1. Educate yourself about coaching. Thousands of articles have been written about it in the last three to five years. The ICF Research Portal also hosts coaching research articles, case studies, journals, and more.
2. Know your objectives for working with a coach.
3. Interview three coaches before you decide on one. Ask each about his or her experience, qualifications, skills, and ask for at least two references.
4. Remember, coaching is an important relationship. There should be a connection between you and the coach that “feels” right to you.

QUESTIONS TO ASK A PROSPECTIVE COACH

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) recommends asking the following questions:

1. What is your coaching experience (number of individuals coached, years of experience, types of coaching situations, etc.)?

2. What is your coach-specific training (enrolled in an ICF approved training program, other coach-specific training, etc.)?

3. What is your coaching specialty or areas in which you most often work?

4. What specialized skill or experience do you bring to your coaching?

5. What is your philosophy about coaching?

6. What is your specific process for coaching (how sessions are conducted, frequency, etc.)?

7. What are some coaching successes stories (specific examples of individuals who have succeeded as a result of coaching/how the coach has added value)?

WHY SHOULD I CHOOSE AN ICF CREDENTIALED COACH?

The mission of the ICF Credentialing program is to:

1. Protect and serve consumers of coaching services;

2. Measure and certify competence of individuals

3. Inspire pursuit of continuous development.

A coach who has been credentialed by the ICF has completed stringent education and experience requirements and has demonstrated a strong commitment to excellence in coaching.

Certification from the ICF is extremely important when considering which coach to hire. It means the coach:

1. Has received professional training from a program specifically designed to teach coaching skills in alignment with the ICF Core Competencies and Code of Ethics

2. Has demonstrated a proficient understanding and use of the coaching competencies as outlined by the ICF

3. Is accountable to the ethics and standards set forth by the ICF

According to the 2007 ICF Global Coaching Study, 52 percent of all coaching clients expect the coach they hire to be credentialed. Working with an ICF Credentialed coach ensures consumers that they aren’t in a partnership with someone merely calling him or herself a coach. When you hire an ICF Credentialed coach, you can be assured your coach comes with highly recognizable, global coaching qualifications.

Coaches who have been credentialed by the ICF have received coach-specific training, achieved a designated number of experience hours and been coached by a Mentor Coach.
If you are considering hiring a coach, be diligent in asking the coach if they have been specifically trained in coaching skills and currently holds or in the process of acquiring an ICF Credential.
Don’t be misled to think someone is a competent coach because he or she has other professional credentials or sets high fees.

FINDING A COACH

Individuals interested in finding a professional coach, whether it be an Executive Coach, Life Coach, Career Coach, Organizational Coach, etc., can use the ICF’s Coach Referral Service to search for an ICF Credentialed coach, browse through the ICF Member Directory, or post a job opening on ICF’s Career Centre.
To find out about my credentials visit

http://www.knowyoucan.org.uk/About_us.html

Or Contact me, John White NLP Coach at
enquiries@knowyoucan.org.uk
Telephone 0208 405 8025
Mobile 07795186451

Reproduced with kind permission of Kristin Kelly, Marketing Specialist. International Coach Federation.

http://www.coachfederation.org/clients/coaching-faqs/

Hello as you know, or may not know I am a certified coach as well as a Master NLP Practitioner. Therefore this blog will focus on the “flip side of the coin” which is coaching.
The International coaching federation, of which I am a member, defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. Coaching honors the client as the expert in his/her life and work and believes that every client is creative, resourceful, and whole. Standing on this foundation, the coach’s responsibility is to:

• Discover, clarify, and align with what the client wants to achieve
• Encourage client self-discovery
• Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies; and
• Hold the client responsible and accountable.

The Heart of NLP is Pace, pace, pace…lead

Pacing is a general rapport skill. You can pace the other persons breathing; mirror body language, tone of voice, speed of voice and pitch of voice.

Take mirroring and matching for instance, Mirroring is physically copying the behaviour. This is done with respect and subtlety. At an unconscious level the person with whom you are communicating in this way feels acknowledged and appreciates your interest in them. You are pacing that person’s experience and although they may be unaware of your mirroring, it will still have a profound effect.

NLP Logical Levels is a valuable tool for organising our thinking, information gathering, and communication. Developed originally by Robert Dilts and Todd Epstein, and inspired by Gregory Bateson, Logical Levels is one of the most useful of all NLP models .Using this model enables us to understand in a clear and structured manner what makes a person ‘tick’.

You always have a choice, if what you are doing isn’t working, do something different. You may find it useful to examine the world from a number of different perceptual positions The more flexible you are at examining your situation the more information you will be able to gather.

The following are examples of behavioral flexibility.

• The ability to change your state
• The ability to vary your patterns of language
• The ability to vary your voice tone, pace, pitch & speed
• The ability to match & mirror body postures, gestures, breathing rate

In my last blog post ( Outcome Orientation) I described an  NLP technique on how to set goals. However the question now is “How will you know that you are getting what you want”?

Become more curious, and you may become aware of the effects of what you do. These will be clearer within yourself- your internal state, and also will be discernible in other people. This information generally comes to you through your five senses: seeing (Visual) hearing (auditory), Feeling (kinaesthetic) Smelling (olfactory) tasting (gustatory)

Notice what is different as a result of your taking action or your thinking. You may choose to see the world as a mirror which is reflecting back the results of your thoughts and behaviours. Notice if you are getting what you want.

In our culture it is normal not to notice this kind of information. It is more a case of regaining these skills, rather than of doing anything new.

(Quoted  from Essential NLP by Ian McDermott)

Outcomes or Goals

 So how many of you are still on track with your New Year’s Resolutions?   To be better at resolutions /goals or in NLP terms” outcomes”, you may want to use Outcome Orientation or  “Well Formed Criteria”

Before we start with that, what is “Well Formed Criteria”? In their book “Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour defined “Well Formed Criteria”, “as a way of thinking about and expressing an outcome which makes it both achievable and verifiable. They are the basis of dovetailing outcomes and win/win solutions”.

We all code our experience of the world in one of five different senses. Visually (V), Auditory (A)Kinesthetic (K) Olfactory (O) and Gustatory  (G)

•V=Visual   Sight

•A=Auditory   Hearing

•K=Kinesthetic Touch /Feeling

•O= Olfactory Smell

•G= Gustatory Taste

Imagine it’s New Year’s Eve, the sounds of bells, the sight and sound of fireworks, surrounded by friends and family. Happy New Year they say!
It’s at this time of year people make New Year’s resolutions. Diet, stop smoking, get a better job, and meet the person of their dreams, to name a few. How many times have your well intentions resolutions been short lived?
If you want to know why, stay tuned.

Happy New Year

John White
NLP Coach

 RAPPORT

How do you get into the communications loop? How can you respect and appreciate another person’s model of the world while keeping your own integrity? In education, therapy, counselling, business, selling and training, rapport or empathy is essential to establish an atmosphere of trust, confidence and participation, within which people can respond freely. What do we do to gain report with people, how do we create a relationship of trust and responsiveness, and how can really we refine and extend this natural skill?

To get a practical, rather than a theoretical answer, turn the question the other way round. How do you know when two people are in a rapport? As you look around in restaurants, offices, any place where people meet and talk, how do you know which people have rapport and which do not?

Communication seems to flow when two people are in rapport their bodies as well as their words match each other. What we say can create or destroy rapport, but that is only 7% of the communication. Body language and tonality are more important. You may have noticed that people who are in rapport tend to mirror and match each other in posture, gesture and eye contact. It is like a dance, where partners’ respond and mirror each other’s movements with movements of their own. They are engaged in a dance of mutual responsiveness. The body language is complimentary.

Have you ever found yourself enjoying a conversation with somebody and noticing that both your bodies have adopted the same posture? The deeper that rapport, the closer the match will tend to be. This skill would seem to be inborn, for new-born babies moving in rhythm with the voices of the people around them. When people are not in rapport their bodies reflect it – whatever they are saying, their bodies will not be matching. They are not engaged in the dance and you can see it immediately.

Successful people create rapport, and rapport creates trust. You can create rapport with whoever you wish by consciously refining the natural rapport skills that you use every day. By matching and mirroring body language and tonality you can very quickly gain rapport with almost anyone. Matching eye contact is an obvious rapport skill usually the only one that is consciously taught in English culture, which has a strong taboo against noticing body language consciously, and responding to it.

To create the rapport join the other person’s dance by matching their body language sensitively and with respect. This builds a bridge between you and their model of the world. Matching is not mimicry, which is noticeable, exaggerated and indiscriminate copying of another person’s movements, and is usually considered offensive. You can match our movements by small hand movements, body movements by your head movements. This is called” crossover mirroring”. You can match distribution of the bodyweight, and basic posture. When people are like each other, they like each other. Matching breathing is a very powerful way of gaining rapport stop you may already of them have observed that when two people are in deep rapport they breathe in unison.
These are the basic elements of all. But do not believe us. Notice what happens when you mirror others. Then notice what happens when you stop. Notice what people do who are in rapport. Start conscious of what you do naturally so you can refine it and choose it went and choose when to do it.

Notice especially what happens when you mismatch. Some counsellors and therapists mirror and match unconsciously, almost compulsively. Mismatching is a very useful skill. The most elegant way to render conversation is to disengage from the dance. And you cannot disengage from the dance if you have not been dancing in the first place. The most extreme mismatch of courses is to turn your back.

Voice matching is another way you can gain the rapport. You can match tonality, speed, volume and rhythm of speech. This is like joining another person song or music, you blend in and harmonise. You can use voice matching to gain rapport in a telephone conversation. Then you can also mismatch, changing the speed and tonality of your voice to end the conversation. This is a very useful skill. To close a telephone conversation naturally is sometimes very difficult.

There are only two limits to your ability to gain report: the degree to which you see other people’s postures, gestures and speech patterns, and the skill with which you can match them in the dance of rapport. The relationship will be a harmonious dance between your integrity, what you do and believe wholeheartedly and how far you are willing to build a bridge to another person’s will model of the world.

Notice how you feel when you match; you may well feel uncomfortable matching some people. There are certainly some behaviours you will not want to match directly. You would not match a breathing pattern that was much faster than was natural for you, Norwegian match in asthmatics breeding pattern. You could mirror both with small movements of your hand. A persons fidgety movements could be subtly mirrored by swaying your body. This is sometimes called cross matching, using some analogous behaviour rather than directly matching. If you are prepared to use this skills consciously, you can create rapport with whoever you choose. You do not have to like the other person to create rapport; you are simply building a bridge to understand them better. Creating rapport is one choice, and you will not know that it is effective and what results it has unless you try it

So rapport is the total context round the verbal message. If the meaning of the communication is the response it elicits, gaining rapport is the ability to elicit responses.

Reproduced with Kind Permission from”Introducing Neuro- Linguistic Programming” by Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour.  For NLP training John Seymour can be reached at jsnlp.co.uk

As a coach I thought the following  very apt. Taken from an answer Graham Norton gave in his bi weekly, Saturday Edition of the Telegraph. “All I can say is to make decisions based on who you want to be and not who other people want you to be