Could Coaching help you ….

Here's an article I wrote for my company's in house magazine last year

Could Coaching help you ….

• to solve a difficult problem?
• to grow into larger roles?
• to plan your future?

I picked up Myles Downey’s book on coaching in someone’s office some months ago, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Effective-Coaching-Lessons-Coaches-Coach/dp/1587991721/sr=8-1/qid=1171295756/ref=sr_1_1/026-5262685-2527642?ie=UTF8&s=books and skimmed the pages. I was captivated by his story of helping someone who was scared of catching. With other course members watching, he coached this nervous young man to the point where he smiled unbelievingly, having made three catches in a row. Miles had not given a single piece of advice - he had just asked questions. He asserts that coaches don’t need to be subject matter experts, their skill is in enabling each of us to develop our own solutions to the challenges we face, so that we continue to grow both in self-assurance and capability.

As someone who gets a buzz from watching others grow, I thought “I must be able to do this too”. So I dropped in on our HR Director, who told me a course vacancy had just come up. Three weeks later I was in Birmingham on the course. We learned the key principles, some theory behind it and a coaching method. We did lots of role play that was both challenging for the coach and useful as the coachee. One of the other course members is now my coach - already he has helped me to work out an approach to giving my anxious client more confidence in LogicaCMG’s ability to deliver.

There’s a spectrum of roles here: from advisor and mentor through to coach. Whereas an advisor or mentor will often give you a solution, some advocates of coaching will tell you that a coach will at the most raise an eyebrow but never give advice. In the form of coaching we learned there is a place for a few challenges, when the coach might say things like “Are you sure that’s the only option?”, or “You might consider how this looks from so-and-so’s point of view”. The emphasis is on helping you get to your solution, and making an action plan that you can stick to.

A key principle of coaching is confidentiality. Things you say will not be communicated to others; nor find their way into ePMS or any other such tools.

To those of you who are trained coaches: get in touch and let’s build a network..

To those of you who’ve never had coaching or feel you’d like to try it again: say so!

Unfortunately this has got nowhere yet, but I'm still trying .......