All the Answers; None of the Questions

At the age of 60, I have reached that wonderful and glorious life position of recognizing that I don’t have any of the answers and am not all that sure of most of the questions. Most of my clients, however, are not quite there either in age or cognitive/emotive processes. With the occasional extreme client, of course, there are no questions, only answers.

Yet, when a person has all the answers and is not interested in asking any questions, how can there be growth, learning, becoming more? There can’t. There can only be stagnation. I am reminded of a line from a wonderful book by Richard Bach entitled Illusions. In discussing the concept that everything is in a constant state of change, one of the central characters says, “If perfection is stagnation, then heaven is a swamp!”

In looking at my “I have all the answers” clients, I am drawn to this metaphorical comparison. When we cease to ask, when we cease to want to learn more, our lives become the swamp. This is true for our clients and just as true for us as coaches and therapists. The recent post on the life position of needing to be right and needing others to be wrong, and the many responses in the various groups where it was posted, demonstrate this very point almost as if battle lines were drawn. There were those who asked, “Have you considered discussing [an idea or concept] with your client?” And, there were those who said, “Clearly, your client is suffering from [disorder]; this will fix him.”

These two tones prompted me to consider many things. At the top of the list was this concept of Questions and Answers. In coaching, we are taught to ask, ask, ask. We are taught there is no such thing as having the right answers, only the right questions. With regard to my own training in psychotherapy, I was taught that I didn’t have the answers, that the client would find the answers herself or himself (insight) and that their healing must be their own. I recognize that this isn’t a universal view. So too in coaching. There are many coaches who believe they do have the answers.

The truth is that none of us has answers for others. How can we? Do we live in their reality? Do we hold their beliefs as the ruling structure of our lives? Do we have their years of life experience? No, none of these. Do we know what is best for our clients? I don’t think so. However, they do. And when we can bring that out in them, when we can help them find their own answers by asking their own questions, then a difference can be made. Notice, please, that I didn’t say we can make a difference. We don’t make the difference. Our clients make the difference - or not - their choice. Our clients are the heroes in these sagas, not us. When we make ourselves out to be the heroes, we rob our clients of their greatest tools for self-healing, and then knowingly (or at least it should be) become the villains. We become crutches that keep clients crippled. We foster dependency and transference. We do nothing for them and even less for ourselves.

I would like to ask how you work with a client who thinks he has all the answers. Second, do you believe we have a responsibility to continue growing ourselves? If so, how do we best accomplish that?
http://patmazor-beliefsystems.blogspot.com/

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The Need to Be Right; The Need to Win

One of the most challenging situations I have run into in coaching is with clients who NEED to be right or NEED to win. The thing I have discovered is that these folks don’t merely need to be right/win; they need other people to be wrong/lose.

Have you ever known someone who always needs to be right? Have you noticed how often these people also need for others to be wrong? It isn’t enough to merely prove their point It’s more They go out of their way to demonstrate how others are wrong.

Similarly, there are people who need to win - whether at a game or in some other form of competition. Again, winning is not enough. There is a clear need for others to lose. This person needs to completely dominate and decimate the opponent as if, only then, does he feel victorious.

Think of it this way: If, in a competition with another person - whether verbal or game related - I need to have the other person proven wrong or beaten thoroughly, what am I saying about myself? Can we, as human beings, intend harm through competition, and not harm ourselves in the process? In other words, this approach to competition is an extreme example of the person who needs to put others down in order to feel better about himself. As we know, that doesn’t work. There may be a moment or two of self-gratification that is immediately followed by an internal reaction that is far less satisfactory.

It is my opinion that the right person or winner in this case, with each victory, digs the hole of lost self-esteem just a little bit deeper - losing ground with every won battle until the war itself has been lost.

So, what can we as professional coaches, do to help a person with this life outlook? Recently, I had a client who fit this exactly - a huge need to be right (and others wrong) and a need to win or be the best (and others lose or be less). Of course, there were other behaviors that coincided with this. He is a very insecure person, a person who attaches his self-esteem to others (teachers, mentors, family members, clients), and a person without a clear sense of direction. Another question might be, “Where do we start?”

I started by asking the client one key question which was, “Where do you suppose you learned this - your need to be right and win at all costs?” Clearly, he had never been asked this question since his reaction was akin to the “deer in the headlights” look. In response, he asked, “What do you mean?” Although my training included not using the word “why,” I will occasionally when I intend to put a client on the defensive. So I asked, “Why do you always need to portray yourself as the ‘best’ at everything you do when you are not necessarily the best?” That earned me a second look and, “What are you talking about? I’m . . . .” and he proceeded to list his achievements. I countered this with, “But you’re not [and gave an example of a leader in the field he was using].”

This went on for nearly an hour with example and counter-example. I recognized that there was a very real probability that this client was going to walk as I was confronting his safe-self mechanisms. However, he didn’t.” At the end, I asked the first question again, “Where do you supposed you learned this?” My client began to identify some of the defense mechanisms that had been developed during his teen years and how they came to be and we began making some progress.

I am reminded of the old adage that, in order to rebuild, we have to tear a structure down completely. This seemed to be the approach I was taking based on my own sense of how to best help this client.

I would be very interested in hearing from other coaches, who have had clients like this, to hear (read) how you have successfully helped someone move beyond their need to be right or win at all costs.

http://www.patmazor.com/pat-mazor-current-blog-article.htm