ASSET MANAGEMENT
Why should disability be a problem when you coach the ‘whole’ person? Surely it’s just another phase in the continuum of life? CoachBarbara Asimakopoulou and client Katerina Hurd report
Business coaches are ideally placed to be equal partners to disabled people, helping them gain or regain control of their professional lives. The ultimate goal is to help them see their disability as just another phase in the continuum of life. Framing it in this way can assist the disabled to be autonomous agents.
A useful assumption in coaching is that the client is ‘whole’, a resourceful and creative expert in his own life and work. Coaching can help disabled clients redirect their abilities and resources to promote their social welfare, career and education.
The better they see themselves, the more creative they can be and the better their psychological health is likely to be. Coaching can create a new social identity for the disabled, reverse stereotypes, strengthen self-esteem and lower their degree of dependency.
An ideal partner
The coach facilitates and challenges people to solve problems, reach goals, design a plan of action and make decisions.
The coach ‘stays with’ the disabled person to:
bring out their new abilities
increase self-awareness and self-confidence
keep looking ahead and take advantage of opportunities
implement a plan of action
challenge them to discover and accept professional alternatives.
The fair and open-minded coach accepts their disabled client wholly, listening without judgement. Often, there is no previous history so the coach focuses on the human being behind the disability, not on the pathology that caused the disability, for example.
The coach can be a source of inspirational motivation, working with their disabled client to identify strengths independently of the disability so they can do the best they can with what they have now.
A coach can focus the disabled person on the present when they are being nostalgic for the past, while acknowledging that the past might instil hope to build a future.
The disabled at work
As a coach of disabled people, I wonder whether our society, employers and non-disabled employees are ready to accept the disabled on equal terms. I suspect that despite legal or national regulations, many are not.
Coaching can facilitate synergy between disabled and able-bodied employees in companies seeking productive cohesion in a peaceful working environment.
Disability is contingent on the task facing the person. Coaching can help disabled people find tasks that they can perform from start to finish.
With some, it might be about facilitating a transition to a different phase in the employee’s life that now includes a disability.
In some cases, the coach can act as an advocate on behalf of their disabled client in front of the employer. The coach can remind the employer that disability is just another phase of life – one that many of us face at some point – and help them see disabled people as equals. The coach can act as a messenger, informing HR about prejudice and helping them take advantage of the real capabilities of the disabled person.
However, it is important at all times to offer unconditional support for the disabled employee. All too often, their autonomy has been compromised. Like anyone, disabled people want their employer to treat them with respect, without discrimination, and to grant them equal opportunities.
Dr Katerina Hurd is a medical ethicist. She has a PhD in biomedical sciences from Oakland University, Michigan and a masters in medical physics from University of Surrey, UK
Barbara Asimakopoulou is an HR expert, business coach, motivational trainer and managing partner at Human Resources Expertise, Greece email: ba@hre.gr
Case study: Coaching my friend, Katerina
In the session, we explored what mattered to Katerina: “It is important to have clarity of thinking so I can maintain my autonomy to reason and to make my own decisions, thus, having a sense of responsibility for my life…Knowing that I enjoy reading and writing that facilitate my ability to think…Having a better perception of my self-awareness. In this way I can guard and defend, if I have to, my personal identity, my values and beliefs.”
As part of this self-responsibility, Katerina wanted to inspire and educate others about disability: “I want to find a way to inspire my family, future employers and employees so that my physical disabilities can be compensated for, improvised on with new, creative ways of thinking and acting accordingly…. I want to be able to cry and laugh, to psychologically support my friends, and fight against any prejudice and stereotypes.”
It was important for her to learn to live and work with the unpredictability of her future, but to recognise that the future is unknown anyway. We explored how she could cope with this. Strategies included paying more attention to the present:
“Time for me has multiple and different dimensions. I don’t waste my time, but I pay attention. I assess my strengths in order to maintain a quality of life that I want to live. I must adjust my expectations to my new physical conditions.”
Katerina shared how some people feel intimidated by her and that “dealing with a 42-year-old disabled woman evokes feelings of confusion and pity” in some. “Disability is like pornography: you recognise it when you see it.”
But when I asked her how important it is to her to be acknowledged by her peers, she said: “I don’t want to waste my time and energy to comfort people’s insecurities.”
Katerina studied Bioethics because she didn’t want her physical disability to restrict her from pursuing the life she wanted to live. “Physical disability and disability in general is a phase in the human condition… It does not disable your feelings and association with other human beings.”
We explored how disability changed Katerina. She said: “Disability is not a death sentence. It‘s a challenged approach to living.”
Wrapping up the session, Katerina said: “Imperfect human beings can also do perfect things”, and stressed that “the trust of the client in the coach is essential”.
Coaching Katerina brings many challenges – an important one being that she is a precious friend that I had known a long time before she became disabled. In my coaching role, I try to be professional and listen to her, despite my memories, and not counsel her as I used to, as a friend. I feel overwhelmed sometimes because of my love for her and it can be difficult to see and give her what she needs the most from me. More important for me is the balance and happiness of my friend.
References and further info
The Coach U Personal and Corporate Coach Training handbook, Coach U, Inc, Wiley, 2005
B Asimakopoulou, The Art of Peace in the Working Environment, Kritiki Editions, 2008
Handbook of Disability Studies, Ed. G L Albrecht, K D Seelman and M Bury, Sage, 2001
T Shakespeare, Disability Rights and Wrongs, Routledge, 2006
Quality of Life and Human Difference, Ed. D Wasserman, J Bickenbach and R Wachbroit, Cambridge University Press, 2005