Question 7: If you could say something to all clients of your style, what would it be?

My answer: The world needs more of your story about you, and fewer of your stories about other people. Breathe deep and speak up.

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Question 6: What is the most frustrating part for coaches working with clients of your style and what can coaches do about it?

My answer: The most frustrating issue that can crop up is the coachee agreeing to do something and then not following through. This can occur for a variety of reasons: first, the person doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation and, therefore, doesn’t attach much importance to their commitment. Secondly, the coachee feels the suggestion is really the coach’s, or they feel they have been led to this action by the coach’s gotcha line of questioning.

The problem for the coach is that the “yes” of a Style Nine can have a wide variety of meanings: “I hear you”, “I understand what you’re saying”, “I agree with you”, “I will do it”, or “not in my lifetime, buddy!”. Unless your listening skills are particularly nuanced, you might not hear which yes you’ve just been given. One way to handle this is to ensure that the client develops the action plan themselves. Another way is to build in a few small in-between steps, so that there is an early warning that something is off course. For example, if the client wants to prepare a business plan by the end of the month, then ask, by when they’d need  a first draft so that they can make the deadline. Thus, it’s clear to all involved early enough, if something is on-course for completion or off-course. No need to wait for the tears and told-you-so’s at the end of the month.

If you’d like to see the other eight answers to this question, head over to the Enneagram Learning Portal. If you’d like to share your answer to the question, or discuss my answer, please leave a comment or trackback.

Question 5: What is the most exciting or stimulating part for coaches of working with clients of your style? How can coaches leverage this to help their clients move?

My answer: Many people of Style Nine are overlooked or overlook themselves. This is due to not thinking about drawing attention to ourselves; if we can do it, it’s not so special. So, it’s pretty exciting when we begin to see ourselves and our true strengths for the first time and our surroundings begin to notice this also. Acceptance is a prerequisite for this: Style Nine clients need to know that their coach accepts them as they are, is truly helping them and not pushing the coach’s own agenda. Once this acceptance is no longer questioned, the coach can suggest approaches that really help the client to stretch and grow. There’s no need to hold back: the client, imbued with the naïve fearlessness of Style Nine, is willing to try out almost anything.

If you’d like to see the other eight answers to this question, head over to the Enneagram Learning Portal. If you’d like to share your answer to the question, or discuss my answer, please leave a comment or trackback.

Question 4: What coaching techniques work really well with clients of your style and why? What coaching techniques do not work well with clients of your style and why?

My answer: A good strategy is to give us some time and space to answer questions. We’re busy sorting through all perspectives, so although it’s not obvious, quite  a lot is going on beneath the surface. This strategy needs to balanced against the chance that we’ll drift into a reverie; it can help, if you encourage us to report on the internal negotiation of perspectives that usually takes place before we deliver an answer. A coaching model like the Inner Team can be helpful here, since it puts a name on the different parts of the inner conversation and gives both the coach and the client a chance to name what’s going on and who is currently contributing.

A tool like Lewin’s Force-field Analysis helps us to structure a problem and see outlines of a possible solution. Such structuring reduces considerably the overwhelming enormity of change. Just get the first one-and-a-half steps down well and we’ll get going. No need for a perfect plan.

If you want to know why mules take our correspondence courses, just try to interrupt us in mid-answer, or attempt  to force the pace. Zero progress and a healthy dose of passive-aggressiveness is guaranteed.

It is also less useful to use most of the models that force people to clarify their visions and goals. We are not great at articulating what we want.  It’s more productive to develop a “negative” of the goal: just ask us what we don’t want, flip each answer 180° and the goal becomes clear quickly. A Nine client was leading part of an Open space workshop where about ten people spent almost half a frustrating hour trying to help him define an improved interface between him and his suppliers. After turning the issue around, to what he didn’t like about the current interface, they had a complete definition from him within two minutes!

If you’d like to see the other eight answers to this question, head over to the Enneagram Learning Portal. If you’d like to share your answer to the question, or discuss my answer, please leave a comment or trackback.