Online Coaching Course

Sir John Whitmore advocated that coaching was all about developing or raising two things in the coachee, their level of awareness and their level of responsibility.‘If I give you my advice and it fails, you will blame me. I have traded my advice for your responsibility and that is seldom a good deal.’ – Sir John Whitmore. Simple, but not simplistic, the GROW model will be presented in this book as a framework for your coaching practice. It is important, at this stage, to emphasise that the GROW model is one coaching process out of many that are now available for coaches.

This is so important, we put it at the top of the list. You can’t be a good coach unless you really, really listen. Note, it doesn’t just mean listening to what is being said. It also means listening to what is not being said. This is where you can really help your coachee – by asking insightful questions about what you notice might be going on for them.

Asking questions is at the heart of great coaching. They are the tools of your trade. This lesson highlights the importance of using questions intentionally. The appropriate use of both open and closed questions will be considered. There is a discussion of particular types of questions appropriate to specific coaching situations.

This is chronologically the first skill you need to use as a coach as it is the gateway to trust. The coaching process will not work unless you create a good rapport from the beginning, and it should be maintained throughout the coaching relationship. Rapport is what allows coachee's to feel relaxed with their coach and open up – so that personal barriers and fears can be identified. It also allows the coach to ask harder and more challenging questions.

Empathy can be defined as our ability to put ourselves in others’ shoes and appreciate how they are likely to be feeling or thinking in a given situation. What might it feel like to be them? Daniel Goleman, who coined the concept of ‘Emotional Intelligence’ stated that ’empathy is the most important people skill’. He says that empathy is an important communication skill, but it can be easily forgotten because we focus on what should be done in a situation, rather than on how the other person feels.

The advanced listening skills of summarising and paraphrasing/reflecting help you guide your coachee to allow them to make sense of what they are grappling with.

One of the most useful things for your coachee can be you pointing out to them things you are noticing about them, for instance, their behaviour, their reactions to questions, and their facial expressions. As coaching is about increasing self-awareness in the person being coached, the coach needs to know how to give helpful feedback. Providing high-quality, objective information to the person being coached can help to increase understanding of her situation. In addition, the coach needs to be able to positively accept feedback to improve her own practice.

Where does coaching fit in? What is coaching, and what is it not?

Looking at the beliefs and principles of coaching, there is 2 kinds of beliefs we are referring to. One is the coach’s belief in the coaching process as well as their own skills. Secondly, it is the coach’s belief in their client, and people as a whole!

In this lesson, we will look at ethical guidelines and contracting in coaching. The coaching contract is a recognised way of establishing the professional parameters of the conversation. Some coaches have written contracts that they ask their clients to sign. Others simply discuss the contract verbally with the client at the beginning of the coaching relationship. If you embrace what you have learned so far and choose to become a coach, you will, at times, be faced with ‘ethical dilemmas’ during your coaching conversations. We will start by discussing ‘ethics’ before outlining how we can be prepared for ethical dilemmas. The lesson will conclude by proposing ways of developing and maintaining our coaching practice in a way that is professional and ethical.

There are times when it may be necessary to move beyond simply talking about behaviours during coaching conversations. Mostly people have to change the way they think before they can alter what they do, especially if they are trying to make long-lasting changes. This lesson will assist you as a coach to address topics which may require a change in thinking before a sustainable change in behaviour can be achieved.

Let’s look at a handyman. I suppose they have a variety of tools. Some for very specific situations, some more for general use and that they use almost on a daily basis. But might also know that a hammer is not the best tool for sensitive, intricate glasswork! Similarly, with your coaching toolbox. You might have some tools that you use purposefully and frequently as it forms part of your way of coaching. If it was a hammer, it might even have taken on the shape of your hand or been personalised. And then you might also have those tools that you know are part of your arsenal. And maybe, you might evaluate a situation and decide that that could be a good tool to use. You might need to find that tool the evening before, dust it off, and just practice to ensure you are still using it correctly. In coaching, that is also ok! The best coaching toolbox that you can have is the one that takes into account who you are as coach and how you coach. It contains tools that you have experienced yourself, and have experimented with it with your clients. It is also tools that are used purposefully.

Coaching sessions can be made more engaging by asking the client to complete some conversational, drawing or active tasks. It is useful for the coach to have a toolkit of resources to support these activities. Each of these activities can be adapted to suit the needs of the coach and the client. There is no ‘correct way’ of using these tools or activities and coaches will have to check with clients about the appropriateness of interventions. There is nothing wrong with abandoning an activity if it is not meeting the needs of the client. Coaching is appropriately understood as a conversational intervention. As a result, it is to be expected that many people assume that talking is all that happens within a coaching conversation. In this lesson, we look at the first of 3 ways of inspiring transformation through creativity in coaching sessions: creativity through talking - utilising language and words.

In this lesson, we look at the second of three ways of inspiring transformation through creativity in coaching sessions: creativity through drawing or writing. This lesson will propose a number of pen-and-paper activities that can be used during coaching conversations. These drawing activities allow clients to explore their ideas more fully and can sometimes provide a welcome break from the hard thinking and reflection necessary during coaching conversations. Pen-and-paper activities can also generate tangible items to ‘take away’ from sessions. These can act as reminders of the conversation.

In coaching, we do not coach to pathology, but we can look to Dr. Carl Jung’s words as an offering of how to direct our awareness and assist our clients in expanding their inner awareness, accepting and loving all parts of their self as we help them move through their challenges and achieve their goals via the medium of active movement and play. In our lesson today, we focus on the third and final part of the three-lesson series on Inspiring Transformation through Creativity, and here we look at ‘tools to play’.

An individual’s personality is the combination of traits and patterns that influence their behaviour, thought, motivation, and emotion. It drives individuals to consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways; in essence, it is what makes each individual unique. Over time, these patterns strongly influence personal expectations, perceptions, values, and attitudes. In this lesson we will strive to understand personality theory, traits and characteristics in order to observe patterns of behaviours and characteristics that can help predict and explain a person's behaviour. This is not only helpful as a coach, where you can adapt and connect to the personality you observe in your client (in order to build rapport), but also as you explain and allow your client to understand their own and other’s personality, that it will cause the client to grow in insight and understanding of themselves and others in a great way.

This lesson is the first in entering the world of emotional intelligence as a coach: through the door of self-awareness. The key to this door of self-awareness is understanding our thinking patterns and the underlying belief structures (frames of reference) that endorse it. In this module we will look at growing in ‘the art’ of coaching, in other words, growing in your presence as a coach through the robust process of becoming more emotionally intelligent. The reason for doing so, is so that as you as coach grow in maturity of character, so does the presence and space you provide others to also grow in maturity of character. We can take others just as far as we have gone ourself! May this module allow you the space to go further in growth than you have before, and bring you to a place of maturity of character that will transform your and other’s life!

Although excessive negative feelings inhibit learning and communication, emotions play a vital role in relationships, conversations and feedback. They convey emphasis and let others know what we value. Emotional experiences stick with people, last longer in their memories, and are easier to recall. And extensive neuroscience research in recent decades makes clear that emotions are essential to our reasoning process: Strong emotions can pull us off course, but in general emotions support better decision making. So, while you’ll want to avoid triggering a threat response, don’t try to remove all emotion from your relating. That can diminish the impact of your presence and lead to a cycle of ineffective behaviour. Instead, aim for a balance: Express just enough emotion to engage the other person but not so much that you provoke a hostile or defensive reaction, shut down the conversation, or damage the relationship. Of course, we may not know how another person will respond to our emotions, and when we’re in the grip of strong feelings, it’s hard to calibrate how we express them in conversation. The solution is to practice. By having more aware/mindful conversations, we learn not only how specific individuals respond to us but also how we express our emotions in helpful and unhelpful ways.

Mental health is synonymous with maturity, and maturity is born of responsibility. You cannot be mentally or emotionally healthy if you are irresponsible. People with maturity understand a great truth; they understand that life is difficult. In being able to accept this fact about life, mature people learn to handle life in all of its difficulties, not expecting it to be different. They have learned to accept that not everything in life is going to be their way, show up in the way they thought it would and nor will the world change on its axis to make them happier. Mature people know for any change to happen it has to come from within themselves, and this is where success or failure develop. The only way to live a more fulfilling, successful and purpose-driven life is when the choice is made to fully develop and live the attitudes and principles of a matured person.

What is in the heart and what one speaks becomes truth. Challenge yourself by exploring the success in a situation rather than just coping with the consequences. Provide opportunity where you feel you can master your world. Focus on what you/the person can do rather on what you/they can’t. Explore the value of persistent effort. Don’t just give up on a goal just because it seems difficult to do. There is a very good reason for setting the goal – so don’t let up. Understand the journey and process and with every try you/they are one step closer. Learn the importance of facing and overcoming failure. Thomas Edison said: Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration! In order to learn persistence, we must learn to accept failure. Self-motivation is realised by facing your own truths (ownership)…

Proactive people show you what they love, what they want, what they purpose, and what they stand for. These people are very different from those who are known by what they hate, what they don't like, what they stand against, and what they will not do. In the physical world, boundaries are easy to see. Fences, signs, walls, manicured lawns or hedges are all physical boundaries. In their differing appearances, they give the same message: THIS IS WHERE MY PROPERTY BEGINS. The owner of the property is legally responsible for what happens on his or her property. Non-owners are not responsible for the property. Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom. If I know where my ""yard"" begins and ends, I am free to do with it what I like. Taking responsibility for my life opens up many different options. However, if I do not ""own"" my life, my choices and options become very limited. In addition to showing us what we are responsible for, boundaries help us to define what is not on our property and what we are not responsible for. I am responsible for me, and I am responsible to you (not the other way around…).

Conflict is simply the art of skillfully navigating our daily communication through the obstacles of differences in perceptions, opinions, meaning and values! Creative problem-solving strategies are essential if we want to have a positive approach to conflict management. We need to transform the situation from one where it is 'my way or the highway' into one where we are willing to entertain new possibilities that would have been excluded – possibly because we have been defending against the threat! The concepts and tools of Nonviolent Communication are designed to help us think, listen and speak in ways that awaken compassion and generosity within ourselves and between each other. Nonviolent Communication helps us interact in ways that leave each of us feeling more whole and connected. It ensures that our motivations for helping ourselves, and each other, are not from fear, obligation or guilt, but because helping becomes the most fulfilling activity we can imagine.

"Manipulations lead to transactions, not loyalty." - Simon Sinek. You can use the SCARF model to work more effectively alongside others by minimizing perceived threats and maximizing the positive feelings generated by reward. It's particularly useful if you need to collaborate with or coach others, or when you need to provide training and feedback.

The fundamental belief of this paradigm is that authenticity is a gift we can freely give. The idea of unconditionality is a gift that asks for nothing in return. We simply make the decision to live authentic lives, to go deep quickly, to be the one who goes there first to open the door for others to be honest and vulnerable too.

If we do not know why we do what we do, how will we convince anybody else to take action? How can we create loyal customers and employees? How can we make people believe in what we believe? How can we be integer to ourselves? “It is not just WHAT or HOW you do things that matters; what matters more is WHAT and HOW you do things is consistent with your WHY. Only then will your practices indeed be best.” Knowing why, our core belief or purpose, filters out all the irrelevant things, all the great-looking and well-intended advices. Instead we will only do and adopt what is good for us. Knowing our purpose leads to spending less time on making decisions. We save money because we do not buy all the options available. Most of all we get recognised for a clear belief.

A value is a ‘hot button’ that drives a behaviour. Whatever you do is done in order to fulfil a value – even though you are unlikely to be consciously aware of that value. Having a vision means we have a clear sense of purpose. It means we have a much larger picture of our business, or our life, than simply setting and reaching short term goals and tackling problems as they come along. Mission: Statements that speaks about how you are attaining your vision.

Lesson summary coming soon!

Lesson summary coming soon!

Lesson summary coming soon!

Lesson summary coming soon!

Lesson summary coming soon!

Lesson summary coming soon!