Coaches are Process or Life Experts?

Shocked, he said, "Am I seeing the wrong person?  I thought you have the experience and with all the training, surely you can give me your professional opinion?"

I candidly told him, "The only life I am kind of an expert on is my own life.  I can listen.  I can ask question.  But I cannot tell you what to do!  You are the expert of your life."

Not only coaches, but clients of many other helping professionals such as doctors, lawyers, financial planners, counselors, etc think they (the client) are the experts of their lives.  I began to think very much on this fact when my doctor during a recent medical check-up told me that I know my body better than anyone else, including him!

Let's get some terminologies right.  An expert is someone who possesses special skills or knowledge.  People who seek their help are called seekers.  So, when we are sick, we want a doctor to use his expertise to "cure" us.  When we face a moral dilemma or life crisis, we seek a spiritual leader to tell us what we should do.  When we experience an emotional crisis, we seek the help of psychotherapist or psychologist to tell us what's wrong and how to fix it.  So for years, this expert-seeker model controls our whole life, dividing our world into the "haves" and "have nots", meaning, those who have the expertise and those who lack it.

This can be a fallacy especially in coaching where clients expect ready answers from coaches.  The truth is we never provide straight answers to their issues.  I always tell and remind them that they will always remain the experts to solve their issues or reach their goals.   We coaches, however, are the process experts, possessing the ability to help clear a pathway in the minds of people to find the hidden solution which already exists.  Coaches use a structured process, driven by curiosity, inquiry and exploration to help clients gain self awareness in making their self discovery.

That is why coaches can work with any client.  They do not need to possess specific "technical" knowledge to help them.  In my case, my education and training experiences are predominantly in tourism.  Few of my clients are from this industry.  Most of them are from other industries such as oil & gas, banking, IT, forestry, food products, health etc.

In one of my coaching assignments to help a local company envision a new and dynamic future, I realized that the senior management team was the expert and not me! They had the expertise in almost every aspect of their company - corporate history, the business itself, the business environment and their competitors.  I simply brought a process that supported them in assessing their expertise and used it to help them craft the future they want.

In coaching, it is clear that two types of experts are brought together.  The coach brings their coach training as well as a rich array of work and life experiences. The client is the expert in what they want out of their personal or professional life. They also bring an array of other areas of expertise - their training, life experiences and reflections.

It is an equal partnership model in coaching in that both the coach and coachee have shared responsibility for the success of the coaching relationship. But who has the slightly bigger responsibility?  In the final analysis, it is the client who is ultimately responsible for the success.