Anyone with more than a passing interest in coaching is likely to be familiar with the concept of the Inner Game. Writing in The Inner Game of Tennis, author and 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; that in any area of work there is both an outer game and an inner game being played. In selling there is an outer game comprising product knowledge, sales techniques and customer behaviour and at the same time an inner game of confidence, positive thinking and persistence. In customer relations there is an outer game concerning systems and procedures and an inner game of assertiveness, proactivity and charm.

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.

Responsibility

The nature of responsibility in personal development is often confused with blame. In suggesting that we are ultimately responsible for what happens in our lives I am not for one minute suggesting that we control everything that happens in our lives. We cannot control the weather, global economic disasters or what other people do to us. But we can absolutely control and choose our response. 100%. We are quite literally response-able.

We empower ourselves when we accept responsibility. Events become things to act upon now or learn about later. There is always choice. Coaching people to this realisation can be a most valuable gift.

In Johnny's case he needs to realise that he cannot affect the cause of the delays, the departure time or the state of his customers, but he can exercise responsibility for checking in his queue as quickly as possible, with a minimum of fuss and with as much politeness and empathy as he can muster.

Awareness

Coaching to raise awareness is a matter of helping people to tap into their experience of the senses, not the mind. By this I mean becoming skilled at noticing what we notice, not beating ourselves with up with negative internal comments and criticisms.

It is allowing ourselves to answer the question 'what is happening? If we can truly open ourselves to the sensory experience of say, selling or handling complaints, then we can automatically make the adjustments necessary to do so better. Adjustments too subtle, I would suggest, to come from the feedback of our managers and team leaders.

The beautiful simplicity of this in coaching is that conscious awareness leads to unconscious improvement. Just getting people more aware is enough to automatically create performance improvement.

If Johnny has been well coached we can expect him to more quickly pick up on his customer's tensions and his own growing stress levels. Awareness is curative so if he just notices these things – without critical self-judgement - improvement will follow naturally.

Focus

When we focus we are directing our awareness at the right things. Focus must not be confused with ‘trying harder' which just produces tension and fatigue.

Unfortunately we live in a society which sets too much store in ‘trying harder'. "Good effort", "At least you tried", "....try, try again" we say to ourselves and others. Ambitious young employees rush to arrive at the office before the boss and jockey to be the last to leave thinking that clocking up the hours is the same as high performance.

There is nothing wrong with helping people find a tight enough focus that their efforts become effort-less rather than effort-ful.

In our example Johnny could become preoccupied with the tension in his queue, the noise around him as passengers argue with other check-in staff or his rising levels of anger as he becomes exasperated at the way some people talk to him. Or he could focus on following his procedures efficiently and attending to the task at hand Which will show his passengers that he is doing all he can.

Relaxation

Focused awareness occupies our minds fully and liberates us from the constant white noise of the self talk, and usually unhelpful musings of our conscious minds. This quietens the mind and body and allows us to tap into our natural abilities. Usain Bolt broke three Olympic records chewing gum and playing to the crowd. What if we could use coaching to find the Usain Bolts of our accounts, admin and sales teams?

Relaxation will be tough to achieve in Johnny's situation but should help his customers calm down too. Relaxation does not mean giving up and no longer caring; it means performing effectively.

Trust

Trust impacts our ability to successfully coach in three ways. Firstly we must trust the people we coach. We need to be able to loosen our managerial control and allow them to find their own, unique ways of doing things. This requires a tolerance of error and risk that makes many managers shudder, but the rewards are massive as our people begin to thrive and develop in an atmosphere that encourages their growth.

Next we must trust that the coaching process will work. Not in every case; but mostly. We need to refrain from rescuing people and having all the answers and instead develop our ability to ask the questions that will raise awareness, create focus and generate responsibility.

Thirdly, we must trust ourselves to be more than capable of doing what I've outlined in these last two paragraphs, no matter our age, status or prior experience.

Let's imagine that Johnny had received some coaching as part of his development in the role so far. It's predictable that this will have included some coaching around dealing with passengers angered by delays. If I'd been coaching him I'd want him to be thinking "I believe I can handle this" and "I'm willing to try my best in difficult circumstances". For this to have happened, then during coaching Johnny will have had to trust that I had his best interests at heart and that coaching was about helping him develop not remedying his faults. Then it would have been a question of helping him trust himself and developing his self-belief.

Detachment

I'm sure you can see how developing the attributes so far described requires an ability to stand outside ourselves; to be detached in other words. If awareness is all about noticing what we notice, then detachment is almost noticing who it is that is noticing things. If this all sounds a bit too flaky, just think of it as taking time out to reflect.

Now, I'm not going to argue that Johnny ought to become detached at the time he's booking in his vexed passengers although he'd do well to remember that people are unlikely to be angry at him personally; more at the situation. But if we imagine coaching Johnny at say, the end of his shift when he's got through the challenge, no real awareness, focus, insight or learning will take place until we have enabled his mind to take a step back.

Commitment

What's the difference between involvement and commitment? Think of it in terms of a full English breakfast where the hen is involved but the pig is committed.

Commitment is responsibility in action. In the case of Johnny and his queue it's a question of him choosing his response to a situation outside of his control. He could say to himself "This is not my fault in any way, so I'm going to get my head down and just get through the day" or he could say "If I was in there position I'd be really upset too. I'm going to do everything I can to get these people on their flight as soon as possible". Johnny can exercise this choice at any time, but having discussed such a scenario in coaching – in advance of it happening – is much more likely to lead to him making the more positive commitment.

Coach your people well enough and you will create incredible commitment. When you coach you'll create realisable goals through awareness, responsibility and trust. You can then apply focus, relaxation and detachment to systematically eliminate the internal and external obstacles to their realisation. In such climates they become literally unstoppable.