Motivating Others through Coaching with Compassion

Melvin Smith, Richard E. Boyatzis, and Ellen Van Oosten

Politicians drool for the economic development results Jim McFarlane was achieving.

Through his efforts, significant investment and job creation was taking place in Scotland. . At 57

years old, he was regarded as one of Scotland’s foremost economic development

practitioners. He was Managing Director of Scottish Enterprise – the country’s national

economic development agency. His typical day began with a breakfast meeting and often

continued through dinner. Stimulating entrepreneurship and investment in a country besieged by

economic challenges is not just important for national economic statistics, it changes people’s

lives, but Jim felt he was working harder than ever and enjoying it less.

Through Scottish Enterprise Jim was offered the opportunity to participate in

Weatherhead’s Leadership Deep Dive Programme but was having difficulty in his early

conversations with his coach. His coach asked him to describe his passion, his purpose and his

core values, to envision himself 5-7 years in the future and to consider what he really wanted to

do in his work and in his life. Although he regularly asked his direct reports to do something like

this, he had not done it for himself. He was clearly uncomfortable sharing his feelings and

emotions in this way but as he reflected more, a flame that had burned inside him for years

became rekindled.

His executive coach asked him to put his thoughts in writing. Ideas started to

emerge. He compiled them in a personal vision statement that was four pages long. He

completed five drafts of his personal vision before he was satisfied with the final version. The

vision included concepts he learned from the program, including a new awareness that what he

wanted and needed to do was to become more of a leader and less of a manager.
 He had demonstrated time and time again that he could lead highly complex economic

development projects and as a result, he established a track record of being a high achiever who

always delivered. He was rewarded time and again for these accomplishments. But for the

first time in his career, he began to see his primary role not as managing projects, but as teaching

and coaching others to be that project manager. Instead of doing the work himself, he desired to

inspire others to achieve new heights of success for themselves and the organization. This may

not sound like rocket science, but for Jim this realization marked a significant change in how he

viewed himself, his work and his contributions.

The new ideas that came to Jim were not the result of coincidence. The coaching

provoked them. It would be more accurate to say that the approach to coaching “invited” the

new ideas and perceptions.

The coach was using an approach to coaching called coaching with compassion.1 The

coach was trying to bring Jim into a state called the Positive Emotional Attractor. In this state,

Jim is more likely to be neurologically and hormonally open to new ideas and perceptions.2 It

has been shown in 25 years of longitudinal research that coaching someone toward the PEA, that

is, coaching them with compassion, helps to stimulate dramatic improvements in the emotional,

social and cognitive intelligence competencies related to leadership effectiveness.3 This

approach is a marked contrast to typical coaching, which we call coaching for compliance. In

this approach, the coach feeds back assessment data or summarizes results from previous

performance reviews, and asks the person what he or she could do to change. This is creating a

1
Boyatzis, R.E., Smith, M. and Blaize, N. (2006) “Developing sustainable leaders through coaching and
compassion, Academy of Management Journal on Learning and Education. 5(1): 8-24.
2
Smith, M., Van Oosten, E., & Boyatzis, R.E. (2009). Coaching for sustained desired change. In Richard
Woodman, William Pasmore & Rami Shani, Research in Organization Development and Change: Vol. 17,145-174.
3
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional
Intelligence. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Negative Emotional Attractor by invoking what others (i.e., bosses, spouses, coaches) think the

person should do and how he/she should change.

It worked! Jim became re-engaged in his work in a different way. Not surprisingly, his

relationships with people around him became more open, more transparent, more trusting. Nine

months after starting the coaching, he received the best performance review he had ever

received. The feedback from the CEO, his peers and his direct reports was very positive and

consistent. As one of his peers said, “... today, I see a completely different man-- a real corporate

leader and colleague who listens more to the views of others… I personally admire his vision

statement and found it quite humbling. It made me re-visit my own vision for the future.”

Coaching is a basic component in almost every effort at change that sustains the desired

effects. Change is difficult and inherently stressful, on top of all of the other sources of stress. As

mentioned in an earlier article in this special issue, such stress leads to disengagement and

dissonance in one’s relationships. By taking the approach of coaching a person toward their

dreams, toward their values, toward their passion, we engage their feeling of being cared for and

understood. It arouses an emotion called compassion in the person being coached—and then in

the coach. Arousing compassion invokes the renewal processes so important to our

sustainability.4

But take heed, this is often counter intuitive. When we are trying to help someone,

whether a subordinate, friend or family member, we have a tendency to try to make it simple by

telling them what they should do. In the process, we are not paying attention to them but

imposing our will and goals onto them. The result is a response that could be acquiescence,

coping or passive resistance. In any mode, it engenders a defensiveness or guilt about how a

4
Boyatzis, R.E, Smith, M. & Van Oosten, E. (2011). Building Relationships and Talent: Coaching to the Positive
Emotional Attractor for Sustained, Desired Change. In Berger and Berger (eds.), The Talent Management
Handbook, NY: McGraw Hill. P. 217-226.
person “should” act. This, as we said earlier, is coaching for compliance—or that is how it is

experienced by the person being coached.

On the other hand, beginning the coaching process by encouraging the person to dream

of the possibilities in their life and work, to reflect on their core values, their passion, their

desired legacy, we can arouse the Positive Emotional Attractor. The experience of compassion in

the relationship with the coach also invokes the PEA and its benefits. With it come new levels of

cognitive, perceptual and emotional performance, as well as openness, and a healthier, more

sustainable state with which to face the challenges of the future and adapt to them, and become

as sustainable as Jim has.