Financial Coaching Models Cheat Sheet: Pt 3

Why Frameworks Matter

These techniques help you to get consistent results with your clients. One of the reasons I love frameworks in general is because they bring structure to a random process yet still provide flexibility and space for nuance.

We started this series with episode 69 so to help you frame (see what I did there) these concepts so you understand WHY we’re talking about this and what to do with these tools, start with episode 69 and episode 70.

Also, I’ve created a handy-dandy cheat sheet for you to both follow along but also use as a resource as you explore these topics. You can get that here.

We are all students of this craft and I hope this series has inspired you to continuously learn and grow as a coach.

Using Self-Assessment Tools

Here we’re going to discuss another segment of your coaching tools and these are your self-assessment tools.

Self-assessment tools are a test, method or activity that can help an individual gather information for a self-evaluation. There are many of them and we’re going to highlight a handful here but this is not an all-inclusive list.

In one way, all of the models we’ve been discussing these past few episodes are self-assessment tools because they help us gather information or gain insights.

But the self-assessment tools we’re talking about here, however, use psychological or sociological research and focus more so on a person’s personality, social habits, strengths, weaknesses, preferences, values, skills.

They’re meant to help you understand yourself better but one thing to note as we explore these as they should not be seen as limitations or as a crutch.

Misapplying Self-Assessment Tools

Like all of the coaching models we’ve discussed, you want to think about how or when they can be misapplied. And for self-assessment tools, they’re misapplied when the results are used to justify or make excuses for a decision or course of action. So if the results say you’re not great at something, the person then says “I can never do that because my ____ results said I can’t.”

We allow them to stereotype us instead of saying “This might be challenging for me because it’s not my natural strength but I can do it anyway.” or “I need to create some good habits around this since it’s not natural for me.”

These should be interpreted not as certainties but more so as likelihoods.

Another misapplication of self-assessment tools is when you let them divide versus connect you to others. See differences as beautiful and respect that another person perceives the world differently than you.

In other words, don’t let these remove all your power from who you are and what you’re capable of. I’ll give some examples throughout as we explore each one.

Whenever I take these assessments or use these tools, there are things I read and think “Oh my gosh, that’s so me!” and then there are parts I read and I think “Yeah, I’m not so sure about that.” So just know that like all the other models I’ve been sharing, I can see their use and benefits and also their imperfections.

In my eyes, that doesn’t make them wrong; it’s just another reason we want to have a diverse and well-rounded approach to what we do.

After we review these, I’ll share how I use these in my coaching practice and with clients because it’s a little different than the models and techniques I shared in the first two parts of this series.

In no particular order, let’s start with:

Human Design

Human design focuses on how you exert energy, what gives you motivation and how you make decisions that are right and best for you.

It’s meant to speak to our true essence, help us better understand our authentic self and how we can live our life accordingly. For example, my personal Human Design tells me that my natural decision making power comes from my gut – or what it calls my sacral energy. And I do find that to be true for me.

Human Design is a method that is often referred to as a spiritual technique and yet it doesn’t have any specific religious dogma or affiliation.

There’s an app called My Human Design with Jenna Zoe – it’s got a peach or cream colored icon, that I really like if you want to explore your own Human design. No affiliation and I’m sure there are dozens if not hundreds of others, that’s just the one I used for a period of time.

Myers Briggs

Myers Briggs shows you what you tend to focus on and how you respond to conflict. It helps you better understand what really drives, inspires and worries you, and others, so you can build more meaningful relationships.

There are five independent spectrums and there are different combinations of those five spectrums. The result is 16 combinations that determine your personality.

This personality type defines your energy, mind, nature, tactics and identity.

I had to look up mine when preparing my notes for this episode so that tells you how NOT-fixated I am with these but my personality type is ESFJ-A or I’m known as The Consul. Here’s what that says about me and I’ll let you decide if you think it’s accurate:

“Attentive and people-focused, enjoys taking part in their social community. Achievements are guided by decisive values, and they willingly offer guidance to others.”

Hmm… yup, I’m thinking there’s some validity to that.

You can take a free assessment online. Let me know what you get!

DISC Assessment

The DISC is a measure of interpersonal behavior, most often used in the workplace.

It classifies how we interact in terms of four personality styles: Drive, Influence, Support and Clarity or sometimes referred to as Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness.

Every person has all four personality types in the DISC profile, it’s just a matter of how strong each one is.

Strengths Finder

The Strengths Finder measures the intensity of your talents and shows you what you do best. It tells you how uniquely powerful you are. It gives you your unique combination of 34 themes, divided into four domains. These describe what you naturally do best and what you might need help from others to accomplish.

I’m not aware of any place you can take the Clifton Strengths Finder assessment for free. I remember completing this back in my Corporate days as it tends to be used mostly in workplaces but I don’t remember my results.

KOLBE

The Kolbe measures the instinctive way in which you take action and helps you to better understand and build on your natural strengths. The idea is that if you were left to approach a problem your own way, how would you utilize your affective, conative and cognitive mind to solve the problem and develop solutions.

Kolbe says that creativity isn’t a function of the right brain versus left brain but a process that engages all three parts of our brain in unique ways.

As someone who didn’t see myself as creative for the longest time, it was the Kolbe that really helped me to understand how to unleash my creativity. That creativity, for me, shows up very differently than what I imagined creativity to look like for people.

This is a method we use quite often on my team and Michael is certified in this method.

Again, you’ll find some methods resonate more with you than others and the Kolbe is one that just makes sense to me; I’ve found it to be incredibly valuable when it comes to working with clients and coaches.

In the Ultimate Growth Guide, I talk about evaluating a client’s prep work and the example I give is whether they give detailed numbers and answers. Do they use a lot of specificity, or do they give more general responses? This is an example of trying to clue in to their Kolbe so I can adjust my approach to meet theirs.

If you are interested in knowing your Kolbe and having an interpretation done, you can email us and that’s something Michael does.

The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin

The Four Tendencies focuses on how you respond to different types of expectations. The four tendencies are Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, and Rebel. This can be helpful to better understand if a client responds better to internal or external expectations.

For example, I do not respond well to external accountability. I’m a questioner. So as long as I understand why something is right for me, I’m more likely to do it. I also have Rebel tendencies which is probably why as soon as someone tells me I can’t do something, I want to prove you wrong and if someone tells me I should do something, I immediately don’t want to do that thing.

When I hire a coach, I tell them they can’t just tell me to do something, they need to tell me WHY they are recommending that strategy or approach or advice and why for me specifically. So as you can see, it can be a useful tool to better understand what we need for ourselves.

Enneagram

The enneagram describes nine primary strategies we use to relate and react to the world, each one having a set of basic fears, desires, and generally predictable patterns of behavior.

Coach Jaclyn on my team loves the Enneagram and I have some friends who love it too. Apparently I’m a 3 and I only know that because the people I just mentioned have all told me that. Apparently it’s very obvious.

From what I understand, we all emerge from childhood with one of the types dominating our personality. I totally believe that our childhoods shape us into who we are or at least play a very important role so this idea is summarized into your enneagram.

If you’re interested in learning more, I’ve heard that the Austin Enneagram podcast is a good one to check out.

Using Self-Assessment Tools in Coaching

Now let’s talk about using these in our coaching. With the exception of the Kolbe, I don’t use any of these in my coaching consistently but they can be fun and insightful and can simply help a client to better understand themselves. So I like to approach it from that perspective – there’s this fun little tool, why don’t you take the quiz and we’ll talk about it.

It can be helpful in a number of scenarios:

1. If you’re struggling to connect with a client. It’s a fun way to talk about your similarities and differences as well as get to know one another. Like really get to know what makes a person tick or how they see themselves because they’ll likely say “It said this about me and that’s so true!” or “I don’t know if I see that about myself.” It’s a way of deepening a connection if that isn’t happening naturally. Again, I approach these in sort of a fun, silly, let’s both do this kind of thing.
2. If the client is in a bit of funk. Now, there’s times when the client is really going through it – a divorce, for example – or something big and that’s not what I’m talking about. But just needing some inspiration or a sort of cure for boredom almost. It’s like – hey, you can go binge netflix, which is fine too, or take one of these self-assessment tools and see where it leads. It can be more productive and healthy and can sometimes create a good, little spark.
3. Better understand your clients. This is why we use Kolbe with our coaching clients, especially during times of career transitions or for our business owner clients. We include their assessment and the interpretation with Michael in our program. Not every client does it automatically – the coaches on our team know it’s an option and knows when to offer it and then we simply add it as a bonus for them. They don’t pay extra for it but also, not every client gets it. It’s as-needed.

Now if you have a client use any of these, even if for funsies, qualify it. “These are not perfect, these are meant to provide insights but you know you better than any test can know you.” Never assume a client knows that and you don’t want them to anchor themselves to any result they see.

Finally, one of the best things you can do is take the assessments for yourself. It helps you to understand your own nuances, which helps you to see the nuances in others. You might learn something about yourself!

That’s why I wanted to share these assessments as part of our Coaching Methods Series because they can be useful in understanding just how multi-dimensional we all are as humans.