SESSION 3 COACHING MINDSET

SESSION 3

COACHING

MINDSET

Copyright © 2020 by Linda McLoughlin MCC Page | 2

• Connecting Back/Review of Coaching Practice

• Drama Triangle

• Signs of Co-dependency

• Mindfulness

• Managing Emotions

• Coaching Questions

• Context and Culture Awareness

• Coaching Demonstration

• Coaching Practice

• Reflection

Definition: Develops and maintains a mindset that is open, curious, flexible and

client-centered

1. Acknowledges that clients are responsible for their own choices 2. Engages in ongoing learning and development as a coach 3. Develops an ongoing reflective practice to enhance one’s coaching 4. Remains aware of and open to the influence of context and culture on self and

others 5. Uses awareness of self and one’s intuition to benefit clients 6. Develops and maintains the ability to regulate one’s emotions 7. Mentally and emotionally prepares for sessions 8. Seeks help from outside sources when necessary

• What works best for you?

• What choices have you?

• What is your gut saying here?

• May I share an intuition with you?

• How might that work in your world?

• What values are at play here?

AGENDA

TYPICAL QUESTIONS

COMPETENCY #2: Embodying a Coaching Mindset


THE DRAMA TRIANGLE

The basic concept underpinning the Karpman Drama Triangle is the connection

between responsibility and power, and their relationship to personal and interpersonal

boundaries.

The Karpman Drama Triangle was originally conceived by Steven Karpman and was

used to plot the interplay and behavioral “moves” between two or more people.

Karpman’s original premise was based on the Transactional Analysis (TA) model as

proposed by Eric Berne in the 50s. Berne’s hypothesis is that people form a “Script”

which is essentially an individual’s belief about who they are, what the World is like,

how they relate to the World, how the World relates to them, and how others treat them.

Psychologists theorize that individuals form their Script by the time they are four or five.

A Script is based on what an individual is told, what they experience, and how they

interpret these external stimuli from their own internal frame of reference.

Berne suggested that each of us play “Games” which are unconsciously motivated

behavioral interactions with the World, our environment and those people with whom

we are in contact. A “Game” in this context is an unconscious belief/s which drives our

behaviors in such a way as to result in either contributing to, or causing situations to

occur that evoke a familiar feeling – usually negative. This feeling reinforces our beliefs

or perceptions about ourselves, the World, other people, and how we fit in, and how

we are treated. – i.e. our “Script”. Not all Scripts are negative, and Berne talked about

having a positive Script. However, in reality, 99% of Scripts are negative and support,

in coaching terms, a limiting belief about ourselves, other people, or the World/

Universe. It is useful for coaches to remember this, as part of our work is to uncover

limiting beliefs, challenge them and support our client to change them.


How does the Karpman Drama Triangle work?

Whilst it was originally devised as a therapeutic tool, it is also a communications device

and plots the moves of a series of transactions between people. It is in this context that

we use it in coaching, although its use will also give us insights into our client’s belief

system and behavior. Essentially Karpman devised a simple formula which plots the

moves of a “Game”. It is this:

Someone – usually the Victim – presents a con: “Can you help me?” The particular

con matches the specific hook of the person to whom it is directed, who will usually be

a Rescuer, however some Victims play to and “hook” a Persecutor. The other party –

(let’s imagine it is a Rescuer) responds by saying “Yes, of course I can help you!”

[Note: If the con does not match, the perspective Rescuer/Persecutor usually will not

be “pulled in” or “hooked”, and the Victim will wander off to find someone else to play

the game. Alternately, the Victim may try to initiate another Game, this time from the

position of being a Persecutor, e.g. “You’re a lousy coach” or perhaps: “Are you

accredited?” or even “Do you belong to a professional organization?”]

Once the Game begins, a series of complementary transactions will continue as long

as it suits both parties. In some instances, this series of complementary transactions

can go on indefinitely and may take the form of a lifelong friendship or marriage as

both parties are content to stay in the Game, without going for the pay off. However,

more often than not, one party becomes discontented or unhappy, for whatever

reason, and pulls the Switch. Things then usually fall apart pretty quickly, and the

players whiz round the Triangle like players on a snakes and ladders board! Usually at

this point, the Rescuer becomes the Victim, and the Victim often becomes the

Persecutor, The Game is over and both retire with that “Old Familiar Feeling” to nurse

their wounds. Game Set and Script!

Definitions of the Roles

A “Rescuer” is someone who often does not own their own vulnerability and seeks

instead to “rescue” those whom they see as vulnerable. The traits of a Rescuer are

that they often do more than 50% of the work, they may offer “help” unasked for, rather

than find out if and how the other person wants to be supported, and what the Rescuer

agrees to do may in actual fact not be what they really want to do. This means that the

Rescuer may then often end up feeling “hard done by” or resentful, used or

unappreciated in some way. The Rescuer does not take responsibility for themselves,


but rather takes responsibility for the perceived Victim, whom they rescue. The

Rescuer will always end up feeling the Victim, but sometimes may be perceived by

others, who are on the outside looking in, as being the Persecutor.

A “Victim” is someone who usually feels overwhelmed by their own sense of

vulnerability, inadequacy or powerlessness, and does not take responsibility for

themselves or their own power, and therefore looks for a Rescuer to take care of them.

At some point the Victim may feel let down by their Rescuer, or perhaps overwhelmed

or even persecuted by them. At this stage, the Victim will move to the Persecutor

position, and persecute their erstwhile Rescuer. They may even enlist another Rescuer

to persecute the previous Rescuer. However, the Victim will still experience

themselves internally as being the Victim.

The position of “Persecutor” is synonymous with being unaware of one’s own power

and therefore discounting it. Either way, the power used is negative and often

destructive. Any player in the “game” may at any time be experienced as the

Persecutor by the other player/players. However, their own internal perception may be

that they are being persecuted, and that they are the Victim.

Of course, there are instances in which the Persecutor is knowingly and maliciously

persecuting the other person. If this is the case, then strictly speaking the Persecutor

is no longer playing a “Game“, in the TA sense of the word, as the Persecutor is

operating from a place of conscious awareness; it could then be argued that they are

in fact employing a strategy.

Each of the positions is taken up as a result of an issue being discounted or disowned.

To remedy this -

• The Rescuer needs to take responsibility for him/herself, connect with their power

and acknowledge their vulnerability.

• The Victim needs to own their vulnerability and take responsibility for themselves

and also recognize that they have power and are able to use it appropriately.

• The Persecutor needs initially to own their power, rather than be afraid of it or use

it covertly.

Not Playing the “Game”

When an individual is taking responsibility for themselves and allows the other to also

take responsibility for themselves, they are adopting the “I’m OK/You’re OK” stance.

This is a position of equality in which the responsibility of each individual is

acknowledged. It is a position of empowerment and is one of honesty, reality and

respect. Boundaries, contracts, accountability and responsibility are all active here.”


Bibliography

The concepts in this paper are based on Transactional Analysis and use two models:

Karpman Drama Triangle: Steven B Karpman

The OK Corral: Eric Berne author of Games People Play

Source: This paper is by Miriam Orriss © 2004 Miriam Orriss Director of CSA, is

offering supervision and mentoring sessions which will enable coaches, coach

supervisors and leaders to use the Karpman Drama Triangle. [email protected]

Discussion Points

How could the Drama Triangle play out in coaching relationships?

What is your SCRIPT and how might this get in your way as a coach?

What GAMES might a client play

mailto:[email protected]


SIGNS OF CO-DEPENDENCY

Low self-esteem. Feeling that you’re not good enough or comparing yourself to others

are signs of low self-esteem. The tricky thing about self-esteem is that some people

think highly of themselves, but it’s only a disguise — they actually feel unlovable or

inadequate.

People-pleasing. It’s fine to want to please someone you care about, but

codependents usually don’t think they have a choice. Saying “No” causes

them anxiety.

Poor boundaries. Boundaries are sort of an imaginary line between you and others.

It divides up what’s yours and somebody else’s, and that applies not only to your body,

money, and belongings, but also to your feelings, thoughts and needs.

Reactivity. A consequence of poor boundaries is that you react to everyone’s thoughts

and feelings. If someone says something you disagree with, you either believe it or

become defensive. You absorb their words, because there’s no boundary. With a

boundary, you’d realize it was just their opinion and not a reflection of you and not feel

threatened by disagreements.

Caretaking. Another effect of poor boundaries is that if someone else has a problem,

you want to help them to the point that you give up yourself. It’s natural to feel empathy

and sympathy for someone, but codependents start putting other people ahead of

themselves.

Control. Control helps codependents feel safe and secure. Everyone needs some

control over events in their life. You wouldn’t want to live in constant uncertainty and

chaos, but for codependents, control limits their ability to take risks and share their

feelings. They may develop addictions or come across as bossy.

Dysfunctional communication. Codependents have trouble when it comes to

communicating their thoughts, feelings, and needs. Of course, if you don’t know what

you think, feel, or need, this becomes a problem. Other times, you know, but you won’t

own up to your truth.

How does this apply to our work as coaches?

How could you as a coach spot co-dependency?


MINDFULNESS

Jon Kabat-Zinn is the guru of mindful living and the seven principles he lays out are:

1. Non-judging: Just be with whatever arises with gentleness, kindness, and often

the encouragement of a group environment.

2. Patience: Keep bringing the mind back again to the breath, back to sensation

of body. This requires tremendous patience and perseverance.

3. Beginner’s mind: Approach each meditation as if it were our first time, building

from “the ground up” from the body, contacting the breath, asking of ourselves

“what is really happening now”?

4. Trust: Learn to trust our own experience, feelings and intuition.

5. Non-striving: Let go the need to achieve; get it right and to be perfect.

6. Acceptance: Accept ourselves with kindness; be loving towards ourselves.

7. Letting go: Cultivate the attitude of letting go, or non-attachment.

Practicing mindfulness helps develop our coaching presence and to dance in the

moment with our clients.

Learn more: Kabat-Zinn, J. (2004 edition), Full catastrophe living: How to cope with

stress, pain and illness using mindfulness meditation, London: Piatkus

How can mindfulness enhance our coaching?

What are you doing to develop your mindfulness?

http://ebookbrowse.com/full-catastrophe-living-kabat-zinn-pdf-d39298495

http://ebookbrowse.com/full-catastrophe-living-kabat-zinn-pdf-d39298495


MANAGING EMOTION

As coaches, we need to work on our own emotional range and bandwidth to enhance

relationships with clients and to role model healthy emotional expression for them.

Most issues clients bring to coaching sessions have an underlying emotional

dimension. It is helpful to bring this to the surface – emotional expression is human

and healthy.

Emotions moves you towards others or away from them; we may believe certain

emotions are either socially acceptable or unacceptable to express. As coaches, we

need to build our capacity to hear and uncover deep emotion of self and others.

When a coach understands or accepts or hears or reflects back the client’s emotions

– it can have a most powerful effect. Insight can occur and it can be cathartic for the

client.

Firstly, the coach needs to notice their own emotional responses. Do we tend to want

to:

• shut them down or

• make it better or

• control it or

• interpret it or

• soothe it?

Consider your own reaction to strong emotion in others - is the management of that

emotion for your benefit or theirs?

With reference to Plutchik’s model of the primary emotions below, reflect on the

following:

Least easy emotions within self

Least easy emotions within others


How do you react when someone is angry/sad/fearful towards you?

What is there for you to learn here as trainee coach?


COACHING QUESTIONS

One of the most used coaching techniques is questioning. In coaching; questions are

a most effective way for relating to our clients and serve to build trust and rapport;

demonstrate curiosity; create awareness; build clarity and shift mindsets. The skill of a

great coach is how we construct questions for optimum impact.

Questions are the lifeblood of the coaching process and serve a range of functions

during the coaching cycle including:

• Establishing agreements e.g How would you like me to work with you today?

• Evoking awareness e.g. When you have that thought, what happens in your

body?

• Designing actions e.g What do you plan to do next week?

• Powerful questioning e.g. What are you avoiding in this situation?

• Direct questioning e.g. What support if any do you need from me now?

• Affirming your client e.g. What does that success tell you about your potential?

• Challenging your client e.g. May I suggest that could be your Gremlin talking?

The best questions are generally simply expressed – short; plain language; to the point.

Sometimes they only have one word such as “And?” or “So?” In coaching, the style of

questions that work best are:

• open (What else does this remind you of?)

• simply worded (So what can you do?)

• move the client forward (What might be a first step?) and

• create open space for dialogue (What else might that be about?).

Avoid questions that have multiple parts; are leading; have jargon or are over-

intellectual, as they can confuse the client; make the client feel defensive and limit

open dialogue. So remember to avoid:

• closed questions (e.g. Is that true or untrue?)

• overly probing (especially use of WHY?) (e.g. Why do you think that?)

• leading (e.g. Would it work for you to confront your boss about the overwork?)

• ones with multiple parts (e.g. Would you confront them? What would you say

and what would happen if just let it go?)

Powerful questions are those that really move the client forward to a place of true

breakthrough and transformation. A coach can only know if a question is powerful or

not by the reaction of the client. When a powerful question lands, the client typically

will:

• go silent

• reflect


• say “that is a good question”

• move backwards or

• close their eyes.

What is the purpose of a Powerful Question?

1. It helps the client reframe their issue or what they struggle with.

2. It challenges them at the level of their beliefs and values.

3. It opens many more options for them.

4. It shocks the client (aha moment). They cannot immediately answer, they

pause, breathe slower and think deeply. It is something new and that has

never before occurred to them.

5. It makes them move forward.

6. It engages their mind; heart and intuition.

7. It creates deep awareness. It calms the client as it can relieve internal

pressure and bring relief through insight.

Questions are useful when dealing with talkative clients – your job is to move them

forward and away from getting stuck in their “story”. Try “bottom lining” your client

politely by asking questions such as:

• What is the minimum I need to know to understand?

• In a nutshell, what happened?

• In just one sentence, explain what is not working.

• If you could sum up the situation in just one phrase, what would that be?

• You explained this situation in our last session. What is different about this

situation now?


Some clients may find it difficult to articulate their views and end up answering “I don’t

know” for various reasons. Questions to deal with this situation include:

• What is it like for you not knowing?

• If you were to hazard a guess what would you say?

• I feel like that too sometimes …

• Let’s sit with it until something pops into your head …

• Just give yourself some time to feel the question ….

You can soft challenging questions by asking:

“I’m wondering about …”

“Let’s suppose …”

“Would it be okay to explore this for a while …”

“This has just popped into my head – can I share it?”

The quality of our coaching questions is closely linked to the quality of our listening and

ability to access our intuition. When a coach listens deeply and actively and allows

their intuition to respond, the best questions naturally emerge.

For some powerful questions, check out this online resource:

https://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/10-powerful-questions-to-help-remove-

client-blocks/

https://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/10-powerful-questions-to-help-remove-client-blocks/

https://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/10-powerful-questions-to-help-remove-client-blocks/


CONTEXT AND CULTURE AWARENESS

As ICF coaches, we are bound by our Code of Ethics to be non-judgmental. We also

know that non-judgement is key to building trust and psychological safety with our

clients and that the deep work of coaching can only be realized in this open space.

Increasingly as coaches we work in multicultural and multigenerational environments.

Our clients represent this diversity and the issues they bring to coaching reflect the

challenges of diversity on many levels such as gender; race; ethnicity; religion; sexual

orientation and age. The challenge for us as coaches is to become aware of our own

unconscious biases especially and how these may give rise to stereotypes and

prejudice.

Bias is defined as prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared

with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

Bias can be seen as the overarching definition of stereotype and prejudice, because it

is how we associate traits (usually negative) to a specific group of people.

Some typical biases to be aware of are:

The human brain has a natural tendency to categorize everything. At any one time, our

brain is bombarded with an infinite number of stimuli. Without an efficient method of

making sense of this information, our brains would become overloaded. By sorting

stimuli – experiences, objects, people – into categories, we can process our

environments more efficiently. This frees up mental resources for other tasks. While


this mental shorthand at one level helps us, at another level it limits our thinking; range

of response and ability to be open to ‘the other’ especially when ‘the other’ may be

outside of our own direct experience.

Watch this video about how unconscious bias affects hiring in the workplace:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCFb4BiDDcE

In developing a Coaching Mindset, we are also challenged to understand the interplay

and influence of both culture and context in ourselves and clients. The many

variations and nuances of this duality requires us to be open; to double-check our

assumptions; to be curious and to explore language and meaning from the clients’

perspective.

We may consider ourselves unbiased and yet we may assume that all women leaders

share similar challenges or that all Engineers see the world through a similar lens or

that all Gen Ys yearn for a similar type of workplace. As coaches we learn to let go of

these assumptions and dance in the moment with each client to understand their

particular experience of the world – what may be the same and what may be different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCFb4BiDDcE


REFLECTIONS

What life experiences have you had of bias?

What experiences have you encountered of prejudice and stereotype?

When have you had to confront your own biases – think of a specific example?

As a coach, how might bias; prejudice or stereotype show up for you?

SESSION 3 COACHING MINDSET

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