Last Wednesday I facilitated a discussion on this topic at the Hong Kong Coaching Community. You are probably curious about the outcome. Well, the answer to the question whether experience could be dangerous in coaching other people is, yes, if you use it in the wrong way.
What does that mean? Our discussion lead us to the equally important question as to how is coaching different from consulting. The point is, if we use our experience or knowledge to recommend to the client what to do in a given situation, that is not coaching, but consulting. Nothing wrong with that, this is especially appropriate where the client has a clear deficit in expertise.
However, usually we handle people's issues in coaching and we could say that everyone knows something about people, especially about him- or herself. In fact, no one knows better about one-self than we ourselves. The only problem is, we often lack awareness. Here is where the coach can become very valuable, if he manages to raise our awareness, expand our horizon, etc. The masterful coach does that by asking the right questions, by provoking through exaggerated statements, by a process of clarification and discovery. Needless to say that excellent rapport between client and coach is a precondition for this process.
Also, experience can be very valuable for the coach to 'smell' where the issue could be and then tap into that area and see whether something valuable comes up. Someone with out experience, may not be able to get to the point so quickly, if at all. So here we go, experience can be very powerful in coaching as long as it does not lead the coach to consulting where it is not appropriate.
During that discussion I also shared some results from my research on outstandingly successful coaches. If you want to know more about it, don't hesitate to contact me.
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