THE COACH’S ULTIMATE QUESTION:

WHAT KIND OF THINKING IS THIS?

 

When you coach, not only do you coach from your state to your client’s state, you coach from your thinking patterns to your client’s thinking patterns.  That raises a really important question for you as the coach: How is my client thinking?  What kind of thinking is my client using as he presents his concern or goal or solution, etc.?

 

It’s the thinking question that then allows you to quickly get to “the heart of the matter.”  That’s because “as your client thinks, so is your client.”  If your client is thinking using cognitive distortions—you can count on the fact that there will be distortions in her thinking, feelings, speaking, behaving, and relating.  If your client is thinking using cognitive biases—guess what?  Yes, biased ideas, emotions, and behaviors! 

 

Then there are the meta-programs as thinking and perceiving patterns.  Now you have another 70 distinctions for how your client could possibly be thinking.  Is my client thinking/ perceiving optimistically or pessimistically?  Is my client matching or mismatching?  Is my client perceiving in terms of options or procedures?  Which meta-program distinction stands out for you?  In ACMC training, we cover some 15 of the most basic meta-programs.  That’s a great place to begin.  Get familiar with those so that you can recognize them in real time.

 

Once you have achieved that level of skill, begin adding other meta-program distinctions beginning with those that tend to most characterize the clients you work with.   Add one or two each week.  In a year, you will have covered all of them and that will give you an incredible edge in your coaching.

 

In the PCMC training in Bali in December 2024, I recognized a client as demonstrating internalized thinking in contradistinction to externalized thinking (#27).  I asked, “When your coach asks you a question, you are going inside and thinking about it.”  She smiled in a self-knowing way.  “Your eyes go to the right, then to the left, so I’m guessing you are asking yourself questions and maybe answering them, or maybe asking yourself the very opposite question.”  It turned out she was asking opposite questions on each side so that she was inside of the conflict between the two parts.  In other words, she was arguing with herself!   “Is this right or wrong?”  “What if I make a mistake?”  “I’m I really good at this?”  “Maybe I should quit?”

 

Some people think out-loud.  They often do not (or never) think before they speak.  They need to take time to reflect and then speak.  They need to slow themselves down and consider consequences, calibrate to those around them, run their response through some criteria like appropriateness, consideration, compassion, etc.

Other people think inside their head and do lots and lots of self-talk before they ever utter a word.  They reflect ... and then reflect some more ...  then reflect about their reflections ... and this can continue on and on and on.  Meanwhile you are on the outside waiting, waiting, waiting.  They are careful about what they say.  Often they are fearful of “saying the wrong thing.”  Sometimes they are living an old program, “Kids ought to be seen, and not heard!”  Sometimes they are living in a trauma that they have not resolved.  They spoke up, said something ugly or hurtful and suffered severe consequences and inside they made a decision, “Never again!” 

 

“Just say whatever comes to mind ... just talk out-loud; there are no wrong answers.”  That’s what I said to the client who was struggling to answer the coach.  “It’s okay because whatever you are thinking and however you are thinking is just thoughts.  And if those thoughts are not serving you well, not enhancing your life—it’s time to change them.  How does that sound?”

 

The bottom line is that when you coach—keep asking yourself, “What kind of thinking is this?”  “Which meta-program distinction is operating right now?”  “Could this be a cognitive distortion?”  Then, test it.  “Are you thinking in X-way?”  That meta-question helps the client to become aware in a new and creative way and opens up for transformational change.

 

This is listening for structure, that is the structuring and processing, rather than the content information.  And with that you are ready to ask some powerful frame-by-implication questions or even torpedo questions.  That’s because what you are asking goes straight to the frames (of meaning) that’s governing the person’s experiences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS