What is Strategic Coaching?
Strategic Coaching bridges the depth of psychotherapy with the action of coaching—so you can stop feeling stuck and start making powerful changes right where you are.
What is Strategic Coaching?
A strategic approach in coaching means to help individuals and groups to arrive at a common goal effectively and efficiently. The “Strategic” adjective in this Coaching approach sets it apart from other coaching or support interventions available in the field as it is rooted in evidence-based models in communication studies and psychotherapy, founded in the Palo Alto School of communication and evolved by Giorgio Nardone in Centro di Terapia Strategica di Arezzo, Italy, who became my mentor as a psychotherapist and now, as a Strategic life Coach.
The strategic coaching approach is rooted in the brief strategic therapy model. This approach understands that change is a constant variable in human experience. As wisely quotes “If you are not moving forward, it means you are going backwards”. We are called to be in constant evolution, in personal adaptation to the ever evolving circumstances in our life, careers and relationships. However, even when change is wanted - and needed- we, as humans, tend to resist that change, as it compels us to move outside of our comfort zone. And it is usually here when we can feel stucked or frustrated as what we envision for ourselves, it is not what may be reflected in the present. Our own beliefs, fears, habits or even pains can get in the way, creating a reality in which despite wanting the change, or even tracing a path for it to happen, we go back to our own homeostasis. It is precisely this first paradox in human experience in which the Strategic Coaching focuses on: understanding the resistance to change and using it in our favor to elicit change. As a Strategic Coach, I am interested in lifting the emotional, cognitive or behavioral block roads, which are impeding a full performance of the personal or even organizational resources. (another article will focus on the strategic model at the organizational level: The Strategic Problem Solving).
The Strategic Coaching approach takes another departure from other traditional approaches in the behavioral help professions, which is it does not focus on the WHY a problem developed or came to be. It is a rather usual misunderstanding that in order to create change or even improve our mental health, we need to dig into the depths of our past and identify the roots of our present problems in order to “disentangle” the thread of our lives and start healing. In this Strategic Approach to change through coaching, we focus on understanding and leveraging the logic of your problem or limit as it presents in the PRESENT in order to create a strategy to solve the problem. While the past might serve us in the process to adapt and adjust the strategies we are using, the WHY or the causes of the present problem is not the most important lever in creating the change we are seeking.
A third definitive characteristic of strategic coaching and provoking change is the use of communication strategically. As mentioned earlier, the brief strategic model in coaching use persuasive - analogic language in order to manage the natural resistance to change as well as to evoke emotional corrective experiences that go beyond the pure rationalization of a coaching conversation. The brief strategic model recovers and brings back ancient philosophical traditions of the sophists and the use of stratagems to manage and build change.
One last word about Coaching and Therapy
While I am a trained psychotherapist, and I have practice both psychotherapy and coaching for a long time, the Strategic Coaching services you will get from me are not considered therapy as I am not diagnosing you under any system of categorization of psychological disturbances, as well as the Strategic Coaching will not target the symptomatology related to any of such mental health ailments.
As such, change is understood from a brief strategic model that has evolved from a development of psychotherapeutic and problem solving settings to develop coaching interventions that allow people to unleash their talents and overcome their own mental limitations. The coaching is tailored to unblock problems and unleash change in individuals that do not have a psychological pathology or disturbance, which in turn, require the help of a mental health licensed professional.
In summary, while the strategic coaching approach utilizes techniques and interventions that have evolved from psychotherapy, the coaching is not therapy as it is not intended to diagnose or treat mental health illness
