Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Luciano Garagna
Effective coaching exploits the motivation that comes from the need to cope with the challenges of the moment!
Structuring a coaching session is a great way to help the coachee GROW by providing an effective way to tackle all the main concerns that may arise.
The next pages present some helpful techniques to take control of your coaching session.
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Example
The following example clarifies the method Goal: what are your objectives? I would like to define a strategy to double our market share. Reality: what is currently happening? Now we have 5% of the market share with only one product and using only retailers. Options: what can you do to double your market share? I could use other types of advertising. I could introduce another product in the market. I could lower the retail price. I could use new, different sales channels, such as e-commerce. Will: what will you do? I will lower the price and will implement the e-commerce channel.
Food for thought To effectively manage a coaching session, it is of foremost importance to learn how to quickly shift
from content to process and to context.
Asking questions
Have a look at the following questions, what is the usefulness of each of them? Is the budget of the project on track? Should we confirm the budget as it is, adjust it, or ask for a sponsors review? How can we cover the budget gap on the shipping? What is the objective of this budget analysis? Depending on the context, each of these questions is useful, but they differ in openness and in level of detail. The first question is asking for a statement (yes/no) useful to put a stick on the ground. You might find it helpful to create a common ground. The second question is asking for a choice, focusing on alternatives. It can be valuable to keep the pace of the conversation going when you find it slows down and threatens the scheduled agenda. The third one is an open question with a specific focus. It can be helpful to find solutions in the brainstorming phase of the discussion or when you want to bring down to earth a discussion that is becoming too speculative. The last question is open and broad. It is extremely useful to move the focus at a higher level when the conversation is going into too much detail. Putting a question mark is not enough; to make a good question there are many factors to be taken into consideration; in the examples above we looked at the two fundamental ones for coaching: the openness and the level of detail. Notice that asking questions implies active thinking and that way the question is asked drives the answer! Whatever the content of the discussion, the coachs goal is to influence the quality of the elaboration.
Coaching questions are those that allow the content to be filled freely, so that the ownership of the answer can be empowered.
Like the size of a box must match its content, so the coaching questions need to be shaped in a way which is useful for the answer. Only with experience we can balance all the factors to shape the question.
Experience it yourself
In which situation are these questions useful and where are they useless?
Question What is the added value of todays meeting? Is this tool useful to you? Will you apply coaching at 100%, just a bit, or not at all?
Useful situation
Useless situation
One of most delicate factors in coaching is balancing the level of the challenge, especially with questions. As studied by Lev Vygotsky, in a learning process the challenge must take place in the so called zone of proximal development (ZPD). This is an area outside of what we master, but where we can still deeply understand the matter and learn with guidance: that is the coaching zone. If we push the matter out of the ZPD, we end up in a zone where there can be understanding but not learning. For instance, a joke in a foreign language may not be so for you, even if its explained, because its not part of what you master. Once your awareness of the language increases, you start laughing and can even make those irresistible jokes yourself. To facilitate learning, coaching questions need to be asked within the ZPD. Similarly, the level of challenge of the question needs to be balanced to create a manageable discomfort in the experience, whilst avoiding stepping into an anxiety zone where no learning would take place.
Coaching feedback is the feedback that helps you to improve, by starting from the observation of facts and linking these to the related feeling.
Using coaching feedback increases accountability within our team because it provides a broader perspective.
Experience it yourself
Give us feedback, obviously of a coaching type, about this eBook:
Associated FEELING:...............................................................................................................................................................................
BE CAREFUL: make sure that the fact you pointed out is really something objective, with no personal interpretation (good, bad, positive, negative... are all personal interpretations). Also, check if the feeling you described is really something that you feel, and not think (I feel you are well dressed.... is NOT a feeling).
Food for thought When you have mastered giving feedback, you still have to deal with the much bigger challenge of
receiving feedback from well-intentioned friends and colleagues.
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Helping the coachee to understand assumptions and their impacts is critical to take the communication effectiveness to a higher level.
The right column vs. left column exercise (based upon the method developed by Chris Argyris and Donald Schn) is a tool to help you understand when you can improve managing a conversation by explaining more clearly what you think and feel. Focusing on the inner and outer flow in the conversation helps us understand and better manage the feelings and assumptions we have while interacting with others. Lets see how it works.
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Experience it yourself
Think about a recent interaction where you got upset Divide a piece of paper into two columns In the right column write the dialogue that actually occurred Now, in the left column write what you thought and felt during the dialogue What are the reasons you chose to say what you said instead of what you thought? Which consequences were you afraid of that made you decide to say what you said instead of what you thought? How well did the interaction reach the objectives you had? Which assumptions did you make about the other person or the situation? What would have happened if youd said the left column instead? Which costs and payoffs would you have got? How can you use the left column to improve your communication?
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