So, here you are…sitting across the table from your coachee. What now?
Between ordering lunch and being served, your coachee should have enough time to outline the issue. There’s no need for a huge preamble.
The issue could be as simple as:
I have a problem with organization and need guidance.
I need help marketing my business.
I’m a recent grad and am looking for a job in accounting.
I’m thinking of investing in real estate and need some advice.
I want to take my career to the next level.
The issue may also be more complex:
I want to make a life transition and contribute to society in a more meaningful way.
I want to go to law school after ten years of medical studies.
I want to develop a more spiritual approach to my life.
I want to find a husband/wife/life partner.
I’m recently divorced and need a plan for being a good single parent.
Presumably, your coachee chose you for coaching because they believe you know something about the issue they’ve outlined.
In that first lunch, the energy created by the back and forth, the questions, the statements of belief, shared experience and knowledge—it will all work to give you a picture of what this person wants…and what you can do to help them get it. It’s that simple. It is the only gauge for success.
If you bring your best thinking and attention to your coachee’s issue, offer suggestions, a guide, tasks to accomplish, and goals to set, you’ve done your job. End the lunch, say good-bye and wait for the next call.
It can’t be that simple…can it?
It can.
This process is designed for short, intensive attention to stir up thinking, create options, and to get the person who needs coaching moving forward toward his or her goal. In our experience with this process, most of the big work is accomplished between the first and second lunch. Inviting input into one’s life is a huge step in itself; it indicates willingness to change, a desire for transformation. The leap of faith comes when someone asks for coaching. At that first lunch, a download takes place; the coachee unloads their burden and asks for help, and the coach offers advice and suggestions. From the coachee’s perspective, this is the greatest effort. It’s very hard to share unfulfilled dreams, goals, and possible failures with a friend in a focused setting. It’s even harder to invite an opinion, to open up one’s life to scrutiny.
3Lunches is not classic mentoring, which implies a long term commitment and investment in someone’s life and career. I recently read a loving tribute to a mentor from coach and author Michele Woodward, found at: http://is.gd/29ewl on her blog lifeframeworks.com. This beautiful article illustrates the intense connection—even love—that can develop in a mentoring relationship.
3Lunches is an entirely different experience. It’s an intimate connection between friends that’s protected by the social veil of lunch. It doesn’t go on forever; it’s just three lunches in time. The love between friends may already be there…or it might not. The objective, though, is to help the person being coached move more assuredly toward his or her goal.
When a coach leaves that first lunch, there will be a feeling of accomplishment, a sense that you’ve offered a strategy to a friend. For a coachee, the end of the first lunch signals the moment to try something different, to explore the options your coach has outlined and to begin doing the work. You’re all alone with your goal right now. You’ll have some euphoric days, and days when you feel totally discouraged – just do the work, finish everything on your list and when you’ve accomplished what your coach has asked you to do, it’s time for your second lunch.
Next up, what happens at lunch number two? How do you know if you’re doing it right?
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