Foundations of Coaching

This page aims to give some insight into the backgrounds of Coaching and the ideas and philosophies it is based on.

 Also follow this link to: "How does coaching work"

General Principles of Coaching

A coach will think in terms of his clients potential, not his or her past performance. Coaching gives people the space and time to come up with their own solutions. Coaching is about building awareness and taking responsibility.

The Coach asks many questions, but the answers are for the coach only relevant for two reasons, one: to indicate if the client has the necessary information, and two: to indicate what direction to follow with the next questions.

The coach will avoid being drawn into the detail, problems and drama of a situation or issue, at all times the Coach will pull the client up to look at the issue from a planning, opportunities and vision perspective.

A good coach is able to draw every good idea out of their client and in many cases take vague notions the client expresses and get solid workable actions that most usefully move them toward their goals from that.

A good coach may simply ask some questions that allow a client to see that their focus is not getting them where they want to go but because it was a series of questions that allowed them to get to their own insight it’s much easier to adopt.

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Motivation and Performance

"The "carrot and stick" approach to motivation does work, but if you treat people like donkeys, they will behave like donkeys". (Sir John Whitmore)

Performance can not be seen in isolation, there can not be high performance without enjoyment and learning. All three aspects have to be present and depend on each other, for an employee or group of employees to give maximum performance and continue to be motivated to deliver maximum performance they have to experience enjoyment and learning at the same time, the three are inter-dependent.

Enjoyment comes from awareness, awareness of our senses. Enjoyment comes from a fuller expression of our potential.

Research has shown consistently that job security, quality of life, search for meaning and purpose, sense of self-worth are much greater factors for satisfaction at work and motivation than money.

You can not force someone to self motivate, so we rely on external motivators. Money is the easy answer. Money does motivate, but as it comes in small increases, toughly negotiated and reluctantly given it motivates minimally.

Money has a greater importance attached to it in many workplaces because "it is the only thing we can get here, in this job, in this industry, so we might as well get every cent we can get".

Self-belief and Self-esteem

Coaching is about building self-belief.

For people to build self-belief they need to know that their successes are due to their own efforts. For people to build self-belief, they must know that people believe in them.

Coaching looks at our interventions, in the workplace and in all interactions, in terms of how they damage or enhance our "Self-belief". All instructions, all criticism, every reduction in choice, every manifestation of hierarchy, every act of secrecy, subtly lowers peoples "self-belief". Coaching, trust, openness, respect, authentic praise, freedom of choice and success enhances and raises "Self-belief".

Self-Esteem is built when people are seen to be worthy of making choices.

Promotion without genuine empowerment is counter productive, "telling" negates choice, dis-empowers, limits potential, and de-motivates. Coaching does the opposite.

The Coach will rarely ask a question starting with "WHY", because the coach will not normally be interested in what went wrong, but what can be done to ensure success.

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Management

"Problems in business or relationships, can only be resolved at the level beneath which they manifest themselves". (Einstein)

In a coaching style of management, the coachee/ employee/ team member Chooses to Take responsibility, rather than being given or told or persuaded to accept it.

The four criteria that mostly determine management behaviour in the workplace are:

1. Time pressure;

2. Fear;

3. Quality;

4. Staff development.

The nature of the first two are such that most energy is focused on those and they invite a "command and control" style of management.

In a coaching style of management, while effort is mostly directed at the second two criteria, the greatest effect will be seen in the first two criteria.

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Goal Setting

A coach will always try to avoid goals that are not totally in control of the client, for example: "To win the 100 metres freestyle", is not in control of the client, because on the day of the race someone else might simply be faster. A much better Goal would be, "To beat my personal best time by 2 seconds".

Adult Learning

One of the most influential models of the process whereby adults learn most efficiently has been developed by David Kolb in the early 1980's.

It consists of a constant cycle. Action Leads to Feedback; Feedback leads to Reflection; Reflection leads to New understanding; New understanding leads back to Action and the cycle repeats itself.

In Coaching this translates into the following model:

Step 1: Recognise and specify behaviour for improvement.

Step 2: Determine clients preferred method and learning style.

Step 3: Explore obstacles to learning.

Step 4: Understand and develop strategies to implement new behaviours/ skills.

Step 5: Practice new behaviours and skills.

Step 6: Seek and give feedback on performance.

Step 7: Generalise and transfer learning to other situations.

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