Effective Modern Coaching

• chapter 1

• chapter 2

  • The coacher does not give wisdom, the heavy lift is done by the coacher

    Genius is not somebody with extremely rare gens, is somebody giving their full potential. So the goal of coaching is to reach the genius inside all of us.

    Potential - interference ( thoughts rooted in doubt) = genius

    So one way to increase performance is to reduce interference

    Here some list of examples for interference thoughts

    • Fear
    • Lack of self confidence
    • Trying too hard
    • Trying to perfection
    • Trying to impress
    • Anger and frustration
    • Boredom
    • A busy mind

  • One way to reduce interference is to focus attention, when focus attention we enter in a mental state where we can perform at our best, some call it relaxed concentration other just flow

• chapter 3: Effective coaching proposition

  • Coaching is the art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of another
  • Performance: meaning there is some kind of measure/goal that the person wants to get better at, without the willing coaching will not be efficient
  • Learning: the person learns to improve, in a meta way.
  • Facilitate: the person has the potential to get there, we just speeding up the process.

  • push / pull spectrum

    • There is a gray scale of actions from directing/telling what they need to do, to paraphrasing and reflecting.
    • Pull has some limitations, first the coach need to know the answer and will not scale in future (probably more difficult situations) but sometimes it’s the right thing to do… It’s fast and the person is stuck
    • So, pulling spectrum is the preferred way to get the genius

    • 

• chapter 4: effective coaching mode

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  • Made up of 4 concepts
  • Over here: the ability of the coach to pull most of the player ( listening asking questions for clarity, summarizing)
  • Over there:
    • proposing ⇒giving feedback, making suggestions, challenging, evoking creativity.
    • Managing oneself: awareness of self in the moment, clarity of intent, boundary awareness
    • Between us: ability to manage the relationship, transposition ( putting yourself in the others shoes)
    • Around us: taking a protective almost as an external (context). Critical thinking, generate and test hypothesis
  • There is 4 levels from where to coach from more directive to more inderect.
    • Level 4: Knowing
    • Level 3: Process
    • Level 2: Structure
    • Level 1: Following interest

  • Knowing

    Comes from own experience, and we just teach it if the person needs to know

  • Process

    A sequence of instructions that brings the player in a journey. For example guided visualization

  • Structure

    Fundamental parts of what things are made of. for example opposite. If something is bad, what does good look like?

  • Following interest

    Used to direct player attention, to what they want to think about.

• chapter 5: effective coaching and mindset

  • Inner game vs outter game. Most coaches try to tell you how to do things (grip, feet position etc…) And it’s understandable cause it’s easier and easy to measure. But the real game is the inner game where you work the aspiration,values, fears doubts.
  • Remember: performance = potential - interference
  • Interference is the main obstacle for performance (fear, doubt)

  • two selfies

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    • When you are frustrated, sometimes you talk to yourself, you should have not procrastinate… To who are you talking? Are you talking answering?
    • Self one (the teller) is the internalized voice of our parents teachers etc… (Authority persona), this voice want to control self two, doesn’t trust it. Characterized by fears, doubt and trying too hard
    • Self two the doer is the whole human being,with the whole potential (including a huge capacity to learn). characterized by relaxed concentration, enjoyment and trust
    • As a couch we want to help to be in self two. Here we can do our best job. And trying to help others to stay in this phase in critical moments

  • fixed and growth mindset

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    • From research there is people in two different mindset
    • Fixed mindset: they believe that their abilities are carved on birth. Meaning you have a fixed amount of intelligence etc… Nothing you can do about it.
    • Growth mindset: they believe your abilities can be cultivated through effort

  • following interest

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    • There is a spectrum of attention
    • Unconscious awareness: things happen but not paying attention
    • Noticing: you are aware where your attention is
  • Focused attention collapsed:: true
    • Absorption: there is nothing else in your mind The two last would be self-two or flow (relaxed concentration) where learning is most effective and enjoyable
    • An essential skill of a couch is to move the concentration of the player to the deeper stages: following interest

• chapter 6: T GROW model

  • ~~
  • Topic: the topic we want to talk about. You want to understood the territory, how big the problem and how emotional the person is about it.
  • Goal: establish what is going to be the achievable outcome of the conversation ( achievable writing the time of the conversation not the longer term change)
  • Reality: the step to understand the topic as the player is experiencing. No solving, no wisdom, no jumping to conclusions. Just show interest in the topic, so the player becomes more aware.
  • Options: after discussing the topic in depth, it’s natural to start discussing what the player could possibly do. Discuss all possible options there are
  • Wrap up: the goal is to obtain commitment from the player, so we ask what will be the course of action and if any s support is needed.

  • model T

    • Expand the conversation first (ie. what other options do you think you have? did you feel anything more? etc..) and after you explored all the space, then focus/deep dive into one of the aspects.

• Chapter 7: The skills of an effective coach

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  • 

• Chapter 8: Generating understanding and raising awareness

• The intent is to help the player understand himself and his situation more fully. So it can make better decisions
• Following the specifics skills:

  • Listening to Understand

    A lot of us listen with the intention to respond, waiting for a space to give our opinions.

    things to do to improve your listening:

    1. start noticing when you are not listening, and bring your attention back to the speaker
    2. Use a Communication cycle
    3. Coach ask a question
    4. Player answers
    5. Coachs comes back with “If I understood well”

  • Repeating, summarizing and paraphrasing

    After the coach repeats/summarize or paraphrase what the player said, player often has new ideas. The idea to playback his mental idea said by another, player can get some emotional distance and with that have some more ideas to add.

    • repeating: Literally repeating what the player said but with your voice

  • summarizing: summareize the points that the player said, and you are sure both of you are in the same page

  • paraphrasing: When summarizing but choosing different words if you think the new words a bit more clear for the idea of the player.

  • Grouping

    Grouping is the ability to see the sub-themes in the conversation (the chunks if you will), and repeat them back to the player.

    When the problem is very complex, it’s hard to give it some structure, and for the player it might seem just a big mess.

    But with the help of grouping you can distinguis the sub-parts of the problem/topic and tackle them one by one.

  • Silence

    If the player is in silence don’t interrupt him, probably is organizing their thoughts.

  • asking questions that follow interest

    Already covered in different notes (t-shape model)

  • questions that clarify

    Questions that start with who, when, what, where together with how or how much help to raise awareness and help the coach better understand the topic/situation.

    Why is left out cause it creates distance, makes the player justify meaning pushing into mode one. That’s just the opposite of raise awareness

  • other questions

  • get specific

    Great, tell me what specifically you are going to do?

  • commit

    Try to make the player express what they will do, this way they are more committed

• chapter 9: proposing

  • We are going to talk about skills for operating in a more direct way.

    Be aware this is less effective and more dangerous than indirect approach. Cause we can remove responsibility and choice from the player.

  • giving feedback

    feedback is made of there parts

    Data: some fact that we observed (second hand observation are frustration since it’s impossible to challenge)

    Intent: the intent of why we share the feedback, that should always be raise awareness, not saying of somebody was right or wrong

    Emotional charge: it’s impossible to communicate feedback without sharing some emotional charge (angry, disappointment etc…)

  • how to give feedback

    1. The contract → can I give you feedback, how you want this to be delivered?
    2. Data: already defined above
    3. Intent: already defined above

  • making suggestions

    Similar to feedback the biggest challenge is how to make sure that the player understand that’s just an option they can try out. Not necessary will work for them.

    So make sure to ask first if they want it.

  • giving advice

    Same as making suggestions

  • instructing

    When there is an exercise that the coach knows but the player will take to much time.

    The problem with instructing is that they might do it or not. And if they do, might be cause they surrendered authority to you, or the will to challenge you.

  • challenging

    Challenging comes from the belief in another’s potential. When we a coach you see more potential you can call it out to raise awareness of the potential you see

  • evoking creativity

    Or perception of what is possible is anchored to our past experience.

    We want the player to break free from the past and invent a new future.

    Two types …

  • creating a new future ( set the vision)

    The possible activities

    • Agree with the player on a time frame (1 year, 5 year whatever) and ask him how many things can be done. Then all him to trim the list to things would commit to do
    • All the player to write a speech for the celebration of the time period. What would have occurred
    • Ask to draw a picture of the vision. Convert the picture into a set of goals

  • evoking innovation

    The idea is to help break free from what we think it’s possible

    • If you had a magic wand what would you do?
    • What is the most outrageous possiblity you can think of
    • Think of something that would be impossible

  • understanding organizational context

    • 

• chapter 11: coaching for leaders and managers

  • Individuals have personal goals and join an organization to fulfill this goals ( from having enough money to pay the rent to more complex ones)

    Organizations have mission and they need employees to fulfill that

    This relationship should be symbiotic for both parts to achieve fulfillment in both parts

    Difference between managing, leadership and coach

    • Coach: get all the potential from a person
    • Manager: set goals and expectations ( department and individuals), praise when things go well, agreeing on shape of projects
    • Leadership: focus on the vision, what is next and how it fits the values of the organization, inspiring and motivating id:: 6470618e-76a8-45eb-8439-29b8ec7468bb

  • issue with authority

    When employees submit their authority to the company they stop to have ownership of the decision, they what to be told what to do. That makes employee experience little fulfillment and so is hard to motivate. Not the best way to get the whole potential of a person

    That being said depends on the authorities relationship in the work place

    

    Handicaps of coaching in a manager relationship

    • Explicit power relationship makes harder to build trust
    • The player might want to be directed making harder/impossible to uncover full potential

• chapter 12: coaching as leader or manager

  • through performance review

    Use the performance review to start coaching, bringing the player to build their own expectations

  • feedback as starting point

    If you have feedback that is actually important and hard for the receiver to change. You can give the feedback and offer coaching to help

• chapter 13: coaching for coaches

  • Author suggests a 10 sessions plan
  • Initial meeting to set up the contract.
  • First session to setup the goals for the whole plan
  • A middle session to check how are we doing an receive feedback ( if player doesn’t want to share feedback think of parts that you are not happy for and ask about them so it might open the channel)
  • A final review where to review what we learnt so far

• chapter 14: coaching teams

  • Use the same formula performance = potential - interference

    So as a coach of a team the goal is to reduce the interferences

    Most of the team interferences are similar to what I call a psychological safety of a team

    Activities to reduce the interferences

    • 1. Creating a common vision → let all team members a time to write what they see the vision. Each team member listen to all, then as a group we look for common themes
    • 2. Agreeing on modus operandi → ask what are the best ways to achieve the vision, every body makes suggestions, and then select a few as ground rules, that could include team meeting and frequency
    • 3. Disclosure of life and career goals
    • 4. Identification of internal and external obstacles → question to ask the team “what are the obstacles to achieve our team vision”

  • stages of development of teams

    • Forming > storming→ norming → performing

• chapter 15: enabling geniuses

  • Types of geniuses:
    • 1. Unique genius individual at specific skill/craft
    • 2. Genius at any discipline/craft
    • 3. Moments of geniuses
    • 4. Collective genius ( group of individuals come together in collective self 2)

  • the pillars of enabling genius

  • learning

    • Deliberate practice
    • Reflection and ruthless self appraisal → just enough to not create interference
    • Non judgemental awareness

  • identity

  • drive

    • What does your will want
    • Purpose is something we make up our self → having strong

  • enabling

    • Coaching can help enable the genius

• chapter 16: the art of coaching