What's the difference between traditional coaching and NLP based coaching?

by Geoff Wade Executive Coach and Master Practitoner of NLP

Traditional coaching is scoped on the assumption that the client starts with all the skills and capabilities to change and take action. NLP coaching says that the client may start with some beliefs, values and behaviours that prevent them from changing or taking action to get what they want. And while traditional coaching can't do a thing about these constraints, and even denies their existence - NLP based coaching includes them in the scope and can replace the constraints with resources.

What is traditional coaching?

Go to most coaching web pages and you'll read they describe their services or coaching along the following lines. "Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful."

It sounds OK, doesn't it? So, what do I see as limiting in this definition? Read the presuppositions in the next section. Then read on to grasp how differently NLP based coaching responds to these issues. Then you'll begin to appreciate just how different and more potent NLP based coaching really is.

What are the presuppositions in traditional coaching?

The obvious presupposition is that coaching involves a relationship. I have no issue with that. The next articulated is that the client already has the skills, resources, and creativity to get what they want or make the changes they want. I partly agree. As long is it is made clear that if these capabilities don't exist then the client can call on learning strategies to access them. However, the following are a few traditional coaching model assumptions I take exception to - perhaps a little irreverently:

1. Most traditional coaches set expectations for six-month to one-year coaching time frames. In other words - they say coaching takes a long time. I see this as somewhat inconsistent with the second presupposition below and the third sentence in the paragraph above. If you already have what is takes - shouldn't it be easy and quick?

2. The people being coached are great performers to start with and the coach is just helping them to jump up to the next level. In response to this my internal dialogue calls out, "What about all of us mediocre performers (and underperformers) who want to improve? We've come seeking help because we keep stumbling into brick walls."

3. The successful client has the ability to take action (i.e. the client doesn't procrastinate or hesitate to make progress). So, in the eye of the coach the client has no internal conflicts, no limiting beliefs, and no self-concepts holding them back. I'd like to meet that client and learn how they do it!

4. A coach relates to the client as a partner. A coach does not speak to the client from a position of an expert or authority. Coaches are seen as experts in the coaching process and may not have specific knowledge of a given subject area or industry. When I think about sports coaching - I recall the coach is usually an expert in the client's sport. And so more questions pop up about the traditional model. Unless the coach can show the client performance patterns that are generic, patterns that are transferable across many areas of activity, their lack of subject area expertise limits their value. Oh, but traditional coaches are experts in coaching, not useful patterns, nor subject experts! Again my internal dialogue gets that doubtful tone.

5. Coaching does not focus directly on relieving psychological pain or treating cognitive or emotional disorders. Coaches say they are not psychotherapists. Although traditional coaching can be delivered concurrently with psychotherapy. And I ask, "Show me someone who doesn't have a few problems and I'll show you an artificial life form." Usually these are the very things that are holding back the people I've coached - even the most exceptional people. So, is traditional coaching painting a picture where you engage a coach and a therapist in order to succeed?

6. Coaching concentrates primarily on the present and future. Coaching does not depend on resolution of the past to move the client forward. And I'm thinking, "Isn't the past where most people find the source for their problem behaviours and emotions?"

7. Coaching assumes that clients are capable of expressing and handling their emotions. And my internal voice shouts, "Who sold them on that plan!?" It looks like the traditional coaches work only with super humans or some other species.

What is interesting is that despite the assumptions and concepts that I take exception to traditional coaches do help their clients get useful results. But, clearly their clients could get what they want more quickly and easily if these misconceptions were addressed. And this is where NLP based coaching makes the difference.

What are the presuppositions in NLP based coaching?

NLP shares the first two presuppositions about relationship and latent (or accessible through learning) skills with the traditional coaching model. However, the following are quite different:

1. NLP based coaching often takes a short time. We say a few sessions to address one problem and perhaps a series of sessions over a month to address a number of deep-rooted performance blocks or limiting behaviours.

2. NLP coaches can help anyone from the seriously dysfunctional (someone who thinks they are about ready to be institutionalised) to the already confident and excellent performers. All it takes is that you genuinely want to be better than you are now. Do you want to improve? Do you think you have scope to improve?

3. Often clients seek help because they have the desire but have not demonstrated their latent ability to take action (i.e. they have a history of procrastination or hesitation to make progress). Saying it more simply - the client has limiting beliefs or self-concepts holding them back. And within NLP we have the means to help the remove these blocks to action and performance.

4. NLP coaches have been trained to be experts in the coaching process. And we have NLP coaches who can talk with clients from a position of a subject or industry expert or authority. We match our coach's expertise to our client's needs. Our NLP coaches can also show clients patterns for excellence and "expert models" that are transferable across many areas of activity. The heart of NLP is modelling the structure of excellent performance in all fields so it can be demonstrated to and replicated by anyone.

5. NLP based coaching can focus directly on psychological pain, cognitive process, or emotional disorders. It is said that the four major benefits of NLP are that it develops excellence in communication, it develops thinking skills (cognitive strategies), it develops skills for self-change and personal choice (personal evolution), and it develops basics skills for modelling (replicating) excellent behaviour and capabilities.

6. NLP coaching works with all time frames - past, present and future. In NLP we tell clients they can make changes now despite the past. We show them how to build content free (i.e. widely applicable and generic) high performance states in the present. Though in NLP of course we have great processes for clients to reorganise the past. NLP coaching can help clients resolve the past in order to move forward with more ease and grace.

7. NLP coaching assumes that clients do not necessarily start out as capable of expressing and handling their emotions. And NLP coaching can teach clients how to do both because it can be useful.

You can see that the NLP model is very different - much more versatile and more powerful. It assumes the client has great potential - either in hidden skills or in learning strategies. It also quite reasonably assumes the client has accumulated some dysfunctional behaviour patterns, limiting beliefs, less than useful self-concepts. And the NLP coach says, "That's fine. You have these patterns because at some point they helped get you what you wanted. Now in some contexts you notice these patterns don't help you. I'll show you how to change these patterns (in the contexts where they don't work now) into useful ones. Do you want discuss changing the old behaviour maps and patterns now? Yes? Great, lets do it because I have the tools to help you make lasting change now."

Why does it sound like you need NLP based coaching?

Because you are human - you have doubts that hold you back, limiting beliefs that stop you from being your best, habitual behaviours you want to change, emotions that you'd like to control. Clearly NLP based coaching can address these. Regular coaching can't and explicitly avoids these issues. It excludes them from the scope of coaching because it has no means to work with them.

For information on how you can enjoy the results from InspiritiveCorporate Consulting for yourself or with your company, call (02) 9698-5611 now. Or just pick up the telephone and call us to ask some more questions about why we see that NLP based coaching is best for you.