The most effective coaches concern themselves with helping other people to raise their levels of awareness, encourage them to make positive choices and to take meaningful action. Effective coaches build trust by coaching with an open mind and with great sincerity.
To become an effective coach we need to develop and practise our skills in asking probing questions and actively listening. The core aim of coaching being to provide an environment conducive to high quality thinking for the people whom we coach. Everything we do as human beings is preceded by thought and it follows that the quality of our actions and decisions is totally tied to the quality of our thinking. This is where coaching can have its most profound effect.
Coaching of such quality provides direction for our thoughts and enables us to focus. Through focus we will become even more aware of the things that affect our performance and make lasting changes and improvements without the need for someone else to suggest that we do so.
What's needed though is a framework for putting this all in place and navigating through a coaching session.
In previous articles, I've explored the various qualities which good coaches develop and shown how coaching is a particularly powerful development tool because it works on state of mind as well as knowledge and skills.
How do we bring this all together in a framework that is easy to work with and to remember? There are numerous frameworks and questioning sequences out there and you might like to explore them after you've read this. However, here I'll concentrate on a framework I developed called the coaching ARROW. Those of you familiar with the ubiquitous GROW model will recognize the origins of my approach, however I hope that the ARROW sequence provokes fresh thinking.
We know that we can develop individuals quite powerfully by raising awareness and generating responsibility in an environment of trust and that this is achieved by asking questions. But what sort of questions and in what order? How do such questions promote focus? And how can we guide people towards a positive outcome in a coaching session. See what you think of this conversation:
Wife:
What shall we do about a holiday this year? I fancy some time in the sun.
Husband:
Yes, I agree, and preferably soon.
Wife:
Well, I could certainly take some time in September.
Husband:
Time off is not a problem for me, but we'll probably need to save up.
Wife:
We should be able to save enough by September.
Husband:
You're right. I'll find out how much we've got saved at the moment.
Wife:
I reckon we can have a week in Florida or two weeks in Spain.
Husband:
Great, we'll go to Florida for a week in September. Let's both book the time off work tomorrow and I'll call into the travel agents on the way home.
You may not have recognized much coaching going on, but that was exactly what this couple was doing. To begin with they thought about what they were trying to achieve - they established their Aims. Then they thought about how the situation stood at the moment - they considered the Reality. This was followed by a little Reflection on the distance between the aims and the reality. Next they pondered on the Options they had and finally they committed to a course of action - the Way Forward.
Whether they realized it or not they were using the coaching ARROW
Aims - Reality - Reflection - Options - Way Forward
The coaching ARROW provides a simple framework around which to construct our coaching questions. Watch out for future articles where I'll examine each part of the model so you'll know exactly how use it to best effect.
Listening happens at 3 levels:
Active
Conversational
Superficial
The bottom level, Superficial, is what we do when we're hearing but not listening. We might have a conversation at a party trying to take an interest in what another guest is saying but really having our attention elsewhere, perhaps on some other conversation we suspect would be far more interesting.
The problem is that we are only hearing what the other guest is saying, not listening, so we often get confused, lose track of the conversation or end up having to ask them to repeat what they just said.
This would be extremely damaging in a coaching conversation. People instinctively know if we're only listening to them superficially. The fact that our mind is elsewhere will be revealed in our body language. This will dismantle any trust that has been built up and lessen the chances that the coaching will produce a useful outcome.
The second level, conversational, is the type of listening that we do throughout the day. In conversational listening, we listen while our partners talk and vice versa. However the danger here is that while the other person is talking, we are concentrating on making our next point, rather than truly focusing on what the other person is saying.
This is not an easy thing to do when we start out as coaches. When you're not used to this approach, it can be hard to keep the questions flowing. It's usually better to wait until the person has finished speaking and then decide upon the next question.
We should also avoid the habit of finsihing other people's sentences for them. Only rarely do we pick the words they would have chosen themselves and we end up jarring their flow and causing hesitation or confusion.
So we need to work hard to reach the top level, Active Listening. Put simply active listening is about clearing our minds of all other distractions and really tuning in to what the other person is saying with as much focus as we can muster. This is easier said than done and takes a lot of time and practise to develop but is well worth the effort.
On a practical level it means we should try not to coach when we're in a hurry or preoccupied with something else. Neither should we run a coaching session in a noisy environment or one that is likely to get to hot or too cold. In such circumstances it is imposssible to actively listen.
Matt Somers has sinced written about articles on various topics from Power of Coaching, Career Change and Depression Cure. Matt Somers offers managers a startling way to achieve results through coaching via his range of training programmes, books, articles and seminars. His popular mini-guide "Coaching for an Easier Life" is available FREE at. Matt Somers's top article generates over 8100 views. to your Favourites.