COACHING DEMONSTRATIONS AND DISCUSSION
Coaching demonstration 1 - Melissa coaching
Coaching demonstration 2 - Steve coaching
Coaching demonstration 3 - Luci coaching
I think in the following session where Luci is coaching Simon, Luci pretty much nailed it! She went through all the steps of the process, asked terrific questions and created a really great supportive and reflective environment.
Coaching demonstration 4 - Sam coaching Prema
This coaching session is an interesting one, because it had the potential to turn into more of a counselling session rather than a coaching session. As the coach, I had to be careful to try not to delve too much into areas such as Prema’s experience in other relationships and her experiences of being someone that some people thought of as “complicated”. You may see this tension throughout the session. You will also see me asking a truly dreadful complicated question in the other perspectives stage which totally confused Prema! Prema, thanks for agreeing to share this one with the other students.
Coaching demonstration 5 - Rikki coaching Vanessa
Coaching demonstration 6 - David coaching
What I love about this coaching session is that David manages to keep the client talking and reflecting for more than an hour about what presents as a very simple and straightforward issue. It’s a great example of how it is possible to review a situation in depth, and from different perspectives, and to come up with a number of different ways to manage it.
Coaching demonstration 7 - Sam coaching Jamie
I’ve very grateful to this coachee for letting me share this recording with you. This is a real coaching session I conducted over zoom. I have not edited it (apart from cutting out where the client used names of people that might be identifiable, and adding in titles for the various stages).
Add your comments or questions here!
Coaching demonstration 1
Did well: I thought the coach came across as though they where listening to the client
Area of improvment: Not to reframe, when it was being done I felt that it came across as being suggestive.
Coaching demonstration 2
Did well: was well structured and followed the process
Area of improvement: The coaches language was of hidden directives. e.g. instead of asking open ended questions and then listening to the client, the coach would frame the question, which may inadvertently become suggestive.
It was so good watch these videos. I found them to be smooth and natural.
I was really triggered by the first one and was wondering how someone could be paid for so long and not actually work. I was wondering why her job description had not been addressed and why she had been left to her own devices for so long. The employees behaviour sounded fraudelent to me. So in this type of case, (which I hope their are no more), I would really have to take some deep breaths before beginning. This is where asking the right, open ended, non-judgemental questions would be a challenge. I am appreciative of watching this video and felt coach Melissa was calm and professional.
In the last one I wanted to ask more questions about Prema’s business partner’s situation and what his actual goals were in their business. I wanted to know both of their why’s.
So I can see that following the process and asking open non-directive questions will be a bit more challenging than I thought!
Thanks to all those who participated.
Hi Suzanne, I absolutely get where you are coming from! The thing to remember is that what WE think is important, is not always what the client thinks is important. It’s not our role to “solve” the problem from some objectively “correct” perspective. It’s our role to figure out what’s important and best for the client. There may be some ways to ask questions around the kinds of concerns you raise (e.g. “What’s the impact of the person’s behaviour on others in the team / the organisation?”) but if the client then doesn’t raise the same things you are thinking, you have to let it drop. You are not investigating the situation! You are coaching! There may also be some ways to challenge the client a little more directly than Melissa did about the bigger picture consequences of her choices to kind of “do nothing” in this situation, which may have given rise to a discussion about some of the things you mention.
In Prema’s scenario, the questions you suggest would be fine in the “other perspectives” stage!
I felt that the goal setting for session 1 seemed to focus in on the other party’s needs, “help her with “not on what the clients need. It seems to focus on changing the behaviour of the other party. Did I read into this wrong?
Hi Jane, I think you are right. The goal at first was about “strategies to make Gabrielle feel like Ajita was listening to her and not get her back up, making her feel like she’s heard”. It’s one step removed from the goal being solely about the other party, because Ajita was trying to experiment with different strategies herself, to influence Gabrielle’s behaviour. However, her goal also developed into (or included) trying to understand Gabrielle, which is definitely an Ajita-focused goal.
demo 6. I found David to be calm and staying with his client. I could imagine that it might have been challenging to stay focussed with this type of scenario. This ‘allowing’ created space for other issues to emerge and be explored. I found the closure to be smooth.