Monthly Archives: May 2011

Chuuut… Watch Out 1

 in Guest Post  tagged auditory / awareness / belief / business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / effective / executive coach / Frederique Murphy / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / Mountain Moving Mindset / nlp coach / non-verbal / observation / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / sensory acuity / visual

In this week’s guest post Frederique Murphy returns to shares her thoughts and expertise about how you, as a coach, can know how effective you are with your clients.

Chuuut… Watch Out!

By Frederique Murphy

One of the questions, coaches often ask me, whether directly or indirectly sharing their concerns, is about knowing how effective they are with their clients. And, most of the time, they’ll say (you might have heard that before ;-), and it usually starts with the B word: “But, coaching is not an exact science, there is no real way for me to know how my session is going…”

Well, let’s blast that belief, as I am sure you will all agree that this is a belief, which is not worth holding on to, as it is clearly limiting you and your coaching abilities.

Putting the results your clients will be producing and experiencing aside, what I’d like to focus on today is on the silence bits, as in, the answer to you knowing how it is going, can very often be found in what you clients are actually not saying verbally.

I believe the answer to do that is in developing an acute sense of awareness and observation, and it is one of the top skills, that a coach wants to always enhance throughout their career.

Here is a list of what you want to be watching out during your sessions; and for all of these, you want to particularly pay attention to the changes in:

  • blinking
  • breathing
  • energy / state
  • eye movements
  • lip size
  • muscle tone
  • pauses
  • posture
  • pupil size
  • skin colour
  • voice
    • pace
    • pitch
    • tone

See, this is where you go beyond the words of your clients and watch out for the non-verbal clues they are giving you.

Observing, noticing and interpreting these non-verbal clues is key in helping you assess how your session is going, in knowing how your words are being received, and how effective your communication is.

These clues are very often truer than the conscious words your clients are using as these are unconscious “leaks”. And, therefore, are fantastic true feedback for you as the coach.

Before wrapping up, I’d like to add one more thing, as I hear some of you asking already 😉 And, how about phone and Skype sessions?

Well, it is the same, you still can assess how your session is going by using some of these elements; the thing is that while you won’t be able to notice a skin tone change or a muscle change, you will find that you’ll put more emphasis on the auditory elements.

The more you practice, the more you will refine your sensory acuity, and start noticing the minute and subtle changes in your clients.My suggestion is to make a list of the sensory acuity elements you’d like to enhance and then systematically, pick one per week, and during that particular week, put extra focus on that one element. And, then repeat, for the next one. Etc, Etc!

To your ever-increasing awareness!

About the Author/Further Resources

Frederique MurphyCombining her business expertise, having been a business consultant for over 10 years, working on multi-millions programmes around the world and running a successful 6-figure business (she hit that figure within 9-months in business and then doubled it within the following 6 months!) and her mind expertise, being an international licensed NLP Master Practitioner & NLP Mind Coach, Frederique has developed the “Mountain Moving Mindset” programme, where she empowers business owners, entrepreneurs and solo-preneurs to master their mindset, so that they can move mountains and bring their businesses to the next level!

Explaining how coaching works 1

 in Coaching  tagged business coach / business coaching / career coaching / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching content / coaching courses / coaching model / coaching preparation / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / confidence / executive coach / explaining coaching / Free resource / leadership coaching / learning / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / performance coaching / personal development

I’ve mentioned before that one of the things that anyone who signs up for my free what to put in a coaching welcome pack e-course is also invited to share what they would like to read more about on this blog.

One of the requests I’ve had recently was worded simply as “Explaining how coaching works.” As I read that request I’m aware that it’s something that there are a couple of ways that this may have been meant.

Some coaches and change workers may have read that request and automatically thought of a variation of the following question – “explain coaching to whom?”

It may be a request for more posts that literally take you, as the reader, step by step through how to do various coaching processes, models and developing skills used in coaching.

It may also be a request about how to explain coaching to a third party, probably someone who you would like to become a potential client.

Firstly, if you are the individual that made this request I want to thank you (and everyone else who has made suggestions and comments) for taking the time to share. I really do appreciate you doing that.

The main reason I draw attention to the 2 different meanings is so that I can address both potential meanings and make sure I’m honouring that request! 🙂

It also is an opportunity to demonstrate one of the things I consider as a coach when choosing which question to ask next, the story to share or even if to use a technique etc.

The language that someone uses can give an indication about how they are currently seeing a situation. It can be an indication of what is keeping them stuck, why they are not seeing potential solutions or taking action etc.

Using “Explaining how coaching works” I could have just written a post examining a specific technique, skill or coaching model. That may be sufficient to satisfy the original questioners request. However, as you will read in a moment, my answer about how to explain coaching to someone who is a potential client is different.

One of the methods of learning I enjoy is to read, listen, observe and generally experience other coaches work. Sometimes they will explicitly say why they have asked a specific question, phrased something in a particular manner or designed a particular exercise with a specific outcome in mind.

On other occasions there is no explicit explanation. In which case notice what you are noticing about their work:

  • Perhaps you can piece together why they may have asked a specific question or gave a particular response.
  • Maybe there is an indication about what beliefs etc that coach has about coaching in general and their work.

Some of the posts on this blog with specifically talk about a particular skill, technique or coaching model. Others will not be so explicit. I invite you to read a post and initially take any personal learning and insights from the content.

I also then invite you to re-read the post and see what you can learn from each one about how that posts author uses and approaches coaching.

Why do I suggest using both approaches? Some posts will have specifically been written for you to experience the content first hand. Don’t miss out on those potential insights and learning’s by not connecting and disassociating from the post.

If you are looking to explain how coaching works to a potential client I’m going to suggest that they are likely to be interested in the answers to slightly different questions. Firstly, they are likely to be primarily wondering about what can/will your coaching do for them?

If they are interested, the second question they are likely to be curious about is what actually happens. If they book a coaching session with you, what will happen, what will they actually do?

Notice that both those questions potentially produce different answers to how coaching works.

“How” coaching works is not going to be a burning question to a lot of potential clients. That’s not to say that there will never be someone that doesn’t want to know how something works, which models you use and any research that applies to the way that you work.

For example, I’m aware that working with coaches that sometimes out of professional curiosity they can be examining what I am doing and answering how my coaching works. Which I’m quite happy with as long as it’s not getting in the way of whatever we are working on directly.

I believe that each coach develops his or her own style and approach over time. A client working with each one of us will potentially have vastly different experiences because we are all individuals.

I am very aware that I have many readers from a range of different coaching backgrounds and niches. I’m sure that if I was to ask a sports coach how their coaching works they would provide a different answer to a spiritual coach. If nothing else their language would be different because they are talking about different contexts and normally different audiences.

So lastly, I would encourage you to develop a sense for yourself about how you work as a coach rather than how coaching works. After all, a client will ultimately be choosing to work with you.

Feel free to add your comments below. Including any extra ways that “Explaining how coaching works” can be interpreted and any insights, observations and thoughts you’ve had whilst reading this post.