Coaching 101

Quite often, people in management positions reckon they are great coaches. In reality, they are more likely to be great advisors, tellers, maybe mentors, guides, teachers, instructors or leaders and of course, managers. Whilst all of these activities are value adding in the right context, none of them are ‘coaching’. Coaching is such a powerful tool and a very specific set of tools, or ways of being that it needs to be learned and to be differentiated from the other (worthwhile) activities mentioned above.

So, I have covered the question ‘what is coaching?’ in my blog ‘Is coaching the same as mentoring?’ so will not go into too much detail here, other than to say, coaching is all about the player. It is all about helping the player achieve their potential through powerful listening and conversation in a structured, yet easy to use process.

So, how do we coach?

I, and I am sure, many of you, have seen many forms of coaching models and many of them are fine. Some are more complicated than others but if you apply any coaching model that puts the player first and that is your intent during a coaching session, you will generally not go too far wrong. Having said that, I have a favorite. I have used it many times and helped many others ‘get it’, practice it and then use it extremely successfully. It is simple, powerful, beneficial and really fun to use.

It is from a brilliant book by Myles Downey called “Effective Coaching – Lessons from the Coach’s Coach” published by Cengage Learning. I recommend this book to you. It is a simple read and packed full of great advice and practical examples of how to be a great coach and help others be the same. The concept of a ‘player’ instead of a ‘coachee’ or a ‘coaching partner’ comes from Downey’s great book. ‘Player’ has much more of a sense of ownership and responsibility to actually do something in the coaching relationship and not to just be a recipient of coaching and that is why I like it so much.

There are many elements to coaching and the one I want to focus on in this blog is a model called the GROW model and it works like this:

GOAL is about establishing what the desired outcome of the conversation is. It is very much driven by the player and often the coach needs to prompt the player with a series of questions to help think about exactly what it is that they seek assistance with. It quite often is not the broad-brush initial statement that the real progress is able to made upon.

REALITY is concerned with achieving the most accurate picture of the current state of play that is possible to achieve. It is here that the coach really helps the player see what the world looks and feels like for them. It is in this phase that the coaches skills of; listening to understand, following interest, generating understanding and providing feedback and choice really come to the fore.

Also during this stage, there should not be any analysis, no offering of bright ideas, no suggestions of ‘how I would do it is…’, and no jumping to conclusions.

OPTIONS – This is about what can be done, what is possible for the player to do. The intention is to draw out a list of all that is possible without judgement or evaluation. Questions such as “Which of those would you like to pursue first?” “So what could you do differently?”. “What else?”, “Anything else?”, “What else can you think of?” are the food for the coach at this stage.

It is worth pointing out here that the GROW stages are not always linear, Sometimes, it helps to move back and forward a bit between the phases as the conversation grows. (Pun intended). It becomes with practice more of a style of conversation that a rigorously applied process.

WRAP-UP aims to select the most appropriate option and agree the next steps. In this phase the coach’s intention is to gain commitment from the player for an action. Things like “So tell me, what, exactly, are you going to do?” appear in this stage. This is where the options become a reality that the player can take away and do. Coaching is for the purpose of improving performance and so it must result in tangible ways of being or doing that change the view, approach or actions of the player to be effective. This is an essential component and the player needs to get it and to commit to going away and doing it.

Below is a list of questions that I have found are extremely useful to review and use. The best way I have found of using these is to review them from top to bottom as you prepare for a coaching session. That way, the question styles for each of the GRO and W steps are clear in your mind as you start your coaching conversation.

The final thing to do is to check yourself out after the coaching event and see how you stepped up to the plate. How ‘directive’ or ‘non-directive’ were you? What was your listening like? – Generous? Did the player come up with some actions to go away and practice? Was there an outcome from the coaching session or was it just a chat?

Some question styles for coaching

Goal

What is it you would like to discuss?
What would you like to achieve?
What would you like from (to achieve in) this session?
What would need to happen for you to walk away feeling that this time was well spent?
If i could grant you a wish for this session, what would it be?
What would you like to be different when you leave this session?
What would you like to happen that is not happening now, or what would you like not to happen that is happening now?
What outcome would you like from this session/discussion/interaction?
Will that be of real value to you?
OK. If i have understood it, there are three things; summarise them and then ask which would be the most interesting to talk about.
Why would you want to do that?
What do you want to achieve?

Reality

What is happening at the moment?
How do you know that this is accurate?
When does this happen?
How often does this happen? Be precise if possible.
What effect does this have?
How have you verified, or would you verify, that this is so?
What other factors are relevant?
What is their perception of the situation?
What have you tried so far?
What does that mean?
In what way?
What do you understand by x? What don’t you understand?
Did you observe anything in particular to make you think he was happy with your feedback?
Tell me about…
What are the anticipated consequences of x?
What do you notice as you look at x, or consider y?
Who or what are you doing this for?
What’s happenning?
What has been working? What has not?
What is the most difficult part of this task?
What did you like most about the way you accomplished this task?
At your best, what qualities, attributes, capabilities, do you bring to the situation?
What is your understanding of the current situation

Options

What could you do to change the situation?
What alternatives are there to that approach?
Tell me what possibilities for action you see. Do not worry about whether they are realistic at this stage.
What approach/actions have you seen used, or used yourself, in similar circumstances?
Who might be able to help?
Would you like suggestions from me?
Which option do you like the most?
What are the benefits and pitfalls of these options?
Which options are of interest to you?
Rate from 1-10 your level of interest in/the practicality of, each of these options
Would you like to choose an option to act on? What else?
What alternative possibilities can you consider?
What would success in this look like?
What do you feel most strongly about in this situation?
What stands out?
Tell me, in an ideal world, how would things be different?
What would it look like in x months / years?
What changes would you like to make?
If you could do it any way that you wanted, how would you go about accomplishing this task?
When have you succeeded in a challenge similar to this one?
How comfortable (confident) do you feel about doing x?
Where could you find the help you need to accomplish this task?
What would it take to make you feel more comfortable?
What do you really want?

Wrap-Up

What are the next steps?
Precisely when will you take them?
What might get in the way?
Do you need to log the steps in your diary?
What support do you need?
How and when will you enlist that support?

Above all, and at the end of the day, coaching is all about the player and if you keep that in mind, you can help the player make a huge difference and have great fun doing it.

Enjoy.