How many times have you been faced with a client and felt paralysed by your own ineptitude? In this series, Sam Humphrey looks at stereotypical clients and identifies the CPDs you can undertake to support your coaching mastery. This issue: My pedigree chum
Client profile
Theme tune: Anything by Victoria Beckham – well, she is posh isn’t she?
Favourite TV show: Brideshead Revisited
Favourite objects: The Bentley, leather elbow patches
Role models: Boris, Charles (as in Prince)
This client is the living, breathing embodiment of comedian Harry Enfield’s Tim Nice-But-Dim character. You may well recognise his profile pattern from certain of your executive clients: Family Born into a well-to-do family, successful and wealthy Daddy, stay-at-home charity organising mother, younger siblings off the rails. Education Boarding school from eight, Oxford thereafter, followed by a short service commission in the Household Cavalry.
Work Now here begins the problem. This client has moved through the earlier part of his life on a conveyor belt. Each step was orchestrated by Daddy and involved some hefty financial donations. Your client has yet to notice that there is an entire wing at his old school named after his family or that the library in Oxford has gargoyles of all his ancestors around the top.
The client is not a bad person, in fact he is rather pleasant, he just has no vocation, skills or aptitude. But he is about to start a City job and he has you as his coach. This partnership will require you to work with even less talent than Jedward. In fact, Louis Walsh has a better chance of coaching Jedward to do well in the City.
Foundation – Plums
Communication is a key part of working with clients. Your ‘saarf’ London accent or, god forbid, regional one means you will not get off the starting blocks with this client. The answer is plums. Slip a couple in each cheek and your accent will be transformed into that of a character from Gosford Park.
Intermediate – Strengths Inventory
Never has positive psychology been more necessary. This client will require you to hold onto your belief that everyone is capable of something. Use all the strengths you can get your hands on – make one up if you have to.
Practitioner – Coat of Arms
Helping this client find his own identity will help him find his place in the world. Engage him in creating his own coat of arms to help him discover his values and beliefs. Forget flipcharts and pens. Employ a heraldic craftsman to create a coach of arms using gold, silver and semi-precious stones.
Master – Connections
You know this client’s only hope is to have someone covering his back if he is to stay in this job. Engage the TV crew from Who do you think you are? to trace his boss’s family history. With your client’s pedigree, your boss’s ancestors are bound to have been shown mercy by his ancestors. This will give more bite to your tripartite meeting as you point out that the boss must repay such a kind act.
Volume 5, Issue 1