Have you noticed that there are moments in life when something becomes absolutely clear? It might be something you had never thought about before, or something you thought you knew, but suddenly there it is!

We had one of those on the recent ‘How to be a Brilliant Coach’ programme:

On the final day, the participants were experimenting with everything they had learned by coaching each other. By this time, most people had offered up their trivial concerns for practice sessions and were ready to address some more significant situations.

This often raises the level of stress of the coach!

It’s not necessary, because as someone once pointed out to me, ‘big problems have the same structure as small problems’. The only reason we call them big problems is that there’s more emotion attached to them. However, many new coaches find it hard to focus exclusively on the structure and can – understandably – feel a bit apprehensive about tackling major issues.

On this final day, we’d talked a lot about the kind of interventions each person had to offer as a coach. A majority of the group realised that their coaching sessions often included aspects that might be labelled ‘mentoring’ – giving advice and using their own experiences to guide the client.

The moment of truth for one coach came towards the end of the morning. His ‘client’ presented a significant personal problem. A problem of which the coach had no personal experience. He had no advice, no solutions and no confidence that he could ‘help’.

And then the training kicked in…

He realised that he didn’t have to provide a solution. He just needed to provide a process to help his client organise their own thinking and find their own solution. In that moment – to me – he became a Brilliant Coach.