Design Thinking in Coaching: A Powerful Approach to Unlocking Client Potential

Coaching is also about designing your thinking. 

I recently watched a video by Srikant Datar, dean of Harvard Business School who has been teaching the course on design thinking and innovation since 2012. Some of the words he used aligned with the world of professional coaching. 

Coaching is also about designing your thinking. 

So, what is design thinking. An article in the Harvard Business School (HBS) blog says, “Design thinking is a mindset and approach to problem-solving and innovation anchored around human-centered design. While it can be traced back centuries—and perhaps even longer—it gained traction in the modern business world after Tim Brown, CEO and president of design company IDEO, published an article about it in the Harvard Business Review.

Using design thinking in coaching to unlock client potential

In his video, Datar talks about design thinking having a “User-focused mindset”. To me this equates with client-centricity and always keeping what the client wants in focus, something professional coaches are always reminded to do.

Data also focused about how design thinking “generates ideas and strengthens possible solutions” ICF in its definition of coaching says “The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership.” Add to this the foundational premise that all professional coaches have that the client is whole and complete and that they have all the answers within them. The coach simply helps them access this inner wisdom and to me, the parallels between the world of design thinking and coaching seem strong.

 According to the Interaction Design Foundation (IDF), “Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems, and create innovative solutions to prototype and test.

It is most useful to tackle ill-defined or unknown problems and involves five phases: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.” Is this not what I do as a professional coach? Empathise (but not get emotionally entangled) with my client. Enable them to define what they want out of the coaching session, support them in ideating, and then help them prototype and test their ideas to see if they work (between sessions when the client tries out the plans they create in session).

The HBS article goes on to say, “Design thinking is different from other innovation and ideation processes in that it’s solution-based and user-centric rather than problem-based. This means it focuses on the solution to a problem instead of the problem itself.”

This rings a bell for me about the oft-repeated phrase in coaching “Coach the person, not the problem” by Marcia Reynolds. She says “You can't just tell people to change, they are stuck in their stories”. This is where I believe coaching comes in to help design or in some cases re-design their thinking. From this work, new stories and possibilities emerge, leading to new actions and new outcomes.

A wonderful article that I stumbled upon was “Coaches Seek to Simplify”. A post by Dr. Rupinder Kaur seeking to answer the question “What do coaches do?” began with this line.

She went on to add an amazing quote by Hans Hoffman “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” And then said, “In the context of coaching, coaches do the same, they help their client to detangle the nuanced complexities of their own thinking thus building more clarity and white space to design their lives intentionally.” 

Brilliant design is almost always rooted in simplicity. Brilliant coaching too is often the same. If you are looking for insight, a solution to a problem or an innovative breakthrough schedule yourself a coaching session and let a professional coach take you on a journey that will support the design of your thinking. 

Nikhil Dey is a certified ICF coach and founder of soul2solecoaching. He is the first recipient of the ICF India coaching excellence rising star award.