56 Accept, Reject or Negotiate It is important that the coach does not get attached to any direction the coachee takes after the request is made and instead offers an open platform of choice for the coachee. Whether the coachee chooses to accept, reject or negotiate the request makes no difference. What does make a difference is that the coachee shifts away from their stuck or limited thinking and into a new awareness of what is possible or into a new learning about their way of thinking. It creates an opening for the coaching to begin moving forward in a new direction. With that said, it is important that requests do not stem from mandatory deliverables or measurements of performance. Rather, they stem from a coach’s sense of bigger, broader possibilities and potential they see in the coachee that go beyond deliverables and performance. Continuing to use this case study, let’s look at the three possible directions this can take and how it creates an opening for forward movement. ACCEPT REJECT NEGOTIATE If needed, coaching begins around the new thinking or actions. Coach: Where could you begin learning from this? Coachee: I could begin by learning some new organizational skills. Coach: Where do you think you could get those? Coachee expresses an idea of what would work better for her. Coachee: I would like to manage my feelings of frustration first. I tend to frustrate easily and it shuts me down. Coach: What would it take to do that? Coach explores what would work instead. Coach: What else could you do? Coachee: I don’t know. Coach: In a perfect world, what could be different As you can see, in all three choices there is an opening to move the coaching forward. New directions for coaching are presented in each choice. In the nature of the request, the coach has demonstrated that she is confident the coachee can rise above his current situation in some way, incorporating the essence of encouragement, and redirecting the movement forward. Anchoring The Commitment When making a request, it is important for the coach to anchor the commitment the coachee is making if the request is accepted or negotiated. The coach does this by asking for a deadline date (“by when?”) or a timeline of execution by extracting specific action items and assigning each one a deadline (“and when can you do that by?”). In addition, the coach asks for specific actions instead of just getting a simple yes or no in accepting the request. The examples above illustrate how the coach moves from the moment the coachee accepts or negotiates the request into anchoring the commitment by asking specifically what the coachee will do to honor that request. PART FOUR - THE 5 CORE COACHING SKILLS
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