Zoom Out Zoom In

A Coaching Model By Debbie Wissel, Career Coach, UNITED STATES

Zoom Out Zoom In Model

When I was in middle school, my high school-aged sister had some sage advice for me that serves as inspiration for this coaching model. I was an overweight kid. Always athletic, always popular, but never got the attention from the boys that my other friends seemed to get in spades. My pediatrician, even at the age of 10, said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ve got good birthing hips.” This was meant as a compliment but as a pre-teen, it felt like nothing of the sort.

One day while we were putting on our makeup before school, or at least this is how I remember it, Katie said, ‘This stuff doesn’t even matter, just try and be like a bird … soar above it’.

Her bird analogy paid homage to many like it, ‘See the forest among the trees, but to middle-school-me, the bird analogy is the one that stuck. I wore a bird charm around my neck for the rest of middle school and into high school.

I return to a soaring bird as inspiration for my Coaching Model and update it with a 2020 twist. In the throws of COVID where we are all on Zoom calls, the inspiration for soaring above an issue shall be renamed in this case, ‘Zooming Out’. In the rest of the paper, I will articulate my ‘Zoom Out, Zoom in’ Coaching model, my inspiration for coaching, and the client base I hope to serve.

I will also share that I recently learned my new employer, an executive recruiting firm focused on start-up talent, sees a conflict of interest with me having an independent coaching practice on the side. This paper therefore will also include how I will apply the Zoom Out, Zoom In model and principles learned in the coaching curriculum to the work I do in recruiting, rather than starting my own independent practice (for now.)

My Inspiration

To be a coach, to me, means you are committed to being a lifelong learner and listener so that you can bring out the best in people.

The desire to ‘help’ people and make them feel heard, make them feel moored and full of purpose is what inspired me toward coaching certification. When people feel seen and heard they are able to realize their full humanity. When people feel seen and heard they are able to tap into their own emotional intelligence, which can then inspire and drive others. I would find great gratification in helping clients feel a greater sense of purpose and humanity. While I will have a gender-neutral practice, I anticipate I will have a greater portion of women as clients.

Here are some of the beliefs that drive my coaching principles:

• In today’s busy, productive, and fast-paced world, there is immense value in having an independent, professionally-trained listener focused on you.
• Self-awareness is a requirement for good decision-making and effective leadership.
• As a coach, my job is to ask the right questions to help those I work with find the answers for themselves.

I will help clients build clarity and grow their confidence so they live the life they want. The topics and goals I most often work with clients on are:

• Career transition
• Finding clarity (and confidence) to make upcoming decisions
• Tools for self-awareness and strengths assessment
• Confidence coaching

While clients will come to me with different needs and starting points, I believe that self-awareness is a requirement for good decision-making and living a life of fulfillment. To help clients deepen their own understanding of self, I have developed a Zoom Out, Zoom In model. But first …

My Target Audience

I have dedicated much of my career to date to building products and services that help people, and specifically women, better understand and control their money. I unabashedly believe the world would be a better place if women had more power; in government, in the economy, in schools, in media, and more. At my last start-up, Ellevest, we were on a mission to close the wealth gap to inspire women to not just save but to invest those savings for a stronger return. In studying women’s attitudes and behaviors toward money, I began to see another gap emerging; a confidence gap. In broad strokes, this confidence gap held women back from taking the job, going for a promotion, and investing rather than just saving and dreaming up and living out as big of life as they were capable of. The capabilities, intelligence, and resources were there in spades. What seemed to be missing was the confidence to go for it.

My target customer, and their persona, may sound and be described as:

• Mid-career
• High-potential but feeling either unfulfilled or stressed out at work
• She has relative freedom of choice (financial and emotional) but is not sure what to do with it. She wants to feel more purposeful with her choices. She says things like, “I know I could stay here and ride out my career, but that’s someone else making choices for me. Where do I want to go and is this the path that will lead me there?”
• Sometimes she feels like a blank canvas is in front of her and she doesn’t know where to start. Sometimes she feels like there is too big of a hurdle to start over.
• She juggles many pressures at once in her personal and professional life.
  • She may have a family at home and plays the role of ‘Lead Parent’ in addition to her full-time job
  • She may not have found a partner or had the chance to have kids, instead of committing much of her time to her career, which plays a large (and likely unhealthy) role in her definition of self-worth
• May not see or understand her strengths, which may be contributing to a crisis in confidence
• She may be in a culture that undervalues her as an individual or does not appreciate her contributions which further a crisis in confidence. She is asking herself, ‘is it me, or is it them?”
• She feels unfulfilled by her job but doesn’t know what to do next. “Is this really it?”
• She may say things like …
  • “I see my boss doing my job and I know I could do that too, but I’m not sure how I will ever advance there”
  • “It’s either up or out in this organization and I don’t see how I could ever strike a balance with the rest of my life if I go further up.” or “I don’t want my boss’ job, so what does that mean?”
  • “I feel stuck”
  • “I thought it would be better than this, and now I don’t know what to fix first.”

The Zoom Out Zoom In Coaching Model

The notion behind Zoom Out, Zoom In is that it is easier and more fulfilling to make decisions when they are connected to a greater purpose, self-awareness, and to an understanding of our strengths (as I also discuss in my Research Paper).

Big and small decisions, from what job to accept to where to go on vacation can be made with greater confidence if they are connected to a larger perspective of one’s values. Having values, or a true north to what is really important to you, can help shape the narrative of your life.

However, the busyness of our day-to-day, even joyful busyness, can cause us to forget to think about the bigger picture of what a life well-lived means to us. In life’s busyness, it requires a concentrated effort to ‘zoom out’ and think about the bigger picture of our life and story; to rise above like a bird and soar above it all. To zoom out. What do you want to be remembered for and/or what goals do you want to drive your decisions?

“Understanding our values is the building block, the foundation to everything we create in our lives. We need to look at our values to make sure they have not been imposed upon us from an outside source. To be successful you must be living your own values and not following someone else. “^[1]

When zooming out with the client, there will be a focus on values, strength assessment, and self-awareness, themes that I believe can lead to sound goal-setting and decision-making in the day-to-day.

Once we’ve zoomed out, there is an opportunity to zoom in and make sure our goals and routines are aligned with how we want to lead our life.

But first, one must zoom out in order to effectively zoom in.

Zoom Out Exercises

Below are a few exercises that could be involved when ‘zooming out’.

Zoom Out: Big Picture Interview

How would you answer the following?

• What would your 70-year-old self be proud of? What kind of life does she want you to have lived?
• Think about the person you aspire to be — what would she do/be doing?
• What would you like your accomplishments to be?
• What kind of life do you want to live?
• Imagine your aspirations without any of the ’shoulds’ or expectations. What would your goals and lifestyle look like if it was void of the ’shoulds’?

Zoom Out: Strength Assessment

To help clients with reaching a greater sense of self-understanding, I would recommend third-party assessments such as DISC assessment and Strengthsfinder. I find DISC particularly helpful in understanding the behaviors that one naturally gravitates to, and how that might differ from the team members we work most closely with. Strengthsfinder is also an assessment that I think can help clients identify and name strengths, especially if they’re coming from a place of uncertainty or where they lack confidence.  The Wheel of Life can also be a helpful tool to assess where the client is today compared to where they want to be based on their values.

Zoom In Exercises

Once there is a stated awareness around goals, purpose, and strengths, one can more readily put goals and actions into place that feel in alignment with the bigger picture.

Once you have goals in place, you can create actions or a routine that is in support of these goals. One of the more powerful roles of a Coach is to help a client create a structure and self-accountability so they can achieve their goals. Zooming in and evaluating how a client will go about reaching these goals is a fundamental step to coaching and to the Zoom Out, Zoom In model.  “Most people who have achieved great success in their lives will tell you that the success was not a result of a few major choices; it was the result of many, many small choices made every single day.”^[2]

Zoom In Exercise: The Daily

In ‘The Daily’ we think about the behaviors, habits, and routines that are connected to the big picture. Questions in this category might include:

• What might your daily (or weekly, monthly) schedule look like to be in greater alignment with the big picture? What obstacles are in the way that you feel is preventing this?
• Describe your ideal workday. What does it look like? Similarly, describe your ideal day of leisure, what does it look like? How does that compare to your current state?
• When do you find that you are in a state of ‘flow’, where time seems to evaporate?

Redirect: Application to Recruiting

As I approached the end of my course requirements at ICA I learned that I would not be able to keep an independent coaching practice while working with my employer. I now use this space to elaborate on how the Zoom Out, Zoom In model can be applied to hiring managers and candidates.

Coaching is an inherent part of recruiting for both the client (the hiring manager) and the candidate.

A good recruiter will be coaching the client so there is clarity on the requirements for the role, awareness of the culture the hire will enter into, and the characteristics of their ideal hire. By coaching a client through these aspects it is more likely that the candidate for hire will have more and better information about the role and company in order to make a decision.

To help coach the hiring manager, the Zoom Out, Zoom in the model may look something like this:

Zoom Out & Zoom In for the Hiring Manager
Zoom Out	Values	What are the values of this organization that are important for the candidates to embody/share? What is driving the need for this role right now?
	Strengths Assessment	What is most important for this candidate to bring to the team? What strengths and self-awareness do you want them to come to the team with? What questions would you like to ask to understand the candidate in these areas?
Zoom In	Goals	What are the goals for the business? What will this hire’s responsibilities be? What will be in place to set this leader up for success? What might surprise this hire about the business and team? What does this person need to accomplish in the next 12-18 months to make them successful here?
	The Daily	What are the expectations of this leader on a daily/weekly / monthly cadence? What are the expectations, if any, on how or where the hire works?

Zoom Out & Zoom In for the Candidate
Zoom Out	Values	What is most important to you in ‘work’? How do these values fit into what is most important to you in ‘life’? What are the qualities that are important to you in a work setting/team/ boss? What is driving your interest to make a career move right now? What about this company, this team interest you?
	Strengths Assessment	What would you say are your key strengths? Asked differently, what would your boss or colleague say are your key strengths? (Leverage Strengthsfinder or DISC profile if the candidate has not used the tools before) What strengths and qualities are important to you in a work culture or team? What questions would you like to ask to understand whether the company/team embodies these qualities? What will you look at to understand whether this opportunity is right for you?
Zoom In	Goals	What experiences or opportunities would you like to collect in this new role? What will your responsibilities be in this new role? What will you need in this role to be set up for success?
	The Daily	What is important to you about how you work? What do you need in a work environment to feel like you are achieving flow? What will you ask the hiring manager about the day-to-day to understand if it is right for you? If you had to write a user manual for team members to understand how you work and make decisions, what would it say?

“To live in a strong, supportive way, we must live by our values. They form the foundation of our life choices and actions. Without them, we risk living in a house without a foundation or a rocky one at best.”^[3] 

I hope that the above ‘Zoom Out, Zoom In’ framework can be of help to the colleagues, clients, and candidates I interact within the coming years.

References

^[1] ICA Reading, Values & Life Purpose, from the Coaching Presence modules, p. 1, April 23. 2020