value, are some acrostic devices, wherein complex strings of material are converted to cues for more easily remembered phrases, and even nonsense statements that are notable for their oddity. Colors of the rainbow, bones of the body, musical scales, and many other similar and familiar information bits have been more easily recalled thereby as school kids in our pasts.

Also, numbers may be arranged to align with letters of the alphabet and vice-versa, for any number of memory aids, and this book makes occasional use of some of these devices to make the topics more user-friendly. Finally, there is liberal use of analogy and metaphor throughout The Guide to embellish the points being made more indelibly. The language we all choose is central to how we think and represent experience, so it is hoped that these approaches help with application of many of the frameworks and instruments offered in the pages to come.

The learning adventure that lies ahead in Power Up! certainly can help bolster the reader’s performance as coach. In the end, it also can make for a clientele that is more resilient, better able to lead, more apt to see the positive possibilities in their co-workers, likelier to experience holistic well-being and success, and more capable of flourishing in their own personal and professional lives.

1

Powering Up!

Dan was a newly promoted vice-president of a fledgling tech company, a go-getter as an engineer and team leader in his previous duties—thus the promotion. Yet he sensed that this was a new level of challenge, and he was not sure he was fully ready for the demands of the role. A former colleague, Will, now living across the country, was still on his speed-dial, and Dan called him seeking advice and support. Will was a former coaching client of mine when in a similar situation himself a couple years before, and suggested Dan email me to see about coaching for the first half—to full year of his new role. Like many of my coaches at the outset of our work together, Dan presumed we would be assessing his weaknesses and working on shoring them up, both as they arose in the course of work, and in a more general way. While the assessment part was right, the change of focus to a strengths approach was a surprise, and even a bit off-putting for him in our early sessions, as he was a skilled problem-solver… had been as long as he could recall in his 42 years, and this paradigm shift did not come easily. However, in less than 3 months this quick study not only had re-framed his leadership mindset, he had become a coach-in-the-making himself, frequently sharing in our talks a hunch he had about how to assist a co-worker with a more asset-focused outlook, or Dan’s version of a more appreciative way to get supervisees to move toward their best work. Perhaps even more to his credit, Dan had found the enlarged perspective that now characterized his thinking had also enabled him to become a stronger problem-solver when that vital skill was called on—a common, daily occurrence in the new job and worksite.

What’s in this for you?

This thumbnail sketch of Dan’s (pseudonym) experience with coaching is typical of my clients’ encounters with successfully engaging their strengths in the service of taking themselves and others toward desired changes. Power Up!: The Guide to Leadership Coaching With Strengths is an account of the key ingredients—the reasons and roles, main processes and practices, as well as the tools and techniques, to be employed in the successful practice of coaching using strengths. These pages lay out those vital elements in a very logical order, with easy, practical steps and immediately usable activities, all in a highly readable narrative.

Whether you are a novice to the role, a seasoned coaching professional, a leader seeking help overseeing a project, a line manager looking to get more out of your team, or a mentor seeking to guide a protégé’s career steps more surely, The Guide has much to offer. One could read select sections of the book for immediate application, or scan and skim for specific types of instrumental assistance. Or, you could thoroughly cover the topics in sequence for a comprehensive learning of the approaches and benefits to strengths coaching. Whatever your coaching objective, there is a new slant or an alternative method for practical adoption to be gained. To sum up, these pages provide a comprehensive exploration of professional coaching using a strengths paradigm, a novel set of perspectives on the practice of coaching, and a creative collection of stimulating, interactive formats and devices for use with those you coach.

Potency Realized

There are at least two definitions in recent use for the phrase power up. The first, and more familiar, is the notion originating just a few years ago that this phrase meant to turn on your computer, igniting the system to boot up for use, often with an iconic power button. A second, more technical form of the phrase involves reference to a power-up, an element that is used in computer and video games to add benefit by having extra capabilities written into the instructional options accessible for game play. It is a feature designed to enhance the experience, to make it more robust, and thereby more enjoyable. Both of those meanings pertain to the use of that phrase for this book’s title. It is at once intended to invite readers to join in, to empower their coaching practice, and to refresh their engagement with it through a set of powerful constructs. It lends itself also to the idea of a coach assisting another to use the power of their own strengths to grow, and to reach new heights of achievement and satisfaction.

The ideas of becoming more powerful, of growing in one’s areas of expertise, and gaining greater mastery, all by leveraging one’s very best talents to reach new heights and excel are core to this book. Not only is gaining power critical, but helping others to become more empowered is the essence of both coaching and good leadership. The word power in contemporary parlance has several meanings germane to our topics here. For example, a strength can be amplified, i.e., successfully multiplied by itself to a level that is a higher quantity, a factor called a power. And, a power is also defined as a skill, an ability, capacity, or faculty one possesses and uses at a high level of competence. Further, power denotes the ability to influence others either emotionally or attitudinally, a theme very relevant to our strengths discussions throughout the book. The term power can also signify the measure of a lens to magnify an object or image, very much akin to our thoughts about the use of strengths to see optimal and positive means of improvement and finding success. Finally, the word is sometimes used to connote a personal capacity that is designed to enhance one’s effectiveness, influence or position. All of these can be construed as relevant applications of the term as we seek to understand better the potency of coaching as magnified by the use of strengths.

This book is addressed to any in that growing vanguard of coaches who are plying their craft or looking to polish their practice—whether it is for a single employee, a full client organization, or for multiple coachees in diverse settings. The ideas and activities in these pages offer a helpful set of inputs to those in leader positions at any level who seek to coach their associates. If your goal is to enhance productivity through and purpose, this book can help. If you value the rewards that come most readily through a respectful, relationship-driven work compact, this framework can point the way. And if you are dedicated to execution through engaging others via agile leadership, be sure to read on.

Serendipity

I frequently get the opportunity to train groups of professionals to be coaches, and when we begin, one of the first things I ask them to do is share with another trainee their recall of an earlier coaching experience. I start this exchange saying that, by coaching, here, I mean . . . any experience where you were aided by someone’s guidance, instruction, or reflection to perform better or to re-consider an attitude or belief. This could have been for an intrapersonal or decisional awareness, a transaction with another, or regarding some skill. Most of us can relate to numerous instances of this, e.g., a scholastic, athletic, vocational, driver’s education, or musical coach who offered such assistance at some earlier point in our development.

Afterward, I ask them to think about what makes it a memorable experience still, usually years, and often decades later. The discussion that ensues almost always identifies the extraordinary feelings of empowerment and a caring relationship that accompanied the coaching experience. They routinely cite the connection, and the learning experience itself, plus the lingering quality of those lessons. Almost universally, each person can state vividly how they were enabled to grow, to stretch, and to find perspective.

People consistently describe those attributes, despite telling coaching stories that vary greatly in focus, context, and age at the time, as well as method of coaching. Always a powerful early memory, it continues to have meaning for practically all who engage in the recollection of it. And, I often have found it a useful way to initiate early conversations with new individual coaching clients as well. The following personal coaching audit in verse gives just a sampling of the variety of coaching experiences one may have in their life span:

Coaches All!

Life’s lessons,

Sticking still:

Walk, ride, assert:

Mom, Dad, Myrtle.

Write, speak, sing:

Jacqueline, JP, Mercedes.

Throw, swing, slide:

Dad, Roy, Rick.

Drive, work, plan:

Mom, Dad, Eric.

Shoot, pass, jump:

Mac, Crow, Shad.

Study, learn, teach:

Donna, Ellis, Lots.

Counsel, consult, train:

Jimmie, George, Skip.

Care, love, parent:

Gramps, Nancy, K & G.

Console, compose, finish:

Patients, families, mentors.

So much more, and

So many to thank… Coaches All!

Why is it that coaching in all those guises is such a universally appreciated and often dramatic experience? I suspect it’s simply because we all have an abiding appreciation for those moments when we felt cared about, even when that caring may have been exhibited by a gruff-seeming elder, yet someone who took the time and effort to offer us a better way to go about things. And, of course, we are grateful for the nudge, clarification, or just plain cathartic opportunity to re-think a situation or viewpoint that the coaching exchange provided. That is the essence of coaching, and the reason for this book: to offer a set of ideas, principles and instrumental frameworks for helping others in a way that they will experience as a positive and potent approach to doing so.

Personal Evolution

For nearly twenty-four years at this writing, since the late 1980s, I have been coaching executives, entrepreneurs and leaders in organizations of many varied kinds and sizes. My purpose has been to help them grow as leaders, to make better decisions, to stretch their skill range, and to strengthen their personal and professional talent and asset bases. This first evolved from an almost accidental chance to advise the leaders of two separate companies where I was hired as a management consultant and trainer. Once into the coaching role, I found it both intriguing and rewarding, particularly in terms of my new learning and an alternative use of my expertise, providing an additional pathway for delivery of service. As new coaching opportunities arose, the range of organization types and leader issues and personalities also widened, enriching my practice, deepening my coaching repertoire, and enhancing my effectiveness as well. I had also been a licensed clinical psychotherapist before that, and some self-education and formal coaching training, along with practical experience had helped me achieve some level of success in what was still a part-time endeavor for me.

Then, in the mid-90s, a serendipitous set of confluent opportunities changed my paradigm and my professional direction for good. It was in that period, over the span of just fourteen months, that I was asked to lead a campus-wide training and organization development effort at my university workplace, and used the occasion and role to expose myself to some newly emerging concepts and pioneers. In the space of just over a year, I had a weeklong training in Appreciative Inquiry with David Cooperrider, and became certified as a multi-course facilitator with the Covey Leadership Center’s offerings. Following that, I had learning opportunities with the Co-Active Coaching paradigm at an OD Network conference, and later in a weekend seminar with Ben Dean of MentorCoach.

The net effect of all those experiences was transformative in terms of how I viewed individual and system-wide behavior change. It led to a radical shift in how I sought to consult with organizations, and to coach individuals. The evolution of the strengths movement, along with positive psychology’s overall development in that same period further steeled my resolve and helped me acquire a set of new perspectives and approaches for my work with clients. In sum, I had a personal paradigm shift, and it has led to a more satisfying and successful way of coaching, one that has been more effective in every way, both for me as coach, and for my very diverse clientele.

In the next several chapters, I will be detailing the ways in which I have come to coalesce these frameworks, and show how their various contributions make for a dynamic and highly useful coaching model, one that has delivered optimal results, both for me and for those I coach. I feel strongly that these materials and ideas will be compelling for you, too, and can lead to meaningful professional practice additions, perhaps even across-the-board alterations in how you work with and coach others.

Power Up! offers a different mental map from the majority, yet a kind of approach that has seen a growing number pursue it. It is one that promises to modify beneficially the nature of the coaching role, and thereby improve the outcomes of coaching transactions. We’ll begin with a brief look at what professional coaching has come to be in this second decade of the new millennium, as well as an examination of the potentiating benefits of strengths in the coaching process. This will help you to understand better this growing and dynamic role, and the emergent profession dedicated to it. A more detailed look at the recent developments in professional coaching as a global field can be found in the Appendix at the end of the book’s chapters.

In just the past two decades, the world has embraced the field of non-athletic professional coaching in a big way, and with many variations. Coaching has moved from a narrow, infrequent and usually one-sided event confined to the corner office, to where it has become an integral practice throughout the