The Friday Guest post on Coaching Confidence is taking a break over the festive period. (Want to be a guest poster in 2011? visit HERE)
Instead, today you will find a list of all the guest posters since we started the feature with links to their respective posts.
I’d like to take this moment to thank all these posters for taking the time to share so generously. I’d also like to wish everyone a Happy New Year.
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In this weeks guest post Karen Williams shares her experience and knowledge about running a successful coaching business.
By Karen Williams
In 2006 I trained to be a coach. After experiencing coaching to help me to refocus my stuck career, I realised that I found my true vocation and started my training with one of the UK’s leading coaching organisations. When I qualified in the November, I set up my business, Self Discovery Coaching. Like many new coaches, I expected clients to come to me as I knew I had a great service to offer to them, but I quickly I realised that I didn’t have a clue about how to run a business.
“The difference between someone who is or is not successful is that total self-belief.” ~ Dawn Breslin
Rolling on a few years, I established a reasonably successful career coaching business, but still felt something was missing. I was also noticing that there were great coaches out there, but many lacked the business know-how to develop a successful business. Many were returning to their previous profession or getting consultancy work to supplement their coaching income.
“Success takes bravery, courage or something. You do things that frighten you; you feel the fear and do it anyway.” ~ Blaire Palmer
I started some research and I found that many coaches were struggling with the same problems:
So in 2009, when I had to carry out my modelling project for the NLP Master Practitioner qualification, I knew exactly where to start. I decided to model the mindset behind a successful coaching business and had the great opportunity to learn from some coach business owners and model what works for them.
“Success means being the best coach I can be and leading a life that is in balance, in keeping with my values” ~ Suparna Dhar
I realised that I was learning some key principles from each of these people. I had the enormous pleasure of interviewing 11 successful coaches and business owners such as Michael Neill, Gladeana McMahon, Duncan Brodie, Hannah McNamara and many more. So I decided to turn my research into a book, and The Secrets of Successful Coaches was born (out early 2011).
“Success does not require a positive mindset, but enjoying success does. If your coaching business is not a part of your wonderful life, what’s the point?” ~ Michael Neill
“Success is also about being with other people and seeing them grow and develop, and having the satisfaction of having had some part in that, however small.” ~ Gladeana McMahon
In November 2010 I created a mentoring programme for people who are in the early stages of setting up a coaching business. If this is you, you will have a dream, goal or plan, but will find it hard to know where to start. You will probably feel overwhelmed by the volume of information out there and not know where to start. I see creating a business just like baking a cake and you need to know what ingredients you need and in which order to place them in order to make your business a success.
To find out more about the business mentoring programme for new coaches, just email me or call 023 9200 6418 and I am offering a discounted strategy session for the first 5 people who contact me.
Karen Williams is a qualified coach and NLP Master Practitioner. She has run a successful career coaching business since 2006 supporting individuals to transform their career and find a job they will love. She also runs a business mentoring programme for new coaches who want to turn their passion into profit.
She is the author of the upcoming book, The Secrets of Successful Coaches and you can find out more about her research and free reports at www.thesecretsofsuccessfulcoaches.com. You can also download free podcasts with people like Michael Neill, Suzy Greaves, Allison Marlowe and other people interviewed for her book which will be available early January.
You can also find Karen on Facebook, follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
In this week’s Friday guest post “Supercoach” Michael Neill writes about Transformaive Coaching.
Michael has also agreed to share even more material, which you will find here or via the link at the botom of this page.
by Michael Neill
Traditional coaching takes place primarily on a horizontal dimension – coaches assist their clients in getting from point “A” to point “B”. Yet lasting, sustainable change nearly always happens in the vertical dimension – a deepening of the ground of being of the client and greater access to inspiration and spiritual wisdom. While this has generally led to an either/or approach to success and personal growth and a sharp division between therapy and coaching, transformative coaching – or, as I like to call it, “Supercoaching” – uses the vertical dimensions to create change on the inside while you continue to move forward towards your goals on the outside.
The kinds of “vertical” changes that transformative coaching leads to can be usefully viewed in three levels…
Often, people will hire a coach (or go to a counselor or therapist or friend) to get help with a specific situation they are struggling with. They may want to deal with a difficult person at work, succeed at an important negotiation or job interview, or stay motivated as they train to beat their personal best at a sporting event.
This kind of “performance coaching” has long been a staple of the industry, and long before “life coaching” and “executive coaching” became common terms, people were using coaches in this capacity to help change their point of view, state of mind or actions. At this level, people go from fear to confidence, from un-ease to comfort, or from inaction to action.
The impact of this kind of coaching is generally project-specific. Once the difficult person is handled, the interview completed and the race run, the person gets on with the rest of their life in much the same way as they did before.
Sometimes, we”re less concerned with a specific event than we are with a whole category of events. This is why you will find coaches specializing in any number of life areas: relationship coaches, sales coaches, parenting coaches, executive coaches, confidence coaches, presentation coaches – the list goes on and on…
People hire these coaches to help them develop their confidence and increase their skills in whatever area they may be having difficulty. Like a performance coach, these coaches will help with specific situations, but they tend to measure their impact not just by how one situation changes but by their whole category of situation changes.
The ultimate level of change is transformation, or what I sometimes call “global change” – a pervasive shift in our way of being in the world. At this level, it is not enough for us to develop a skill or change a feeling, it is our intangible “selves” we want to change, and in so doing we change our experience of everything.
Let”s take an example. Bob is a customer service rep for a medium-sized manufacturing firm and he”s having a really bad day. When we ask him what his biggest sticking point is, he tells us it”s a phone call he needs to make to a supplier he”s been having difficulties with in Dagenham.
If I were to intervene on level I, I would probably work with his state of mind by getting him into a better, more confident state. We might role play a phone call with his supplier and I would offer him tips and techniques to better handle the call and get the outcome he most wants. We might even choose to script the call, or at least the beginning of it, to help boost his confidence and resolve the situation.
But let”s say I want more for Bob – I don”t just want to assist him in getting through this one situation, I want to help turn him into a more effective employee, one who can handle a wider variety of customer service situations. At that point, I could give him books like How to Talk So People Will Listen and Listen So People Will Talk. I could teach him rapport skills like “matching and mirroring” so he could use body language to effectively allow people to feel more comfortable around him.
In time and with practice, Bob might well be able to turn things around and maybe even become the best customer service guy in our whole company. But in another way, nothing will have fundamentally changed. Because in order for something to change at a fundamental level, that change has to happen from the inside out.
At level III, our coaching interventions are no longer about the supplier from Dagenham or even about customer service. At level three, we”re dealing directly with Bob – the way he sees himself, the way he sees his job and the way he sees other people. And when any one of those things change, Bob will not only become more effective at his job, he”ll become more effective in his life.
Here”s another example, one that might hit closer to home. Imagine you are having difficulties with your resident teenager. You want them to help out around the house and be more respectful of you and your partner, but they seem determined to set a new world record for “most dirty clothes piled up in one corner of a bedroom”.
At level I, you could go in guns a-blazing and order them to pick up their dirty clothes “or else”. You might even try a subtler approach – a dangling carrot of a trip to the cinema or a shopping trip to the local high street in exchange for a cleaner room.
At level II, you would read parenting books that would tell you how to handle discipline problems with teens, or even one on how to handle difficult people at work in hopes you could map it across to your own children at home. (Of course, if you come across a copy of What to Do When You Work for an Idiot in their bedroom, chances are they”re planning a little level II intervention with you!)
But at level III, you would know that what”s called for is a shift in perspective – a new way of seeing the situation. Perhaps your child isn”t just being stubborn or argumentative – perhaps they”re lonely, or confused, or frightened, or overwhelmed by their burgeoning lives but too proud or disconnected from you to share what”s behind their misery.
If nothing else, you might remember that every teenager is on drugs – and even though the vast majority of those drugs are dealt by nature (things like testosterone, estrogen, dopamine and serotonin), the impact on their nascent nervous systems can be pretty difficult to deal with.
If you play with this model over time, you will find that each level maps across to a certain kind of intervention.
Today’s Experiment:
As a general rule, it is simpler and faster to put a band-aid on a bruise than to alter your diet and nutritional intake to help prevent bruising than to alter your lifestyle in such a way as to build the kind of super-immunity and moment-by-moment awareness that makes bruising a near impossibility. So it is with the 3 levels of change. The basic dictum is this – put the band-aid on first!
1. Find an example of 3 changes you want to make – one for each of the 3 levels.
Example:
Level I – I want to perk up before a dinner party tonight
Level II – I want to feel more at ease in job interviews
Level III – I would like to be a more loving person.
2. Think of at least one change you would like to make, and imagine what it would entail at each of the 3 levels.
Example:
Cindy wants to become a better actor. At Level I this might mean that she spends an extra hour working on her scene for class tomorrow, at Level II it could mean that she creates a daily training program to develop her voice, movement, emotional expression and script analysis skills, and at Level III it might be that she works on being more authentic in the way she lives her life on a daily basis.
3. The next time a friend, colleague, or client presents you with a problem, goal, or change they would like to make, notice at what level they are currently thinking about it. If it”s appropriate, make suggestions or guide them into a Level One “Band-Aid” change that will free them up to take on levels two or three if they still want to when whatever is “bugging” them is taken care of.
Of course, if you want to practice doing a bit of “transformative coaching”, you can guide them in an exploration of other ways of seeing the situation they are in. Here are a few questions to get you started:
Have fun, learn heaps and happy exploring!
With love,
Michael
Michael Neill is an internationally renowned success coach and the best-selling author of You Can Have What You Want, Feel Happy Now! and the Effortless Success audio program. He has spent the past 20 years as a coach, adviser, friend, mentor and creative spark plug to celebrities, CEO’s, royalty, and people who want to get more out of their lives. His books have been translated into 8 languages, and his public talks and seminars have been well received at the United Nations and on five continents around the world.
He hosts a weekly talk show on HayHouseRadio.com®, and his newest book, Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life has recently been released by Hay House.
Michael is generously sharing even more Supercoach resources, which you will find by visiting here.
In this weeks Friday Guest Post Richard Nugent reflects on his coaching journey so far …
by Richard Nugent
Over the past year, I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with some of the very best coaches on the planet. As well as raising my coaching game hugely, I have become acutely aware of the journey that I and other coaches travel. The phases in a coach’s development were certainly never mapped out at the beginning of my own journey. At each stage I thought I was there – I had arrived as a coach. How wrong I was.
My aim with this tip is to give you a sense of just what is possible – whether you are a leader, trainer, facilitator or even a professional coach. I want to expand the horizons of what’s possible for you and your clients. While reading, consider which phase you’re in – and whether you could add even more value by developing yourself further.
Even if you are in the fourth stage of evolution – the phase I have called the “transformational coach”, I would like to open up the discussion about what’s next. Let’s begin, as all good stories do, at the beginning.
I started coaching back in my days as a trainer in a large Call Centre. I was expected to be a great coach and to help staff improve their performance. The trouble was that my experience of coaching had been limited to the sports world – where coaching meant that the coach demonstrated a technique, had the person try it out and then tell them what they did wrong in order to correct it. I was sure that coaching in a business context couldn’t be the same, could it?
Around that time, I experienced (endured?) a 2-day coaching skills programme – teaching me the delights of the GROW model, some listening skills and, of course, the feedback sandwich. Big on theory – and very un-brain friendly. I was released out on to the call centre floor to listen in on calls and provide coaching to those lucky advisors whose customer interactions I had monitored. I tried to follow GROW as my trainer had taught me, and the session often went something like this:
Richard: ”What’s your goal for this session?”
Advisor: ”errr… for you to tell me how I have done whilst you’ve been listening in”
Richard: ”Hmmmm… OK. How do you think the call went?”
Advisor: ”Fine, I think”
Richard: ”Good. Good. What are the opportunities for you to improve next time?”
Advisor: ”Look – what the hell are you on about? Just tell me if I did OK or not”
Then I would give them a feedback sandwich…
“Well, I thought the opening was really nice – and you closed it well. You gave the customer lots of incorrect information though. However, your voice sounded really professional”
Of course, I wasn’t always this bad – and over time I developed my rapport skills and ability to give feedback in a way that added value for the advisors, and ultimately for the customers.
So, there is a place for really great performance feedback, and for coaching on the intricacies of a specific process. it forms the meat and drink for many people in business today and the chances are that if you started your coaching journey in an organisation, it probably began with process coaching. However, this is just the beginning.
Many years are ditching GROW, I finally saw it applied the way I’m sure it was meant to be. I worked with a coach whose opening question was “How can I help?” They moved elegantly through the stages of the model, jumping back and forth as the client required, drawing from a huge bank of high quality questions.
She created new resources in the clients she worked with, helping them to explore new options before helping them to decide on the most congruent option and then encouraging them towards absolute commitment to action. Most impressive of all was that the coaching was ‘content-free’. She never once advised or led – she simply asked great questions.
Great developmental coaches spend more time focused on what the client is saying (or not saying) than to the coaching model. They are masters at matching and mirroring – and perhaps most important of all – they help their clients to focus on what is possible – not just what the problem is.
In this second phase of evolution, the emphasis is on development. When I discovered that coaching didn’t just have to be remedial – my fire was well and truly lit. I was certain that I wanted to be a coach.
What I didn’t yet appreciate were the possibilities that still lay ahead when I fully developed the new skills I was acquiring.
You are probably a Master Coach if:
I was fortunate to serve and help many clients in my ‘Master Coach’ phase. In fact, I still develop coaches to be Master Coaches. I think it’s a highly valuable evolution. Whilst the focus is still firmly on respecting the client’s map of the world – and not suggesting or leading them down any particular route – you can help clients to commit more fully. To get here takes dedication, practice, study and commitment. If you are a Master Coach, I genuinely believe you are already making the world a better place.
Has a coach ever told you a single story that has changed your life forever? If so, you have experienced Transformational Coaching. Michael Neill defines Transformational Coaching as “a pervasive shift in or a way of being in the world. At this level it is not enough for us to help people develop a skill or change a feeling. It’s helping people transform their intangible selves – and in so doing change their experience of everything”. (SuperCoach, Michael Neill, Hay House, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84850-070-9)
A Transformational Coach will do whatever is necessary to help their client create what they want to create. Often this starts by helping them to understand the power of ‘creating’. If you are new to this distinction between ‘reporting’ and ‘creating’ the closest single phrase I’d use to sum it up is the one credited to Kathlyn Hendricks: ”Your life is a reflection of what you are already committed to”.
Transformational Coaches have a deep understanding of just what is possible. They realise that, when you are swimming in the sea, it’s hard to see the water – so often the most transformational work is the most obvious. Another distinction is that they work best when their clients are ready to be coached. They use metaphor, stories and their own life experiences on top of their already-honed master coaching skills to help clients realise their full potential. Oh and they learn just as much from their clients as their clients learn from them.
So, what’s the next stage in our evolution as Coaches? Is it something more business focused or more spiritual? Does it include some of the newer, less understood tools such as Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), or is it more scientifically based, supported by the rapid advances in our understanding of neuroscience?
I am not there yet, but I am certain of three things:
1. there is another level
2. it is up to us to create
3. I would love to hear your views!
Wherever you are on your journey, what’s the next step, and what will you do to take this?
What will coaches be doing differently in 2015?
This week’s guest post comes to you from Richard Nugent of the Kaizen Team. My aim with this tip is to give you a sense of just what is possible – whether you are a leader, trainer, facilitator or even a professional coach. I want to expand the horizons of what’s possible for you and your clients. While reading, consider which phase you’re in – and whether you could add even more value by developing yourself further. Even if you are in the fourth stage of evolution – the phase I have called the “transformational coach”, I would like to open up the discussion about what’s next.
Richard helps successful business leaders to move from being ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’. He challenges clients to change the way they think about work, to focus on what is most important and to stop firefighting for good.
His work is based on three key beliefs:
Clients’ return on investment from his energetic and ground breaking work is well into the millions of pounds, dollars and euros. His reputation as one of the UK’s leading transformational leadership coaches has been cemented by outstanding results with an impressive client list including Tesco Bank, EDF Energy, Merlin Entertainments, ASOS and Lego. He also serves as a consultant to a number of colleges, business schools and professional footballers and cricketers.
www.kaizen-training.com