Chapter 11

Integrating Mindfulness with Coaching

In This Chapter

Taking a mindful approach to coaching

Looking at practical ways to coach with mindfulness

Introducing mindful coaching using top-down and bottom-up approaches

Most medium- to large-sized organisations now offer coaching for their staff. The reason is simple – coaching is one of the most effective ways of achieving staff development. Even Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, has a coach; as he says, all great performers and athletes have a coach – and the same should go for executives looking to improve their performance.

Business and executive coaches are increasingly integrating mindfulness into their approach. The early adopters practised mindfulness for many years before the emergence of supporting research gave them the confidence to openly introduce the techniques to their clients. Nowadays, as mindfulness goes mainstream, we find that business coaches are approaching us to help them incorporate the techniques in their own work. Offering ways to help clients fulfil their potential is what coaches are all about, so their own mastery of the techniques creates a win–win situation!

Discovering Mindful Coaching

Mindful coaching is the process of sharing mindfulness-based values and exercises to help individuals or teams to develop both professionally and/or personally. The development occurs as a result of an increased awareness of someone’s internal patterns of thoughts and emotions, and their awareness of outer opportunities and challenges.

Traditional coaching was often based on the GROW model developed by Sir John Whitmore:

• G – Goals
• R – Reality
• O – Options
• W – What next?

The goals element involves helping the client to discover what he wants to achieve. The client is then asked to reflect on the reality of his current situation. What’s actually happening for him right now? Next, he comes up with various options for achieving his goals. In this stage he’s asked to let go of self-limiting beliefs by considering questions such as, ‘If money was not an issue, what would you do?’ Finally, in the ‘what’s next?’ stage, the coach asks the client to commit to one or several specific actions that he will take over the next few weeks or months, until the next coaching session.

Several traditional coaching values are shared with mindfulness:

• Empathy and compassion
• Curiosity and openness
• Listening in the present moment
• Awareness of one’s thoughts and emotions
• Trust and respect
• Clarity and focus
• Wisdom and reflection

However, several values are seemingly in conflict with traditional coaching approaches, as shown in Table 11-1.

Table 11-1 Mindfulness vs Coaching

The traditional coaching model is very much goal-orientated. The basic premise is to find out what you really want to achieve at work, set realistic yet challenging goals and then work at meeting those goals.

Mindfulness goes beyond goals and goal-setting. Rushing too quickly to set goals without reflecting on where you are now, what you notice within and around you and, most importantly, whether such goals are appropriate is a wasteful use of energy. Mindfulness offers the awareness and insight from which goals and their outcomes can emerge. Figure 11-1 shows how mindful coaching combines the best of mindfulness and traditional coaching.

Seeing mindfulness as a coaching toolbox

We hesitate to recommend mindfulness as a ‘tool’ because present-moment awareness is so fundamental that it underlies all other tools and techniques. For this reason, although you may be considering using mindfulness as a tool with your clients, we suggest that you see mindfulness as a tool box – without mindfulness, you don’t have a base from which to use all your other tools.

Mindfulness is useful in coaching because it offers clarity of insight.

Remember, the essence of mindfulness is non-judgemental awareness. If you can look at your problems, challenges and difficulties without judgement, you’re much better able to see them for what they are. You can then make a decision and take action – which is what coaching is all about.

Figure 11-2 illustrates how mindfulness can underlie the coaching process.

So, the paradox between mindfulness as associated with non-doing or being, and coaching as to do with doing/action isn’t so much a paradox after all. They work together well.

Let’s say you’re being coached at work. Consider what it would be like to undertake coaching without a deep and full awareness of yourself. You’d set goals that aren’t right for you. You’d keep missing opportunities to achieve your goals. And your approach would be mechanical, automatic and unfulfilling as you wouldn’t be truly present.

And imagine if, when being coached, you practised mindfulness and non-doing but never set any goals or reflected on your actions. You’d live in the present moment but your achievements in the workplace would be limited. You wouldn’t be stretching yourself at all and would probably be bored or unfulfilled – not an ideal state of mind if you’re coaching clients.

We think that combining both approaches is best – spending time practising and cultivating mindfulness and time-setting and achieving realistic goals in line with your own values. That’s coaching with mindfulness and a great way to work with clients.

Personal practice is crucial if you want to be an effective mindfulness coach. You can’t hope to be able to coach others in mindfulness if you’re not mindful yourself. When you’re mindful yourself, you not only explicitly teach the principles of mindfulness, you also embody mindfulness. And when you embody mindfulness, you send unconscious signals to others about the benefits of mindfulness.

Take a few minutes to listen to a talk by one of the great mindfulness teachers: Jon Kabat-Zinn, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, Jack Kornfield or Matthieu Ricard. What effect does their tone of voice and ideas have on you? Do they make you feel more calm and present? Does their talk increase your own level of mindfulness?

Mindfulness is always much more than a tool, technique or exercise. Mindfulness is a way of living and being.

Applying mindfulness in coaching

You can integrate mindfulness into coaching in lots of different ways. No one way is better than another. You need to identify the needs of your client and use that knowledge to decide how to coach them most effectively with mindfulness.

Different levels of mindfulness can be applied to coaching, as described below:

• Level 1 – Being mindful as a coach: This level is the least effective way of offering mindfulness coaching. The coach practises mindfulness exercises regularly in his own life and intends to be fully present with clients when he works with them. He sees the coaching session as an opportunity to be mindful. He doesn’t teach any mindfulness in the session as he lacks the training and experience. Hopefully, all good coaches take this approach.
• Level 2 – Bringing in mindful attitudes: The coach not only practises mindfulness himself but also shares some key attitudes of mindfulness in the coaching session. Mindfulness attitudes include curiosity, self-compassion, compassion for others, acceptance of what can’t be changed, recognition of the impermanence of people, events and situations, understanding that people are connected not separate, and valuing your own personal, self-centred goals but also considering their impact on others.
• Level 3 – Introducing short mindful practices: The coach actually begins using the word ‘mindfulness’ and recommends that the clients try some mindfulness exercises. He doesn’t actually guide mindfulness in the session but does offer a book or guided audio to work through. The coach recommends working through a selection of exercises each week.
• Level 4 – Guiding mindful exercises in the session: If the coach is trained in mindfulness, he guides some mindful exercises in the session. Training is particularly important at this stage so that the coach doesn’t guide the exercise ineffectively or offer mindfulness to clients when actually they may need some other form of support or guidance.
• Level 5 – Using most of the session to teach mindfulness: Most of the session is spent explaining the principles of mindfulness and showing clients ways to implement mindfulness into their work and everyday life. The coach starts and ends the session with guided mindfulness exercises and uses the middle of the session to explore how mindfulness can be applied to the challenges the client is dealing with at work or home.

I (Shamash) train mindfulness coaches, and ensure they are able to offer up to level 5 mindful coaching. That way, they have the choice to use approaches that are most relevant for their clients. If you’re looking to train as a mindful coach, ensure you’re trained to offer a range of mindfulness exercises to your clients depending on their needs.

No matter what kind of coach or consultant you are, never underestimate the power of simply listening mindfully. Ask open, simple questions such as ‘Can you tell me more about that?’ or ‘Anything else you’d like to say?’ and then listen with mindfulness. Leading your clients in this way helps them to be more mindful and can lead to a deep level of transformative insight.

One level is no better than another in this model. If you’re a coach, use the right level for you and your client. If you’re inexperienced with mindfulness, start with level 1. If you’ve been practising mindfulness for years, consider further training in mindful coaching and begin work at levels 4 or 5, if that’s what your client needs.

Introducing Practical Ways to Integrate Mindfulness into Coaching

People seek out coaching to meet a particular need – whether fixing something that’s gone wrong or desiring to improve their performance.

Your clients may have a range of problems. They may be overwhelmed with pressure at work. Maybe they’re unable to clarify their goals. Perhaps they’re lacking in self-confidence and are hope that coaching will give them a boost. Or maybe they want to improve their ability to communicate with colleagues at work.

Some clients seek out mindful coaching because they want to improve their performance. I (Shamash) have developed a mind fitness course designed to improved such clients’ focus, intelligence and creativity. Mind fitness coaching combines mindfulness with other exercises from positive psychology and guided imagery to help people train their minds just like an athlete trains his body.

This section describes two key benefits of mindful coaching – increased clarity and reduced self-doubt. Obviously many other benefits exist but working on these two here introduce you to a few creative ways to use mindful coaching with your clients.

Increasing insight and clarity

Picture a snow globe. You shake it and it fills with imitation snow. When the snow flakes settle, a pretty little village or Christmas scene is revealed.

That snow globe provides a good metaphor for the clarity that can be revealed through mindfulness. Mindfulness gives your clients an opportunity for their frantic thoughts and emotions to settle down. With time, as your clients find out how to step back from their thoughts, they see their own situation with greater clarity and can identify what they need to do to improve it.

Have you had that experience? Been so busy with your work and personal life that you couldn’t see what you needed to do next? And then, after practising mindfulness exercises or having a nice holiday, free from distractions, have you been better able to see your situation clearly and known how to change things? We think that mindfulness is the best approach for increasing a client’s clarity and insight.

Mindfulness can lead to clarity and insight in the following ways:

• Mindfulness exercises give you time to become more aware of your thoughts about various situations at work.
• Mindfulness makes you become more aware of your feelings about various situations at work.
• Mindfulness puts you in touch with your bodily sensations, which can lead to ‘gut feelings’ that are surprisingly accurate.
• Mindfulness can help your mind calm down. Within that calm, you’re better able to see situations for what they are rather than your idea of them.
• Mindfulness helps you become more accepting and less judgemental, which means that you don’t colour work situations and projects with your own issues. Instead, you have the clarity of insight.

Here’s another analogy that may work for you. Picture mindfulness as the process of cleaning a window. Mindfulness is the act of cleaning, the dirt on the window represents recurring thoughts about the past and future, and the scene through the window represents the world around you. Each time you work through a mindfulness exercise, the windows of your perception are cleansed and you’re better able to see what’s in front of you. Without mindfulness practice and mindful values, the window can easily become a little dirty again and prevent you from seeing what’s going on.

Below are a few practical exercises to try with your clients to help them gain greater clarity and insight.

You can try these exercises on yourself or your clients:

• One minute of silent reflection: Ask your clients to close their eyes and relax for a few moments. Then tell them to ask themselves, ‘How can I best take care of myself?’ Tell them to observe any ideas, feelings or emotions that emerge. Then tell them to ask again, ‘How can I best take care of myself?’ Give your client a minute of silence to reflect on the question.

  You can change the question so that it seems right for your client or yourself.

• Mindful movement: No reason exists why you can’t do some mindful movements with your client if you’re working one to one. Ask the client’s permission and, if willing, guide some short mindful movement exercises. You can use Tai Chi or Qigong, if you’re familiar with those disciplines. If not, simply ask clients to stand up and close their eyes. Then, as they feel their breathing, ask them to sweep their arms up and down in front of them for a couple of minutes. Many of our clients enjoy mindful movement more than the sedentary exercises such as mindfulness of breath and mindful minutes (see Chapters 6 and 7 for more on these).
• Switching chairs, switching perspective: Mindfulness is about stepping back and seeing things from different perspectives. So, if your client is in conflict with a colleague, place an empty chair in the room. Ask the client to imagine a colleague in the chair and to notice his feelings and share his thoughts about the person and situation. Then, ask him to sit in the other chair, imagining that he is his colleague, speaking to himself. Again, ask him to notice his feelings and share his thoughts. This exercise can help clients to step back from their own view of a situation and see things from the other person’s perspective.
• A touch of frost: This exercise teaches the power of acceptance versus avoidance. Ask clients to hold a piece of ice in their hands and to try to avoid what they’re feeling as much as possible. Suggest that they think about something else other than the discomfort. After a minute, ask your clients to rate how painful they found the experience. Then ask them to practise one minute of mindful breathing and then to hold another piece of ice. This time, they need to accept the sensation. Ask them to feel the sensation together with their breathing. Tell them to allow the sensation to be there, and to almost relax into it. Again, ask them to rate their pain and share their observations and insights. Ask your clients how this experience relates to the challenges they’re facing in the workplace. This exercise demonstrates the power of mindful acceptance and often leads to many insights.

Overcoming self-doubt

Self-doubt is a sense of fear or uncertainly about yourself and your ability to achieve something. When I (Shamash) was at university, I was quite shy. I could deal with small groups of people but giving presentations to a roomful of other students made me feel anxious. Around that time, I began to study and practise mindfulness and other ancient Eastern philosophies. As a result, I discovered the danger of believing one’s own self-limiting beliefs and discovered how to see them as thoughts rather than facts.

Consider the following question: if you were absolutely guaranteed to succeed, what would you do with your life? Would you continue to work for the same company or would you apply for a different job? Would you try to gain promotion? Would you quit your job and go travelling around New Zealand? Asking your clients this question can often lead to interesting answers.

The following exercise helps you to clarify your client’s true desires and goals in both career and personal life, and offers a way to let go of limiting beliefs. Try it yourself first.

From self-limits to self-empowerment exercise

1. Bring yourself into the present moment by focusing your attention on your breath and bodily sensations.
2. Ask yourself: ‘If I could be successful in anything I chose to do, what would I do?’
3. Notice the thoughts, feelings, images and ideas that emerge. Do you feel excited or nervous? Are you full of ideas or drawing a blank? Whatever emerges is fine – and interesting! Notice how your mind is reacting to the question.
4. Refocus your attention on the present moment. Feel a few breaths.
5. Ask yourself again: ‘If I could be successful in anything I chose to do, what would I do?’
6. Notice what happens in your mind. Be fully aware of what emerges in your consciousness.
7. Step back from the limiting thoughts and beliefs that make you think you wouldn’t succeed; dispense with all the various reasons why your ideal scenario wouldn’t work. Be the observer of those doubts rather than being stuck within them.
8. Place the thoughts on clouds or into bubbles, or whatever other technique you prefer, to create some distance between you and your thoughts. Picture doubts as trains that approach a platform and then whizz away.
9. Refocus your attention each time your mind wanders. This wandering is fine and perfectly normal. Just kindly bring your attention back when you notice.
10. Finish the mindfulness reflection with a few mindful breaths.

Now consider what you discovered. Did you identify your heart’s desire? Try to identify the self-doubts or limiting beliefs that are holding you back. Did you enjoy watching them fly away into the distance or did that approach not work for you? Did this exercise make you feel frustrated or curious? If you felt uncomfortable, in what part of your body did such feelings manifest themselves?

Your answers to these questions lead to further insights about yourself and are a step towards experiencing greater self-confidence and less self-doubt.

Hopefully you can see the value of this mindful exercise for your clients. Figure 11-3 below shows how such a process can help your clients to step back from their self-limiting beliefs and perhaps achieve goals they previously thought were impossible.

There’s no right or wrong response to this exercise. Just notice what happens.

Coaching Team Members in Being Mindful

Effective teams drive performance forward. When members of a team work well together, their organisation can thrive. When teams don’t get on so well, the company can subsequently suffer; productivity goes down, innovation is stifled and profits can fall.

If you’re a manager, and you see hostility within your team, a lack of focus or excessive negativity and frustration, you need to take action. Deciding on the best form of change to improve team performance is vital for its success as well as yours.

Team coaching is often seen as a way forward. Although not always as effective as one-to-one coaching, team coaching efficiently helps the group as a whole clarify its mission and accelerate its progress. Even if your team is performing well, team coaching can still help to identify ways to increase its productivity.

Offering mindfulness to teams is an ideal way of introducing mindfulness to an organisation. As mindfulness is often taught in groups, integrating mindfulness exercises into group coaching is a great way to familiarise people with the concept.

Integrating mindfulness into your team coaching

How do you decide whether mindfulness is the right intervention for your team? If you want to help your staff develop the following attributes, mindfulness is probably a good choice:

• Greater resilience, resulting in an improved ability to cope with the pressures of the job
• Improved ability to communicate through the development of emotional intelligence
• Better ability to regulate emotions
• Improved ability to focus, resulting in increased productivity
• Greater ability to produce creative ideas and solutions as a result of more headspace

Consider the needs of your team before you decide on the best developmental approaches for its members.

Mindfulness isn’t a panacea for all your problems. Ask your team members what they suggest too. If a particular technical skill is identified as lacking, that may be more of a priority to begin with.

If you’re considering introducing mindfulness to a team within an organisation, bear these tips in mind:

• Share the science: Lots of research has studied the effects of mindfulness. Some of these are workplace-focused. Make sure that you share these findings to help convince your audience that mindfulness isn’t some airy-fairy technique but a systematic way of cultivating self-management through shifts that take place in the brain.
• Keep it secular: Mindfulness is now part of mainstream psychology courses and not just seen as an Eastern philosophy. Stress that, although these insights were often gained in ancient, Eastern disciplines, modern-day business schools now introduce mindfulness as a useful business tool.
• Make mindfulness optional: Allow staff to decide whether or not they want to find out about mindfulness. To force someone to practise mindfulness when they’re not really interested in it makes things difficult right from the start.
• Offer shorter mindfulness exercises: In a workplace setting, offering the longer mindfulness exercises, such as the 45-minute body scan, may not be realistic for busy people. Instead, offer shorter exercises that are easier to integrate into the working day or in the morning before work.
• Use the right language for your organisation: For some organisations, using the word ‘mindfulness’ is fine. For others, you may prefer to use ‘awareness training’, ‘attention training’ or ‘focus training’. Alternatively, integrate mindfulness into resilience training.
• Use trained mindfulness teachers: Mindfulness can involve lots of subtleties and nuances. If you want to offer mindfulness to your organisation and you’re not a qualified instructor yourself, make sure that you bring in an experienced mindfulness teacher.
• Offer on-going mindfulness classes: For staff who found a mindfulness course useful, consider offering a short daily or weekly class. Also try to set up a separate, designated room where staff can go to practise and cultivate mindfulness. The ability to practise mindfulness in a quiet space at work can boost staff morale, enhance their focus and improve productivity. Staff also feel more valued and cared for. You can that this situation is win–win for your organisation and its employees.

Overcoming barriers to mindfulness

You may face a few barriers when you try to introduce mindfulness to teams within an organisation. Although they don’t present major challenges, an awareness of the usual pitfalls may help you to prepare for them if they do arise. Below is a list of the barriers you’re most likely to face and possible solutions for dealing with them:

• Barrier – Participants’ lack of interest: Some of the trainers or staff at the organisation may not know what mindfulness is and therefore won’t understand how it can benefit the organisation.
• Solution – Introductory talk: Inviting a well-qualified and experienced mindfulness coach to speak to the trainers at the company can help. If the trainers then express an interest in the concept, organise a six-to-eight-week mindfulness course for them. Some of these people may begin regular mindfulness practice. Finally, over the longer term, perhaps after a year or so, some of the in-house trainers may go on to train to become mindfulness coaches themselves and then offer it to staff.
• Barrier – The idea that mindfulness doesn’t fit company culture: Some people may think that mindfulness is airy-fairy, weak or linked to a form of esoteric practice. As a result, they may feel that it doesn’t link to their organisational culture.
• Solution – Initial meeting and explanation: Meetings with the key decision-makers explaining the scientific and psychological basis of mindfulness can help. Let them know that they don’t need to light incense or do anything much out of the ordinary in the mindfulness sessions. Describing the mindfulness curriculum may help too.

  You can also ensure that a mindfulness intervention fits in with the culture of the company. For example, if you’ve become aware in advance that the staff are rather conservative, consider omitting mindful movement or mindful eating from the sessions. You can adapt the course so that it involves more theory and is based on shorter mindful exercises that are carried out seated. You can also offer audio exercises that staff can then try out in the privacy of their own homes. If the word ‘mindfulness’ clashes with company culture, use a different word that feels right for that organisation.

• Barrier – Doubts about the return on investment: Managers may be unclear about the organisational gains that may result from their investment in mindfulness; they may expect to see a financial gain.
• Solution – Build a case study: Try to work out anticipated reductions in absenteeism or increases in productivity (see Chapter 15 for an example of these benefits and how to calculate them) and to calculate how much money those developments would save the company. Juliet’s website www.mindfulnet.org has lots of advice on building case studies.

Rolling Out Mindfulness through Coaching

If you’re sold on the idea of mindfulness and want to offer it throughout your organisation, you can do so in several ways. This section covers how you can use coaching to achieve this aim.

Dealing with individuals

Coaching mindfulness one to one is probably the most effective way to introduce mindfulness into an organisation. If those responsible for staff development in your organisation are fully trained mindfulness coaches, you’re obviously laughing. However, this situation is rarely the case and so you have to commission a mindfulness coach.

Mindful coaching, though relatively new, works best for senior executives wanting to discover mindfulness because:

• They’re busy and need to make the most of the limited time they have available: Through individual coaching, the time can be adjusted to meet their needs.
• Their decisions can affect thousands of employees: With such an important job, you want to ensure that their training is highly effective. The best mindfulness coaches can help achieve that.
• They have private questions: As they say, it’s lonely at the top. Senior executives have fewer people available to them to act as a sounding board. A mindfulness coach can both teach the programme and act as a mindful listener.
• They’re used to a coaching format: Most executives have probably been getting some form of coaching for years. Integrating mindfulness into this process is a smooth way in.
• They can learn via the phone: Senior leaders sometimes need rapid access to a mindfulness teacher. Coaching can take place over the phone and, although not ideal, can be much more effective than you think.

One of the key benefits of starting with the senior executives when you’re trying to introducing mindfulness into an organisation is that you can more easily achieve management buy-in. When the senior leaders experience just how powerful mindfulness can be, they’re more likely to invest in the process for those lower down in the organisation.

Working with teams

If you’re an experienced mindfulness coach and are leading a team, begin with a short introduction to mindfulness, from the scientific perspective, and then guide a brief exercise at the beginning of a team meeting. Try something simple, such as a few minutes of mindful breathing or a body scan.

If you’re not a mindfulness coach, hire one. Lots of mindfulness coaches are out there looking for work. Follow these steps to ensure that you pick the right coach, define what the coaching is meant to address and check outcomes:

1. Find a mindfulness coach with relevant training and experience. Ideally look for someone with extensive experience in practising and teaching mindfulness together with a coaching qualification. See Chapter 12 for more information.
2. Conduct a short meeting with the coach to discuss what you want the coaching to achieve. Get to know the coach better and ask about the kind of activities he’ll do with the group.
3. Determine what outcomes he’ll measure, if you want to monitor progress. Maybe you want to address staff well-being and resilience, or improve team productivity.
4. Measure outcomes after the course. Conduct a follow-up meeting with the coach to assess what worked and what may be in the process of changing.
5. Share your findings. Tell other managers about the results of the mindfulness course and ask team members to share their experiences with colleagues. Hopefully, other teams will be interested in exploring mindfulness.

By starting with teams, you can integrate mindfulness into your organisation from the bottom up.

Involving the whole organisation

If you want to spread the mindfulness approach across the entire company, you need to get the CEO or senior leaders on board. They may initially be sceptical so you can begin by coaching a few teams and then presenting the results. Ultimately, the person who’s chief in command needs to embrace the principles of mindfulness before it can be applied at all levels of the organisation.

To ensure that mindfulness filters down most effectively, mindful leadership is key. Chapters 13-15 cover mindful leadership in all its guises.

Below are a few ideas on how you can introduce mindfulness into an organisation, whether you’re a coach or an executive.

If you’re a mindfulness coach:

• Use your contacts to set up a meeting with senior executives in an organisation that you feel may benefit from mindful coaching.
• Describe the evidence base for mindfulness and ask senior executives how you can meet their needs.
• Prepare a proposal outlining how mindfulness can address staff retention issues, lack of focus in meetings, reduced productivity and so on.

If you’re a senior executive or HR manager:

• Invite a mindfulness coach to a meeting.
• Check out his credentials and ask him to describe relevant experience of introducing mindfulness into the workplace.
• Suggest various ways in which mindfulness coaching can be introduced into the organisation, such as on a one-to-one basis, in groups or tailored to individual teams, and ask the coach whether he can devise a suitable programme.