Objectives:

Describe in your own words what coaching is.

Know the difference between coaching, mentoring, counseling, and precepting.

Explain the difference between performance coaching and developmental coaching.

Develop an understanding of the skills of an effective coach.

Practice developing the skills of coaching for impact.

COACHING: describe in your own words what coaching is.

Provide a workplace example of a time when you were coached in an extraordinary way, what specifically did the person coaching you do?

Matching
___ Mentoring
___ Precepting
___ Counseling
___Coaching
___ Developmental Coaching
___ Performance Coaching /

A - A developmental relationship that is designed to help facilitate professional and personal development to the point of individual growth and improved performance.

B - A helping relationship that is focused on discrete improvement of psychomotor or cognitive skills that are of specific relevance in the work or sports setting. Typically behavioral or task focused.

C - A helping relationship that is intended to promote the long-term development of another person. Typically is not focused on a specific behavior or task; rather works at the levels of identity, cognitive complexity, and self-development skill.

D - A developmental relationship between a more experienced professional and a less experienced partner, typically involving the sharing of advice, making professional introductions, and being of general support in navigating a new professional role.

E - Specific advice and support that is given by an experienced helping professional to the person experiencing challenges, problems, or issues; This is advice given, and is a policy or plan of action or behavior; This helping role may be applied to a variety of topics: performance, relationships, behaviors, addictions, etc.

F - An active formal relationship where one person teaches and supervises the novice and the novice learns; typically entails a specified time period to orient and evaluate the novice in a systematic and comprehensive manner, and involves navigating the rules of what should be done and how to behave to successfully complete goals.

COACHING DISTINCTIONS

Coaching IS…
•  Co-discovery of a person’s abilities, challenges and talents
•  Helping people identify their unique strengths and weaknesses
•  Tying strengths and weaknesses to personal and career aspirations
•  Encouraging employees to establish short-term and long-term capabilities / GOALS
•  Linking daily work to long-term capabilities / GOALS
•  Allowing for and tolerating short-term set-backs
•  Adjusting to scalability of emotions: frustration, disappointment, excitement, anxiety / Coaching is NOT…
•  A way to exercise power over another person…
•  A way to demonstrate how smart you are…
•  A way to control people…
•  A way to solve interpersonal conflict between the coach and the coachee…
•  Psychological counseling…
•  Solving other people’s problems…
•  A disciplinary act…
•  A place for threats…
•  A place for “looking good” (i.e., maintaining appearances)…

Developmental Coaching
1.  Prepare for the session
2.  Prepare yourself (Emotion; Curiosity; Not knowing; Respect for other)
3.  Discuss aspirations if not already identified
4.  Discuss strengths and areas for development
5.  Given aspirations, strengths and opportunities, gain agreement on areas to focus on in the near term
6.  Identify developmental resources and activities
7.  Decide on specific action to be taken by each of you
8.  Agree on a specific follow-up date
9.  Follow-up and support accountability
Performance Coaching
1.  Prepare for the session
2.  Prepare yourself (Emotion; Curiosity; Not knowing; Respect for other)
3.  Describe the problem in a professional non-confrontational manner
4.  Gain agreement that the issue exists
5.  Ask for the other person’s help in solving the problem
6.  Discuss the causes of the problem
7.  Identify and write down possible solutions
8.  Decide on specific action to be taken by each of you
9.  Agree on a specific follow-up date
10.  Follow-up and support accountability

Skills of the Effective Coach

1.  Prepare to engage

2.  Establishing rapport and trust

3.  Open the coaching interaction with a purposeful question

4.  Agree on a goal/outcome

5.  Explore the challenge and barriers to overcome

6.  Identify actions the coachee could take to move forward

7.  Gain agreement to next steps of action

8.  Reaffirm coachee’s ability, the plan and any follow-up agreements

9.  State management, a.k.a Coaching presence (frame of mind, physiology, emotions)

10.  Managing process and accountability

11.  Asking relevant, purposeful and powerful questions

12.  Bidding

13.  Creating awareness

14.  Active listening

15.  Reflecting back what you’ve heard

16.  Giving feedback and forward

17.  Goal setting

18.  Observing

19.  Empathizing

20.  Constructively challenging

21.  Seeing different perspectives

22.  Reframing

23.  Encouraging and supporting

24.  Intuiting

25.  Checking / Tracking

26.  Self-observation and reflection of the coach

Bidding
Bidding: is a fundamental unit of emotional connection, to connect outward with others.
There are 3 responses to bids: turn toward, turn away, turn against.
Research shows that if someone turns away or against our bid, we won’t re-bid.
Establishing Rapport and Trust
Trust Building Behaviors:
1.Talk Straight
2. Demonstrate Respect
3. Create Transparency
4. Right Wrongs
5. Show Loyalty
6. Deliver Results
7. Get Better
8. Confront Reality
9. Clarify Expectations
10. Practice Accountability
11. Listen First
12. Keep Commitments
13. Extend Trust
Asking relevant, purposeful and powerful questions
What (Situation): Situation questions are just the facts: who, what, where, when, how. Gather facts about the situation from every angle—like a detective, or an investigative journalist.
Why (Motivation): Motivation questions discover what is or was going on in the coachee’s head: why they behave the way they do, what led them to the decision they made, how they feel about something.
What If (Implications): Help the coachee explore the impacts and consequences of a course of action or behavior for themselves, others, the institution, or a situation. Exploring possibilities. Ideal Outcome questions.
Giving feedback and feedforward
Feedback Model:
Looks back
Situation > Behavior > Impact > Question
Feedforward Model:
Looks forward
“Here are some ideas…”

PRACTICE ROUNDS

Three roles in practice groups: coach, coachee, and observer

Timing: 2 minute scenario briefing (coach describes scenario)

5 minutes coaching

5 minutes for coach, observer and coachee to debrief

Debriefing:

“One thing I think you did well is…”

“One thing I think you could do going forward is…”

PRACTICE SCENARIOS

1.  Envision a real person who would benefit from coaching.

2.  Write some notes about the situation and select the skills you wish to practice that are appropriate for the situation.

3.  In your group, describe the basic storyline of the coaching situation. The coachee should take on the persona of the person whom you need to coach.

4.  Utilize the coaching skills learned today and practice with your coachee.

5. Coach, Observer and Coachee conduct feedback round. How well did the coach communicate (bid), build trust, ask questions and/or provide feedback/feedforward?

Briefly script out your “coaching for impact” conversation below:

We’ve just explored…

Coaching as a leadership activity

Terms and definitions

Coaching processes (performance and developmental)

Coaching skills and practice

COACHING FOR IMPACT

My next steps are…

Coaches Recommended Reading List

Bacon, T. and Voss, L. Adaptive Coaching: The Art and Practice of a Client-Centered Approach to Performance Improvement

Flaherty, J. Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others, 3rd Ed.

Galway, T. The Inner Game of Work

Harkavay, D. Becoming a Coaching Leader

Kimsey-House, K. et al. Co-Active Coaching: Changing Business, Transforming Lives

Leonard, T. The Portable Coach

McCloud, A. Performance Coaching

Skiffington, S. and Zeus, P. Behavioral Coaching

Skiffington, S. and Zeus, P. The Coaching at Work Toolkit

Skiffington, S. and Zeus, P. Coaching at Work

Stoltzfus, T. Coaching Questions: A Coach's Guide to Powerful Asking Skills

Whitmore, J. Coaching for Performance: GROWing Human Potential and Purpose - The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership, 4th Edition

Coach Prep Form

The questions below are a good way to prepare for a 1-1 coaching session with another person. Once you get in the habit of answering these questions, you may even find yourself running through them in your mind fairly easily and can even “coach on the fly” as you see opportunity.

For coaching to a behavior or performance issue:

1.  What is your objective in coaching this person?

a.  What might be a desired ideal outcome?

2.  What is the current level of trust and rapport in your relationship with this person?

a.  If you answered anything other than “high”, what will you do to “up-level” the trust and rapport?

3.  How would you describe this person’s type?

a.  Introverted/Extraverted?

b.  Focused on Sensory data/Focused on iNtuition?

c.  Uses Thinking to make decisions first/Uses Feelings or values to make decisions first?

d.  Prefers definitive Judging (closure)/Prefers more open ended Perceiving (keep options open)?

4.  How will you flex your approach given what you assume about this person’s type?

5.  What is the situation you are coaching to?

6.  Who is involved?

7.  What behavior can/have you objectively observe(d)?

8.  Have you seen this behavior before?

a.  If so, is there a pattern to this behavior? What does it look like specifically?

9.  What are the impacts of the behavior or performance issue?

a.  On the individual?

b.  On others?

c.  On the team or department?

d.  On the organization?

10.  What are the strengths of the person you are planning to coach?

a.  Could the presenting issue be a function of an “overused strength”?

b.  If so, describe how this might be the case?

11.  What could be a purposeful question you might ask to start the conversation off?

For coaching to career or other longer term development:

1.  What is your objective in coaching this person?

a.  What might be a desired ideal outcome?

2.  How would you describe this person’s strengths?

3.  How would you describe this person’s type?

a.  Introverted/Extraverted?

b.  Focused on Sensory data/Focused on iNtuition?

c.  Uses Thinking to make decisions first/Uses Feelings or values to make decisions first?

d.  Prefers definitive Judging (closure)/Prefers more open ended Perceiving (keep options open)?

4.  How will you flex your approach given what you assume about this person’s type?

5.  What do you know about this person’s long term interests in their career? What do they aspire to?

6.  What do you know about this persons barriers/challenges?

a.  How aware are they of these challenges/barriers?

7.  What could be a purposeful question you might ask to start the conversation off?