Chapter FiveNew Perspective—Using Discomfort Zone Conversations to Break Through Barriers

“Nothing limits achievement like small thinking; nothing expands possibilities like unleashed imagination.”

William Arthur Ward

In the winter of 2009, I attended the first European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) coaching colloquium in Berlin.1 The theme of the colloquium was “Tricky Coaching: Difficult Cases in Leadership Coaching.” In each case, the goals the client laid out at the start of the coaching engagement blurred over time. Resistance to change showed up in many ways. External circumstances had varying effects. There were numerous approaches the coach could have taken. There were no pat answers to any dilemma.

Each accepted case was ...

Get The Discomfort Zone now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.