When the occasion demands it, I like to use scaling in my coaching sessions – I see the person being coached surprised by all that’s already going well for them once they’re asked to name it and identify what can be done next to move things along. I’ve never had a coachee score themselves higher than seven on their particular issue, which I suppose is no surprise, as it’s an issue, but I do wonder would a grown-up ever give themselves a 10/10?
What strikes me is that even when something’s going really well, we’ll play it down. I know it’s not attractive to show off, but surely there’s a balance?
I’m all for people wanting to be the best they can be – it’s why I do what I do – and I want them to celebrate reaching their achievement before striving for the stretch goal they’ve made or moving on to the next thing.
Each morning on his Radio Two programme, Chris Evans talks to children who are going to be doing something for the first time that day. They then come back the next day to say how it went and score their efforts out of ten. Without hesitation, they’re all in there with ten or at worst nine, and sometimes higher than ten. I like that they don’t worry that whatever they’ve done might not have been perfect, or could have been better in some way. ‘Did you ride your bike without stabilisers for the first time today?’ and if the answer’s yes, they’re straight in there with a 10 – none of this faffing about round six or seven you get with most adults and ‘well, it could’ve gone better, it took me a while and I ran over my Dad’s foot…’ In their eyes, they did what they aimed to do and so, without question it’s a ten, and I like that.
One little girl didn’t complete her challenge – she was going to shot the putt (is that right?) for the first time that day. When she called in the next morning, Chris asked if she’d done it. No, they’d been rained off and so the event had been postponed. Chris was sympathetic, asked for her score and went on to say he guessed it’d be a zero as she’d not been able to attempt her challenge, but she was straight in there with a three! She’d decided, she’d done all of the preparation and so deserved some recognition for her efforts. After all, it wasn’t her fault it had rained, she’d done all that was required of her – bar the final step.
I wonder when we stop being certain of our right to a ten, because we do. Whilst I recognise that this is part of growing up, I do think it’s rather a shame.
