As in the case of the other two fundamental perspectives, high potential and high performance clients are likely to differ in some important ways from the troubled employees/clients. First, high potential and high performance clients are likely to frame all coaching issues as puzzles and assume that they ultimately have control of the issue being addressed ( a strong internal locus of control). The coach plays an important role by helping the client recognize that many of the issues being faced are problems (or even mysteries), not puzzles. Organizational problems and mysteries are not readily solved; therefore, patience and tolerance are required (characteristics which are not always found among high potential and high performance clients). Furthermore, it is not even clear when the issue has been successfully addressed if it is a problem or a mystery. High potential and high performance clients like to know that they have been successful—that is part of the reason they work so hard. As a result, they are readily frustrated when facing issues that have no simple solutions or readily measurable results. In addition, these clients must acknowledge that many of the issues they are bringing to the coaching session require the assistance of other people. They can’t solve these problems and mysteries by individually working harder, smarter, or with more commitment. Collaboration and trade-offs are often required if the coaching issue is an organizational problem; acceptance and patience may be required if the coaching issue is a mystery. A supportive coach can serve an invaluable role in helping the high potential and high performance client face these major personal challenges of collaboration and trade-off, acceptance and patience.
Most importantly, problems often involve dilemmas, paradoxes, and polarities. By being highly successful in resolving one aspect of a problem, the high potential or high performance client may be unsuccessful in resolving another aspect, or may actually create a new problem as a result of success. High potential clients might create conditions in which unrealistic expectations are created about their ability to perform a specific task—thus leading to failure and a future under-estimation of the high potential’s abilities (or motivation). Similarly, other employees may grow too dependent on the high performance client, hence making the high performer “indispensible” and the organization more vulnerable. There are often polarities with regard to control when a client is faced with a problem (rather than a puzzle). The client typically has control over part of the context but not all of it (a combination of internal and external locus of control). The coach can help this client discern the areas in which she does and does not have control, and help the client build a strategic solution to the problem. The coach therefore needs to be skilled in assisting the client to work adaptively with strengths and limitations in shaping experimental strategies towards implementation. In assisting the new learning strategies, coaches work as “travel agents” in guiding their clients towards imagining new terrains and then acting in new ways, using overused and underused behaviors in novel ways that help the clients arrive at their desired destination. The coach is charged with teaching adaptability, innovation, and resilience.
Distinctive Strategies When Coaching High Potentials or High Performers
While these fundamental strategies must be applied when working with any coaching client, we believe several specific strategies to be distinctively important when working with high potential and high performance clients. These specific strategies have to do with flexibility, results, alignment, and experimentation.
Flexibility
While organizational coaches must always be flexible in their work with colleagues, the challenge of flexibility is particularly important when working with high potential and high performance clients. As we noted above, these two kinds of coaching clients are inclined to assume an internal locus of control. They tend to “take charge,” even when interacting with their coach. This means that the coach must move with the client. These clients set the agenda and shift from session to session with respect to the issues they want to address and the way in which they want to work with their coach. This also means that a coach must often encourage these clients to find their own solution to the issue being addressed. While all coaching should focus on client-generated solutions, this orientation is particularly important when working with the high potential and high performance client. The coach must therefore be flexible and responsive with regard not only to setting agendas and to a client’s identification of and definition of coaching issues, but also to the solutions being generated by the client in response to these coaching issues.
This flexibility and responsiveness comes with a caveat. On occasion, a coach must take a firm stance or at least a persuasive attitude with regard to the client’s issues and ways of working in the coaching relationship. As we noted, high potential and high performance clients are inclined to frame their coaching issues as puzzles rather than as either problems or mysteries. They want to believe in their own ability to resolve the issue using their own expertise and energy. The coach must, at times, challenge the client to recognize the complexity of the issue being faced—such that it will only be successfully addressed with the assistance and support of other people—because the client is unaware of the need for more information and of the creative benefit of dialogue. In conjunction with an internal locus of control (so familiar to these clients), an external locus of control must also be recognized if the coaching problem or mystery is to be confronted in a realistic manner. This recognition may, in turn, mean that the coach encourages the client to move into the domain of information (realism) when seeking to more fully understand and appreciate the nature of the problem or mystery faced. Thus, flexibility on the part of the coach must at times be tempered with a dose of coaching persistence and confrontation.
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