Needs

Earlier today, I was at a seminar being presented by my friend Jeanette Sweet, who's with a company known as CPR Resources. It was a wonderful presentation, and she did a very good job.

Part of the presentation talked about the five basic needs of people, where she outlined, well, the basic needs of people, both the buyers of services or products and those who are selling the services or products. As she was presenting this part, I started thinking that, though the same words aren't used, these are some of the steps one goes through in working with someone during business or personal coaching sessions. They're also the kind of steps managers need to go through when having conversations with employees who aren't doing well in their positions, something else she mentioned in her presentation.

Whenever I do a coaching session with a new client, it always begins the same way. I ask the person to tell me what's going on in their career, then I listen. Every once in awhile I ask probing questions, trying to draw more out of them, but listening is the biggest part of new sessions. Another reason to ask questions is to keep them on point; people in general tend to wander off into many different areas when discussing their problems, and many times those other issues are offshoots of one or two main problems as they see them.

Next, I'll ask them to tell me how they feel, and we'll spend some time on that topic. This is when it gets interesting, because the first response I'll usually get is "I don't know". Well, of course they know, but what they may not be sure of is how to communicate it, and whether they should communicate it. People don't tend to contact me because they're angry; they tend to contact me because they're not content. It's easy to tell someone why you're angry; it's not always easy to tell someone why you're not content.

Now, the first two steps are the same ones that a manager can, and should, do with employees. In the business world, most of the time, issues can begin to be resolved once everything is out on the table, and both parties know where they stand. It can be uncomfortable at times, but pushing through it shows great maturity. Time may be of the essence in the office or workplace, so trying to resolve certain issues, even if those resolutions might take time to take hold, is of primary concern.

From an individual coaching standpoint, though, one would never begin trying to solve all issues immediately. That's because what one hears may not always be what the issues actually are. The idea isn't to fix one issue then send a person on their way; the idea is to help the person work through their perceptions of things and help them exact a lasting change that will carry them through the rest of their career, whether it's with this same company or at another company or profession. The goals of a coach are long term, not immediate. Those goals may not be the same if a company has hired them to talk to one person to try to quickly resolve issues, though.

I had one coaching client that I started out working with the way that's described above. She was all over the place that first day, but at the end of the day, I thought I had some kind of idea of where she might be. I wasn't totally sure that I had the whole thing down, though, so I gave her a couple of assessments to complete. Coaches love giving out assessments because it helps to make people concentrate and think about things that they normally wouldn't. Assessments are also valuable in that they'll help both parties determine just how serious someone might be in looking to change parts of their behaviors. If the person doesn't do the assessments, then they probably aren't ready for change.

With this particular person, as we went through her assessments later on, I noticed a pattern that I thought confirmed my suspicion, so I asked about it. In essence, she was someone with a lot of talent and creativity, but she wanted someone to give her immediate feedback on everything she did, no matter what stage her project was at. She didn't have the confidence to go forward without that approval, and, because the people she worked with and for weren't forthcoming with it as much as she seemed to need, she felt a lot of anxiety all the time, and therefore wasn't happy. She hadn't ever expressed that specifically, even on her assessments.

When I finally asked her about it, she paused, then said "Yes!", with the enthusiasm of someone who's just had an epiphany. Finally, we were ready to address the issue in full, because we had come to the root of her problem. Of course, we had to deal with why she had these feelings and find ways for her to overcome these feelings, because one can only change themselves when it comes to feelings. You can always talk to someone else and tell them that you need more, which was also a part of the conversation and recommendation, but in the long run, it's always going to be on the person themselves. You can't make someone else make you feel good; you have to make yourself feel good, appreciate yourself first.

This brings us back to Jeanette's presentation about the five basic needs of people, which comes from Abraham Maslow's 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which are referenced in the image below:

Each person needs to learn to see these things in themselves first, and then learn how to work with others based on the same principles. This was the ultimate lesson of the seminar I participated in, and it's something that all of us can use to be and feel better.