There is a great deal of debate about coaching, what it is and what it is not. Since I’ve been coaching and training coaching for over 20 years now, I don’t tend to engage in those debates, I just get on with doing my job. I don’t want to get too far into this series without openly laying out my position. In that way, you can understand a little more about where I am coming from, and perhaps, more easily work out what is right for you and your practice. I do what works for me, and so should you.
In this article, I want to share with you seven core principles which sit behind the way my business and coaching practice has developed. Quite a few are based on my personal values, and all are based on what I have found to be especially useful when helping people to become more influential.
Naturally, you are free to agree, disagree, adopt and mould to your preferences. But, be aware, some of these are fundamental to the way I do things and what you will be learning more about as this series progresses.
An Ethical Approach: When you work with people on their ability to influence, and manage the politics, an inevitable challenge arises with many clients. Are you trying to get me to do something that is unethical? Absolutely not. My approach may be strategic, but it is based on a strong belief that with clear thinking, deep understanding and careful attention to detail, you can achieve amazing influence without hiding anything. Indeed, it is often easier to influence someone when you are completely open and honest about your intent. So, all of my coaching and training aims to encourage people to take courage and deal ethically (see readings below).
Focus on Deliverables: This is sometimes a difficult one for coaches in my experience, and it is absolutely vital to take on board if you really want to get your clients moving fast. Influence is about outcomes, usually specific outcomes. Therefore, I always come back to what the client needs to achieve in their work, their job, and in their relationships. I know that the more specific they can be, the easier it will be for them to achieve the result.
Coaching Objectives: As an extension of the last point, I do not move very far into a programme without having a top priority business goal written down and agreed. It needs to be one which requires them to be highly influential and also gives them the opportunity to try out the ideas we are going to be working on. By focusing the coaching on something really important to them, it makes implementation so much easier. Again, I will cover this in more detail later, and give you some examples of coaching documents that I have created in the past.
Emphasis on Practical Action: Similar to the above, what are you actually going to do to move things forward? There are lots of opportunities to disappear into deep theory. This may interest many, but it doesn’t interest me when I’m with clients. The most important thing they need to do is work out their next step. Sure, there needs to be a degree of theoretical understanding to develop accurate analysis, but I keep it to the minimum. In actual fact, most people I coach are quite happy to rely on my theoretical background — that’s my job, and in time, I hope it will be yours too.
Contextualisation: Most of my work is aimed at helping people to get to grips with the world around them rather than to understand themselves at a deeper level. I am aware that many who work in this field focus intently on the inner world, and that is great, at times it needs to be done. It’s just not my way. If it is yours that is great. It means you will likely build your practice in a slightly different way. I share this so that you know I am not ignoring it; it is simply not the emphasis I put on my work. I also harbour the belief that it makes me a little more unique in a noisy world.
Situational Leadership: If you’re a qualified coach, I am sure you have a view on the differences between coaching, mentoring and tutoring. The arguments are well understood, and I personally have chosen to lean towards the Hersey Blanchard model of Situational Leadership. You’ll see that come through in the later articles. In practice, it means that once I have a clear psychological contract in place, I begin by sharing the concepts and ideas (S1: Directing), then quickly move to exploring with them how they apply it to their situation (S2: Coaching) before arriving at them sharing what happened, what they made of the experience and what are they going to do next (S3: Supporting). For me, in my work, it is extremely useful because they need to retain contextual expert status (I can never know their situation fully) and my job is to help them apply the frameworks, processes and tools of influence. Usually, my clients also don’t have time either.
Practical Structure: I will talk more about this in the next article. When I engage with a client, once I’ve understood their needs, I then build a sequence of topical sessions which form the structure of a programme of coaching. The purpose is to cover the concepts and ideas that I believe will best meet their needs, and keep us on track because almost always, there are a finite number of sessions agreed. In this work, there is huge potential for distractions, especially if you are doing your job correctly and getting them to stretch their behaviours, strategies and action! I will share some of these structures later.
There are more principles that guide my action and these will come out of the articles which follow. Part of the reason for sharing this now is so that I can get straight to the point later, now you know where I’m coming from.
I’m more than happy to hear your reactions, suggestions, so feel free to email me and let’s strike up a conversation.
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