Mt. uhud

Musk Cave

Mt. Ohad (Madina-Saudiarabia)

During the battle of Uhud, due to the incident at the Archer's hill, the course of the battle changed. The Prophet (pbuh) himself was wounded.

Some of the followers, escorted the injuried Prophet (pbuh) away from the battlefield and towards the Uhud mountain.

They climbed the mountain to come to a cave where the Prophet (pbuh) rested until the Meccans had finally retreated from the battlefield. Since then, it is said that this cave smells of musk.

I personally visited the cave on 23rd Feb 2011, and it does smell of a special musk.

At the foot of the mountain Uhud there are no traces of the smell. But once you are inside the cave, you feel the wounderful smell.  Attached are some pictures.

Musk Cave in Mt. Uhud - Madina Saudi Arabia

Inside the Musk Cave



 

Your comments will be appreciated, Please feel free to add...... and visit the full blog at http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/    

Jabl Noor

Jabl Noor (Noor Mountain)

Cave of Hira

Pictures from of Mount Noor (Jabl Noor) and Cave of Hira.  It was here that the first revelation took place when the Angel Gibrael visited the Prophet Mohammed.

Cave of Hira (almost 2500 feet above the sea level)

Almost inside the cave. Its a small place where hardly 2 to 3 people can fit in

View of Mecca from the top of the cave (Haram is next to the big building)

View from the top (other side)

Monkeys on the way

Your comments will be appreciated, Please feel free to add...... and visit the full blog at http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/  

Own Risk

Motivation via Personal Stake

Persuasion is often more effective than force.

5As of Motivation   http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/motivating-others-driving-others.html (1) Appreciation, (2) Authority, (3) Avoiding Pain (internal to self) (4) Affluence and (5) Association. And the 9 tactics around the “5As” that lead to self / others motivation being (1) Recognition, (2) Trust, (3) Challenge, (4) Direction and Communication, (5) Opportunity, (6) Personal Stake, (7) Freedom of Choice, (8) Incentive and (9) Association with a team or group.

We have discussed recognition, and how it is used to tame killer whales http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/rrecognition-can-tame-killer-whale-why.html

Trust as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/people-respond-to-trust-by-upholding-it.html

Challenge as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/life-challenges-help-us-discover.html

Direction and Communication as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/efforts-and-courage-are-not-enough.html

Association as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/02/camaraderie.html

And Motivation via growth opportunity http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/02/growth-1.html



Today lets talk about, how do Pleasure or Consequences drive our motivation. We as humans, run away from pain and try to move towards pleasure. Hence, we by nature, would get motivated to move away from pain towards pleasure, somebody has to make us visualize the pain or pleasure.


As humans, we have two ways to deal with one another. Reason or Force, every human interaction falls into one of those two categories. I personally don’t believe in motivation via threat or force, as this brings a sour flavor in the relationship. Although I know that at times you still have to motivate people via pain avoidance or threat. I believe in motivation via pleasure i.e. let people do, because they want to do it. Lets focus on persuasion and keep force as a last resort. Unluckily, force leads to injustices that leads to most of the ills in the society.


How to we make people do it because they want to do it. Two directions (a) Negotiate or (b) Coach.

Negotiations  works best when people think win / win, focus is on the objective and not on a position or emotions.  Some negotiation tactics being (a) Never become emotional or personal with other party. This makes us forget the objective,  (b)Information is king in any negotiation so don’t underestimate the other party and enter will all the data at hand, (c) Think long term, think win / win and (d) Never give an ultimatum until you really mean it and once you give an ultimatum, be ready to walk out.

Coaching is a process that enables the individual achieve their full potential.  It helps the individual find their “blind spot”, purposefully moving them out of their comfort zone and stretching oneself to new heights.
It is different from teaching or facilitating. In teaching/facilitating the instructor tells what is the right way of doing thing. However, in coaching, the coach only asks the questions to the coachee to help him find the direction themselves. In the end, coaching bears better results, because, people have more ownership to their ideas rather than somebody else’s ideas.


Now the question appears, how to go on about doing coaching.  Lets follow the GROW model (Goal, Reality, Options and Will) of coaching http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_89.htm

§         Goal (Establishing a Goal) i.e.

oAgree on the topic of discussion with the coachee

o Agree on specific, measurable, realistic and time bound objectives that the coachee wants to achieve post this engagement.

§       Reality (Examining the current reality) i.e. asking the coachee to describe the current reality, this will help in knowing where they are. Coach should not assume the current situation, neither put words in coachee’s mouth, but should only be listening and asking questions so as the coachee can personally understand the reality. The question one can ask are

o        What is happening now?

o        How often does this happen?

o        How does it impact your life?

o        Is it a logical problem, emotional problem or a feeling issue?

o        What have you tried to overcome this?

o        What has worked?

o        What has not worked?

§         Options (Exploring the Options) i.e. asking the coachee how does he/she moves forward, its time to explore what is possible, meaning all the possible options should be put on the table by the coachee (not the coach). As a coach your responsibility is to help your team member generate as many options as possible via probing on

o        What can we do to change the situation?

o        Are their any alternatives to this, any other alternative?

o        Lets change your perspective, and consider yourself as a third person looking at this situation, what is he seeing, what options will he recommend you?

o        How would your life change, once this problem is overcome?

o        Have you seen anybody else with this issue, what did they do, can you do the same?

o        What constraints are there?

o        How can you weigh different options?

As a coach, one should not suggest options, but ask questions in leading the team member towards different options.

§         Will (Establishing the Will to improve) i.e. Most probable, by now, your coachee will have a good ideas on how to achieve their Goal. This is a major step forward, however, you need to establish a will (as a coach) to ensure that their plans materialize and they are motivated to change / improve / stretch. The questions that you can ask your team to generate that motivation are

o        Which option will take you towards your goal the quickest?

o        So what will you do now and when?

o        What can stop you from moving forward?

o        How will you overcome these obstacles?

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.  ~Pablo Picasso
Your comments will be appreciated, Please feel free to add...... and visit the full blog at http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/  

Growth 2

Motivation via Growth Opportunity

Part 2

If we don’t appreciate our life, and the opportunities it throws at us, then we are doing is only existing and waiting for death.

A few days back we discussed http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/02/growth-1.html  that, we should not get bothered if people point fingers at us and tell us that “you are no good, stop trying, stop doing things you have not done before”, we should also not blame our losses to somebody else, lets not be cowards. In the end, it is not about how hard you are hit in trying a new thing, its all about keep moving forward and exploring new things and ideas.


Today lets talk about, how do we push people out of their comfort zone?. Unfortunately, we as humans avoid pain and move towards pleasure, moving out of our comfort zone is a painful experience, we are entering the unknown, there is this fear of failure or chance of embarrassment. HOWEVER, if the world would not have been a better place, if people had not marched into the unknown. If we continue to listen to the same music, read same magazines, take same route to office etc, we would not know what we are missing in this world. May be the new type of music suits are ear buds better, maybe the other magazine has a better prospective etc.


Simple steps to push people out of their comfort zone and towards growth.

Step 1:- Explain what’s in it for them. The main reason why people don’t move out of their comfort zone is the fear factor. Fear of unknown, fear of embarrassment, fear of failure. BUT if somebody can make them see how would their life be positivity impacted by marching out of the comfort zone. They will gain some impetus towards the unknown. However, they may still have the fear because of the lack of self belief.

Step 2:- Show confidence / Trust that they will succeed. One time or the other, everybody needs a reassurance to boast back  self belief. “Yes you can”, “I can bet my life on your success” etc are some phrases that one might need to use to smoothen the shaky start, and also to communicate, that you are right besides them and will help them all the way. This confidence boaster is necessary, especially when the person has just moved out of the comfort zone, because at that time the mind is calculating all the negative  “What ifs” and help is needed to lead the brain in positive direction. http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/lead-brain.html

Step 3:- Try to hand over the power/authority over “plan of action” and “plan of implementation”. Every human has more ownership of their OWN plans rather than plans of the others. Chances of success are enhanced if the plans are made and implemented by the same team.

Step 4:- Follow up to maintain the drive. It not a “walk in the park” when somebody heads out of their comfort zone, brain plays all the negative scenarios, and the easiest thing to do is walk back into the comfort zone. The urge to do this is immense. Hence, somebody should follow up to explain what’s in it for them, build confidence, to help in planning / implementation so as to maintain the drive.

Your comments will be appreciated, Please feel free to add...... and visit the full blog at http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/  

Growth 1

Motivation via Growth Opportunity

Part 1 (What and Why)

The freedom to move forward to new opportunities and to produce better results motivates humans to live in future rather than past.

5As of Motivation   http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/motivating-others-driving-others.html (1) Appreciation, (2) Authority, (3) Avoiding Pain (internal to self) (4) Affluence and (5) Association. And the 9 tactics around the “5As” that lead to self / others motivation being (1) Recognition, (2) Trust, (3) Challenge, (4) Direction and Communication, (5) Opportunity, (6) Personal Stake, (7) Freedom of Choice, (8) Incentive and (9) Association with a team or group.

We have discussed recognition, and how it is used to tame killer whales http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/rrecognition-can-tame-killer-whale-why.html

Trust as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/people-respond-to-trust-by-upholding-it.html

Challenge as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/life-challenges-help-us-discover.html

Direction and Communication as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/efforts-and-courage-are-not-enough.html

Association as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/02/camaraderie.html

And incentives as motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/02/incentives.html

Today our focus will be Growth opportunities as a motivator. In this day and age, everybody wants to move up the ladder in career or in society. Hence, an opportunity to advance motivates us to give our 200% if we know that the hard work will pay off. The three well know theories on management (a) Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, (b) ERG theory and (c) Two factor theory have “Growth as motivator” in common amongst themselves.



Maslow




ERG




Two Factor



Generally the management believes that the staff is leaving a job because of money i.e. “pull of better bank account”. However, in-depth discussion during exit interviews, point towards a different reality i.e. the “Push from management” towards personal growth. No wonder, companies with out a formal career development initiative, are left with less talented people because talented people are primarily motivated by need to grow and move on.

What is growth?. A person / child / adult “grows” when pushed out of their comfort zone. We like to listen to a certain kind of music, read a few specific magazines, drive to office a specific way, cook dinner a specific way, meet other in a particular fashion, move around a grocery store in a set way,  like doing some known things etc etc. This is our comfort zone. HOWEVER, to develop ourselves, to learn about the world, to learn about others, to learn about ourselves, we need to go out of the comfort zone. Its going to a restaurant and ordering a different dish than the usual one. In the end you understand that do you enjoy the new thing or not.

A ship in the harbor (comfort zone) is safe but that is not what the ships are for.

 So its not necessary to motivate people by promoting them up the corporate ladder, but they will be motivated if they are pushed outside their comfort zone and made to conquer the unknown. These unknown can be (a) A new assignment, (b) An unfamiliar project, (c) A new department, (d) Reporting to a tougher boss, (f)Responsibility of more people etc etc (any thing that puts a specific person out of the comfort zone). For a child this can be as simple as taking the first step, or learning how to eat without creating a mess, or use of money at a grocery store.

The gist is we should not get bothered if people point fingers at us and tell us that “you are no good, stop trying, stop doing things you have not done before”, we should also not blame our losses to somebody else, lets not be cowards. Unluckily, the world is becoming a nasty place that tries to beat us to the ground and tries to keep you there permanently if we let it.  In the end, it is not about how hard you are hit in trying a new thing, its all about keep moving forward and exploring new things and ideas.

Your comments will be appreciated, Please feel free to add...... and visit the full blog at http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/

Incentives

Motivation via Incentives

Money is not the most important thing in the world, love is. Unfortunately, people have started loving money.

5As of Motivation  (1) Appreciation, (2) Authority, (3) Avoiding Pain (internal to self) (4) Affluence and (5) Association. And the 9 tactics around the “5As” that lead to self / others motivation being (1) Recognition, (2) Trust, (3) Challenge, (4) Direction and Communication, (5) Opportunity, (6) Personal Stake, (7) Freedom of Choice, (8) Incentive and (9) Association with a team or group.

We have discussed recognition, and how it is used to tame killer whales http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/rrecognition-can-tame-killer-whale-why.html

Trust as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/people-respond-to-trust-by-upholding-it.html

Challenge as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/life-challenges-help-us-discover.html

Direction and Communication as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/efforts-and-courage-are-not-enough.htmllogspot.com/2011/01/efforts-and-courage-are-not-enough.html

And Association as a motivator http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/02/camaraderie.html

Today lets discuss Incentives as a motivator. Before we start, let me clarify that I do not recommend using monitory incentives to motivate people, although I do acknowledge  that monetary incentives work wonders in motivating people, but it is only short term.

Incentives = additional remuneration in recognition of goal achievement.

Why do incentives work. In this day and age, Money has become very important, while personal values have lost importance. 25+ years ago, friendships were made on values and common ground, now, friendships are made on business interest. Unluckily,  Money is seen as the tool that will help satisfy social needs, psychological needs, security needs and Esteem needs. In essence, Money is a tool that is applicable throughout the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs (below).

Unluckily, Only a few men have the ability to withstand the highest bidder

Why I do not recommend using incentives as a motivator. I acknowledge that in the short term, incentives do wonder, given money is possessing most peoples imagination. However, in the long term, incentives have a negative impact as it becomes term of business. Gist being, that in the short term, incentives improve your bargaining position, however, its not a long term strategy.

 Let me give you a hypothetical example, imagine your team is under delivery pressure of a project. It seems that the project will not be delivered on time. So you tell everybody that ½ salary will be given, if the project is delivered on time. And low and behold, you see your team stretching their limits, working nights even weekends. And the project does get delivered on time. Now imagine, what is your team exited about after the project delivery. MONEY and not that they stretched themselves to deliver the project to deliver on company mission / vision.  After a few weeks you will realize that your people will start hinting on incentives program to deliver i.e. it becomes term of business.  Once we reach this stage, its very hard to get out. Because, now I expect to be paid extra for stretching myself.  Continuing with the hypothetical situation, assume that you give-in to your employees demand and start an incentive program. Now you will realize that you have many disgruntled employees. People outside your department will be dissatisfied because they can not be part of this incentive scheme. While people in your department will be dissatisfied, because they will feel that person X has easy targets vs. them. Hence they will feel that you are not doing justice. In the end, you will be working in a disgruntled company that is not focused towards the vision / mission but towards money. I.e. management should bribe me to do my job.  

Let me give you one real life example. A few years ago, I was working with a company that was under huge volume pressure. To jumpstart the volume, Management decided to incentivize the sales force (for one month) by suggesting incentives based on targets. It worked wonders, almost everybody achieved the target and got the incentives (40 inch Plasma TV), people who did not achieve the targets, got disgruntled and tried to pressurize the management to attain the incentive stating that factors beyond their control impacted their volume. Next month was very interesting, for the first 15 days (50 % time gone), the company only achieved 20% of the volume. Management got worried and called in the sales people. During the meeting I realized, that the sales team is given all the reasons under the sun to justify lack of volume delivery. In the end, the Management asked, “how can we deliver this month” and the united response came as “We can try to deliver (although its very difficult) if we are incentivized with a surround sound system”…….. this continued for the next six months, volume did get delivered but the sales team got their homes redecorated with incentives. Everyone outside the sales team was disgruntled, felling that the management is unjust………..

In Summary, in the short term, incentives do work. However, in the long term, incentives have a negative impact as it becomes term of business and demotivates people.

Your comments will be appreciated, Please feel free to add...... and visit the full blog at http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/

Camaraderie

Motivation via Association

Ideas and relationships can not be supressed by force.

Coming back to the 5As of Motivation  (1) Appreciation, (2) Authority, (3) Avoiding Pain (internal to self) (4) Affluence and (5) Association. And the 9 tactics around the 5As that lead to self / others motivation. The nine tactics being (1) Recognition, (2) Trust, (3) Challenge, (4) Direction and Communication, (5) Opportunity, (6) Personal Stake, (7) Freedom of Choice, (8) Incentive and (9) Association with a team or group.

We have discussed recognition, and how it is used to tame killer whales http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/rrecognition-can-tame-killer-whale-why.html

Trust and the behaviors that help build trust http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/people-respond-to-trust-by-upholding-it.html

Challenge http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/life-challenges-help-us-discover.html

And Direction and Communication http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/efforts-and-courage-are-not-enough.html

Today lets shed light on motivation via Association with a group. Everybody knows that Camaraderie helps bring the best out of people. We forget the divide of religion, gender, sect, country etc when we are feel the camaraderie. Living examples being English Premiership teams, where supporters of Manchester United are distributed all across the world, even in rival countries, but as soon as the MAN U match starts, they get together all across the globe and are motivated to support MAN U. Similar examples are seen in school, where children of different classes and ages are associated into “houses” for extra circular completion. And these boys/girls forget all their differences and are motivated to be one to support their house during competition. Other examples being your offices, where people associated to a specific department, sense a connection amongst themselves. One of my friend used to summarize this via saying

“It me in opposition with my boss in a meeting amongst ourselves, but its me and my boss against the GM when we go and present to the GM and its me, my boss and GM as one team motivated to sell our ideas against our Group Vice president.”

Building association is very easy. If you let people socialize they will (with in) a few days build association with each other. It is as simple as putting people in a room together all day, day after day, and within no time you will realize that they are comfortable with each other, chatting and joking and helping etc etc. If you are meeting outside the office, than association building is more quicker, that is the reason team building exercises are conducted outside the office.  Another example is a plane ride, where, strangers sit together and within a few hours they are talking to each other and trying to make that connection / association. At the base, we as humans want to be in our comfort zone, and if people around us are unknown, we try to know them find common ground and build that association.

To see how companies have motivated people via building association, we refer to the Fortune magazine, 100 best companies to work for 2011 and 2010 .http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2011/full_list/   This will give us some practical insight in how companies build association amongst its employees. We see four themes popping out (A) Company cares about the employee, (b) Diversity in people is appreciated, (c) Employees are consider stakeholders and are treated as such and (d) Fun events with employees are arranged.

§    The company has created an environment, that i dont want to leave.

As the saying goes in villages, Contentd cows give more milk.  The top 100 companies to work for create an atmosphere, where everything is taken care of, and the only problem that workers have is excelling in their work.

 

Lets take example of SAS (Ranked # 1 in 2010). Here there are two subsidized day-care centers for 600 children and a facility for summer camp for older children.  There is drycleaning, care detailing, a UPS depot, book exchange, mediation garden, in-season tax-prep vendor. Free snacks including Krispy Kremes and M&Ms. Extensive on-site sports leagues, SPAs and health care centers.

 

Locally, i have seen smaller companies having pool table, fuzeball, Wii, Playstataion. And employees have developed a Camaraderie around these activities, and they end up spending more time in /around the office. Because "My friends are here"

•       The company cares about me– sense of belonging.

If you take care of the employees, they will take care of their communities and investors. Dont think the employees are criminals.

Nustar Energy (Ranked 30^th) apart from giving good compensation and benefit. Focuses on keeping the spirit of its employees sky high via showing them that the company cares about them. Examples being : On Christmas eve, an employee on medical leave- had her house burn down. The company sent $3000 immediately to help her enjoy Christmas and find a place to live.

Another example being, Hurricane damaged houses of some of the employees.  Nustar sent other employees from  across the country to help repair the homes of their colleagues, cook meals and distribute free stuff.

Spouse of the store manager of  Aero (ranked 94) got sick, the chairman asked the store manager to go to his wife and stay with her as long as it takes with out and deductions.

§         The company recognizes employee differences, and accept them on who they are.

Management mantra goes, that if you are supportive of employees and their families, they will reciprocate, especially during the down turn. 

Nustar Energy Chairman once fired a talented senor executive because he continually berated his subordinates. These companies honors personal choices, if the employee says that the job is not safe and he/she will not undertake it,  the company honors this and find something else for the employee.

Another small but impactful example being, that Flexible working hours are arranged for employees who have some personal committments.

§         The company considers each employee as a stakeholder.

Its all about US and not about US vs. THEM.

At Nustar Energy everybody gets a bonus – or no body does. Lay offs are few and far between.  Aero (ranked 94) gives 30% discount to its employees on all of company products, on the spot bear hugs on exceptional performance.  Employees here can grow as high as they are capable of,  it like “from cleaning bathroom to boardroom”

§         Fun events

As mentioned previously, associations build quicker outside the office. These companies recognizes this and once a while, the company makes the employee forget all the stresses of the office and decides to have fun.

Summer parties or family days out are arranged, safely celebrations are undertaken. Management goes around the offices, strap on aprons and serve up barbecue.

If I miss anything about my office, it's the camaraderie of my teammates

Association or Camraderie make people like their place of work or area of association. It makes them spend more time at office or even after office hours they like to spend time together (again discussing office) and aperantly working 24/7/365.  High association, makes people give 100+% to what ever they do, this passion is in support to the people they are associated with, its not the job responsibility they are trying to uphold, but  they are trying to uphold the relationship and trust with other associate.


Your comments will be appreciated, Please feel free to add...... and visit the full blog at http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/
   

 

Coaching

Coaching 

Helping individuals help themselves

On 26^th January 2011, Jeddah had unprecedented rain that led to flooding on the roads. This led to extraordinary personal or business loss in terms of cars getting totaled to people spending umpteenth hours walking on the flooded streets to the shop mechanizes wasted. Following the social media, in such a situation, made me realize that there are “generally” two groups of people  (a) Who are sharing sad pictures of the city and blaming the issue to somebody and (b) People who have moved forward and are now helping in rehabilitation. What I have come to conclude is that it all boils down to the “Mind-Set” that lead us to react differently to the same situation. It all boils down to how we “lead our brain” in a specific situation as discussed http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/lead-brain.html

A few days back, we talked about how can we PUSH people towards a positive mindset. http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/pushing-people-to-give-in-their-best.html . Unluckily, not all the individuals are willing to take “dictation” so today we will talk about how can we COACH people towards helping themselves.

Coaching is a process that enables the individual achieve their full potential.

 It helps the individual find their “blind spot”, purposefully moving them out of their comfort zone and stretching oneself to new heights.


It is different from teaching or facilitating. In teaching/facilitating the instructor tells what is the right way of doing thing. However, in coaching, the coach only asks the questions to the coachee to help him find the direction themselves. In the end, coaching bears better results, because, people have more ownership to their ideas rather than somebody else’s ideas.


Now the question appears, how to go on about doing coaching.  Lets follow the GROW model (Goal, Reality, Options and Will) of coaching http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_89.htm

§         Goal (Establishing a Goal) i.e.

o        Agree on the topic of discussion with the coachee

o        Agree on specific, measurable, realistic and time bound objectives that the coachee wants to achieve post this engagement.

§         Reality (Examining the current reality) i.e. asking the coachee to describe the current reality, this will help in knowing where they are. Coach should not assume the current situation, neither put words in coachee’s mouth, but should only be listening and asking questions so as the coachee can personally understand the reality. The question one can ask are

o        What is happening now?

o        How often does this happen?

o        How does it impact your life?

o        Is it a logical problem, emotional problem or a feeling issue?

o        What have you tried to overcome this?

o        What has worked?

o        What has not worked?

§         Options (Exploring the Options) i.e. asking the coachee how does he/she moves forward, its time to explore what is possible, meaning all the possible options should be put on the table by the coachee (not the coach). As a coach your responsibility is to help your team member generate as many options as possible via probing on

o        What can we do to change the situation?

o        Are their any alternatives to this, any other alternative?

o        Lets change your perspective, and consider yourself as a third person looking at this situation, what is he seeing, what options will he recommend you?

o        How would your life change, once this problem is overcome?

o        Have you seen anybody else with this issue, what did they do, can you do the same?

o        What constraints are there?

o        How can you weigh different options?

As a coach, one should not suggest options, but ask questions in leading the team member towards different options.

§         Will (Establishing the Will to improve) i.e. Most probable, by now, your coachee will have a good ideas on how to achieve their Goal. This is a major step forward, however, you need to establish a will (as a coach) to ensure that their plans materialize and they are motivated to change / improve / stretch. The questions that you can ask your team to generate that motivation are

o        Which option will take you towards your goal the quickest?

o        So what will you do now and when?

o        What can stop you from moving forward?

o        How will you overcome these obstacles?

Coaching is all about making sure that the coachee knows that they are working with you, not for you

Best quality of the coach is to ask alot of challenging questions and let the coachee come back with solutions.

Your comments will be appreciated, Please feel free to add...... and visit the full blog at http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/

Coach will let the people see what they can, rather than what they cant.