The inner game of coaching
By Matt Somers (April 2009 Issue)
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Anyone with more than a passing interest in coaching is likely to be familiar with the Inner Game. Writing in The Inner Game of Tennis, coaching pioneer Tim Gallwey describes discovering that “the opponent in one’s own head is more daunting than the opponent on the other side of the net”.
I believe the same is true at work: there is both an outer game and an inner game being played. In selling, for example, there is an outer game of product knowledge, sales techniques and customer behaviour and, at the same time, an inner game of confidence, positive thinking and persistence.
It is mastery of these inner games that explains the difference between high and low performers, and coaching should be concerned with developing the necessary mental state to enable our people to ‘win’ their inner games.
All games have their unique rules and techniques, of course, but in this article I want to consider the seven core mental attributes that we can develop through coaching so that our coachees can enjoy more success, overcome their mental barriers and prevail in their inner games.
As a worked example, we’ll examine how developing these attributes could affect Johnny, a new member of check-in staff for an international airline. Johnny is busy checking in a long queue of passengers whose flight has been delayed for several hours.
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