Stumble It!
Coaching; professional vs personal
Posted by creativedifference on February 28, 2011
One theme that I have noticed while coaching senior managers is the thin boundary between professional and personal at work. I don’t mean that these managers are blurring the boundary, but that the coaching relationship has uncovered the impact of the personal on performance at work.
What surprised me was the depth of this connection and how useful it was to be able to compare patterns of behaviour in work, with patterns outside of work. Influences included parents, siblings, partners, religion and loss. The way these patterns and the emotions they engendered influenced work should not have been a surprise to me – a fundamental of my coaching is that it deals with the whole person, because it is the whole person who goes to work. It was the strength with which these influenced affected daily behaviour that was surprising, and the need to recognise those influences and take action to move beyond them.
I can only liken this to seeing an osteopath (something I did recently). Working with the underlying structure, the osteopath clicks something back into place, freeing the whole body to move and feel better. In the same way, freeing up the personal helps the professional perform smoothly.
