Time management and Coaching

I was reflecting on a client's key concern from a few years back today. She was mainly focused on "time management", a concept that I have since learned is a coaching red flag to me. At the time, I took her challenge at face value. As we worked on it, however, she became more frustrated. We looked at the thinking behind why she thought this was a target area, how it was impacting her work/team/life, what was at stake for her, what was her ideal reality. But she seemed blocked at every turn. Her frustration mounted as she seemed strangled by the things that "dropped" into her calendar, the result on her mood, her sense of hopefulness for the future, her level of patience in dealing with staff/clients/supervisors/colleagues. Clearly, she was losing control over time. We looked at her approach to her work: what's important to you here, why do you feel so obligated to accept all of these meeting, how do you know time management is the issue, what's your best thinking about getting a handle on this. We looked at her calendar and she categorized what she was spending her time on: what's yours, what belongs to others, what is top priority, what relates to your role/responsibilities/growth areas. We examined risks of saying no to requests for meetings, delegating attendance, etc. And we continued to work on this plus her thinking behind it and her approach with people when she was feeling particularly frazzled. And we would repeat this to little impact session after session, mostly. She frequently changed or dropped coaching appointments or arrived breathless and late. In the end, this was an unsuccessful experience all around. We came to our conclusion for our engagement, having lost several appointments in between and she postponed our concluding conversation, never to reschedule. Her calendar was too full. She did not respond to a feedback tool I used at the time nor my attempts to reach out, offer support at her leisure. Basically, she vanished. In addition, her goals were not achieved, her mountain of "time management" remained unmoved.

Years later, I find I think about her and that experience alongside a more recent client with new eyes and I something very different from what I thought we were working on. The sense that "time management" is still a coaching red flag remains. However, my hunches about possible roots to this has shifted. Now I ask, what's behind that? Why is it about managing time? If you weren't managing time, what would you be free to do? What else could you manage in relation to time? How do you see time and calendar commitments? How do you WANT to see them? My more recent experience with a client present with similar frustration - though she never pointed to her calendar as the core issue - and reactions to the world revealed her desire to be less breathless in life and work. When we dug beneath this to find what she really wanted (as opposed to what she was currently feeling / facing and DIDN'T want) she found she sought harmony. Harmony. In other words, when she felt breathless, the opening to the right path was to ask, "Is breathlessness connected to the cause or the result?" It was the result of a lack of harmony. Now, when I look back to my "time management" client I wonder if time management was the real issue. Her reaction to a lack of time to do the things she wanted, needed, were expected in a reasonable and manageable way was the real issue. In other words, I think her challenge was really about control: her calendar had it, her bosses / clients / direct reports had it, she perceived (perhaps rightly so) that everyone and everything else in her world had control over her EXCEPT her. The result, she was breathless, unfocussed, frustrated, confused, upset. Where was her sense of control.

I really wish I could work with her again; this could be the angle she seeks.