A Coaching Model Created by Josh Alwitt
(Executive Coach, USA)
Many of us are familiar with the basic optical prism, a triangular piece of glass that produces the colors of the rainbow. Until the 17th century, scientists believed that the white light entering the prism was colorless, and that the prism itself was creating the colors. Then in 1672, Isaac Newton discovered that the prism was actually splitting the white light into many colors.
We experience the world in a similar way. At first, there may appear to be only one way to view a situation. Then upon further exploration, a variety of perspectives are revealed to us. Thinking about our assumptions, feelings, interests and those of others helps us to disperse a single perspective into a spectrum of perspectives for the same situation. A coach plays the role of a prism – listening, questioning and reframing to help us gain new awareness and understanding.
We can apply our awareness of multiple perspectives to take action. But towards what? As Lewis Carroll put it,
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.
So ideally, we are taking action to make progress towards a purpose. And as we examine even short-term situations and challenges, we want to do that in the context of a larger Purpose, i.e., the impact we want to have on others in the long run. But many coaching clients are not sure of their Purpose, so what then? Purpose can also be viewed from a variety of perspectives: what’s your purpose in your next meeting? On your next assignment? What’s your purpose in your job? In your career? With your family? In your life? In a coaching conversation, we explore these questions together in a natural flow, depending on what’s most important to the client at a particular point in time.
So there are three elements to prismatic coaching: Purpose, Perspectives and Progress:
Purpose
We can enter the coaching relationship at many different levels. Some clients have a strong sense of their purpose and want help in the journey to fulfill it. Others want help identifying their purpose in a useful way that will help them make decisions each day and over the long term. Some present shorter-term needs like an interpersonal or motivational challenge, or a medium-term need like becoming a better leader. All of these purposes can serve as a North star to guide the conversation, focus on relevant perspectives and help the client feel energized about their progress.
Even when we engage at a more tactical level, the conversation may lead eventually to the need to define a larger Purpose, either at work, at home, or in life in general. Setting priorities and making choices is a common coaching topic. Without some kind of framework that takes into account the client’s destination, they tend to feel lost in a maze of decisions.
Some questions we’ll explore:
- What impact do you want to have on others?
- What impact do others expect you to make?
- What impact does your organization need you to make?
- What would make you proud?
- What is important to you?
- What themes do you find recurring over the course of your career?
- When have you felt most alive at work?
Our purpose can act as a source of light for the prism. We can visualize it as a beautiful beam of white light that gives us energy and informs the choices we make. As the conversation progresses we can pause and check to see how closely we are aligned to the purpose we have set out to accomplish.
Perspectives
We can explore situations through the stories we tell ourselves about our current experience, and through the stories we use to explain the past. Through deep listening and asking questions that reframe and expose new perspectives, I help my clients gain awareness and decide for themselves where they want to go. Newton discovered that the prism does not color the white light; it surfaces the colors that are already there. My clients already have the perspectives that will help them – as a coach, my role is to help them see those perspectives. By exploring both the rational and the emotional, the conscious and the unconscious, we can expose the full spectrum of perspectives to gain self-awareness and a deeper appreciation of the situation. Prisms also reflect, and we will reflect together on what we have learned from our successes and our mistakes.
Some questions we’ll explore:
- What is important to you about the situation?
- What are your interests? What is a must-have vs. a nice-to-have?
- How do you feel about it?
- What assumptions are you making?
- How do others view it? How do they feel about it? What are their interests? Their assumptions?
Progress
Perspectives prove their value when they translate to useful actions that lead to better outcomes. As we agree on actions to take forward in order to accomplish the client’s purpose, we stop to acknowledge even small success along the way and take pride in what we have accomplished together. We design support structures, ie people, habits or other tools, to help stay on track. We also reflect on actions that have not led to progress and explore what happened to see what we can learn.
Some questions we’ll explore:
- What will success look like for this action?
- How could you measure your progress?
- What did you learn from this experience?
- What did you do well that you want to repeat in the future?
- What would you do differently?
Conclusion
My own purpose in life is to help people enable others’ potential. I serve this purpose through my role at work in executive development, and in the coaching relationships I have with clients outside of work. My primary focus is on helping people in the context of their workplace. Having spent almost 30 years in the private sector as a technology consultant and HR professional, I have a lot of context that helps me understand and relate to clients about their work lives, and helps me ask the kind of reframing questions that move the coaching conversation forward.
