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.

Pushing people to give in their best

Continuing with lead the brain discuss http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/2011/01/lead-brain.html  below is a summary of a book that throws light on how can we help people around us build a habit of  "leading their brain out of adversity"

 

MindSet  (Summary of a book by Carol S. Dweck)!

Don’t divide the world into week and strong, success or failures…. But divide the world into learners and non-learners.

There are two types of Mindsets

1.      Fixed mindset.  Where an individual believes that his/her qualities are carved in stone. They have a specific amount of intelligence, personality and moral character. And they have to prove this over and over again, because they feel every situation is evaluated. And they have to ensure that they deliver on their personal belief of the amount of intelligence, personality and character they have. These people end up blaming the "3rd Person" for any adversity or challenge in their life. Hence are stalled in their feet when stretched.

2.      Growth mindset.  Here an individual believes that his/her qualities can be cultivated through efforts. Although, initially, people may differ in every which way – in their initial talents and aptitudes. But everyone can change and grow through application and experience. This creates a passion for learning and stretching  themselves. People in growth mindset, thrive on challenge as the bigger the challenge, the more they can stretch and learn. In growth mindset, failures don’t define you, but it is considered t be a problem that has to be dealt with and learned from.

How to Develop Growth Mind Set in Others. It can be developed at any age

1.      Send development messages. Every word and action sends a message. It tells children or students or peers or athletes – how to think about themselves. It can be a fixed mindset message that says: you have a permanent trait and I am judging it. Or it can be a growth mindset message that says: you are a developing person and I am interested in your development.

2.      Don’t stereotype or label people. Praising people for their effort as well as the result. This will help people find success via learning and improving. If you start labeling people, they move towards fixed mindset and hence do not admit and correct their deficiencies. A student mentioned that I am always praised for my intelligence rather than my efforts, and slowly buy surely I developed an aversion to difficult challenge.

3.      Inculcate True self confidence via pushing them towards learning mode i.e. the courage to be open – to welcome change and new ideas.  This will help in making people ready to grow.  To grow true self confidence, we should focus on praising the work that they have put in i.e.  That homework was so long and involved. I really admire the way you concentrated and finished it.  Focus on inculcating that skills and achievement come through commitment and effort.

4.      Push people towards Observe, Learn and Improve Set high standards for people around you and keep raising the bar. Focus on telling them that “you have to apply yourself each day to become a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better”

Gist being

“Did I win? Did I lose? These are wrong question. The correct question is: did I make my best effort? If yes that you may be outscored,  but you will never lose”

To read the full blog please visit http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/  

 

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction

These days we are discussing the 9 tactics 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

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

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

Todays focus will be role of  Direction and Communication in motivating self and others

As humans we don’t want to move out of our comfort zone, hence a comprehensive direction will make us feel in control and motivate us to move forward. Everyday we face a lot of challenges, that throw our focus around and at times break our heart and resolve. However, if we are sure of our direction/goals, we will continue to move as Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal and if we lose focus we should remind ourselves that we are kept from our goals not by obstacles but by a clear direction forward.

Jim Collins in his book “Builds to last” mentions that  companies that outlasted different generations, economic up and down trends, wars etc were driven via sense of purpose beyond just money, and this sense of continuity of purpose acted as a bond that held the organization together and focused in the face of change.

A strong sense of Direction helps us become architect of future rather than victims.

Communication helps as a feedback loop for us and the whole team, it is used to comfort us in adverse times, pep us up during challenges, direct others who are losing focus and so on.

Good communication is as stimulating as a strong black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after

Please feel free to add...... or visit the full blog at  http://hunt-for-motivation.blogspot.com/

Now.....Go on confidently in the “direction” of your dream, live the life you have imagined.   No wonder, people live a year very happily if they stick to their resolution and direction.