A dictionary definition for a coach is:
“A vehicle that takes a person from where they are to where they want to be”
This can be true of the many people transportation vehicles and the personal coach who helps an individual achieve their goals where they could not have done by their own actions solely.
Put more simply, coaching is a conversation, or series of conversations, one person has with another. The coach intends to produce a conversation that will benefit the other person, the coachee, in a way that relates to the coachee’s learning and progress. Coaching conversations are not restricted a work environment and can happen in many different ways and circumstances.
Coaching has many forms and falls within many different aspects of human activity. There are sports coaches, musical coaches, life coaches, voice coaches, time management coaches, to name a few. In this day and age it appears that there is a coach available to help you with everything that you do.
The person who decides whether a conversation was a coaching conversation or not is normally the person being coached. If someone acknowledges the following to be true after a conversation they would probably accept that it was coaching:
- The focus of the conversation was primarily themselves and their circumstances
- Their thinking, actions and learning benefited significantly from the conversation
- They were unlikely to have had those benefits in thinking or learning within that time frame if the conversation hadn’t happened
So when we apply these simple principles, we realise we have been coaching each other for ages. For generations, whether over the garden wall a cup of tea or a beer in the pub we have all talked about what happens in our lives. We share our troubles and our dreams. We listen to each other and advise each other. Sometimes this process really helps. Maybe we realise a solution, make a decision, or perhaps just feel better as a result of having the conversation.
The purpose of Performance Coaching is to raise the performers:
|“self directed appropriate focus to gather information to a high quality”||
|“the performer’s choice to ‘own’ a task, to see it through to completion”|
By the Coach’s use of EFFECTIVE QUESTIONING
- ask open questions
- use what, when, where, who, how much, how often
- start broad and then narrow to increase focus
- follow their interest
- use their words
Ask – Listen – Observe
In the following sequence:
G – Goals What do you want?
R – Reality What is happening now?
O – Options What could you do?
W – Will What will you do?
- What is the aim of this discussion?
- What do you want to achieve long term?
- How much personal control or influence do you have over your goal?
- What is a short term goal on the way?
- When do you want to achieve it by?
- Is that positive, challenging, attainable?
- How will you measure it?
- What is happening now?
- (WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW MUCH, HOW OFTEN)
- Who is involved (directly & indirectly)?
- When things are going badly on this issue, what happens to you?
- What happens to the others directly involved?
- What is the effect on others?
- What have you done about this so far?
- What results did that produce?
- What are the major constraints to finding a way forward?
- What is really going on? (intuition)
- What options do you have?
- What else could you do?
- What if…? (time, power, money, etc.)
- Would you like another suggestion?
- What are the benefits and costs of each?
- What are you going to do?
- Will this address your goal?
- When are you going to do it?
- What could arise to inhibit this action?
- How will you overcome them?
- Who needs to know?
- What support do you need?
- How will you get that support?
Rate on a 1 – 10 scale your willingness to take this agreed action.