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/

• 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.

Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach’s job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has.

How can you determine if coaching is right for you?

To determine if you could benefit from coaching, start by summarizing what you would expect to accomplish in coaching. When someone has a fairly clear idea of the desired outcome, a coaching partnership can be a useful tool for developing a strategy for how to achieve that outcome with greater ease.

Since coaching is a partnership, also ask yourself if you find it valuable to collaborate, to have another viewpoint and to be asked to consider new perspectives. Also, ask yourself if you are ready to devote the time and the energy to making real changes in your work or life. If the answer to these questions is yes, then coaching may be a beneficial way for you to grow and develop.

How is coaching distinct from other service professions?

Professional coaching is a distinct service which focuses on an individual’s life as it relates to goal setting, outcome creation and personal change management. In an effort to understand what a coach is, it can be helpful to distinguish coaching from other professions that provide personal or organizational support.

Therapy

 Coaching can be distinguished from therapy in a number of ways. First, coaching is a profession that supports personal and professional growth and development based on individual-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success. Coaching is forward moving and future focused. Therapy, on the other hand, deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or a relationship between two or more individuals. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past which hamper an individual’s emotional functioning in the present, improving overall psychological functioning, and dealing with present life and work circumstances in more emotionally healthy ways. Therapy outcomes often include improved emotional/feeling states. While positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one’s work or personal life. The emphasis in a coaching relationship is on action, accountability and follow through.

Consulting

 Consultants may be retained by individuals or organizations for the purpose of accessing specialized expertise. While consulting approaches vary widely, there is often an assumption that the consultant diagnoses problems and prescribes and sometimes implements solutions. In general, the assumption with coaching is that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own solutions, with the coach supplying supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks.

Mentoring

Mentoring, which can be thought of as guiding from one’s own experience or sharing of experience in a specific area of industry or career development, is sometimes confused with coaching. Although some coaches provide mentoring as part of their coaching, such as in mentor coaching new coaches, coaches are not typically mentors to those they coach.

Training

 Training programs are based on the acquisition of certain learning objectives as set out by the trainer or instructor. Though objectives are clarified in the coaching process, they are set by the individual or team being coached with guidance provided by the coach. Training also assumes a linear learning path which coincides with an established curriculum. Coaching is less linear without a set curriculum plan.

Athletic Development

 Though sports metaphors are often used, professional coaching is different from the traditional sports coach. The athletic coach is often seen as an expert who guides and directs the behavior of individuals or teams based on his or her greater experience and knowledge. Professional coaches possess these qualities, but it is the experience and knowledge of the individual or team that determines the direction. Additionally, professional coaching, unlike athletic development, does not focus on behaviors that are being executed poorly or incorrectly. Instead, the focus is on identifying opportunity for development based on individual strengths and capabilities.

What are some typical reasons someone might work with a coach?

• There are many reasons that an individual or team might choose to work with a coach, including but not limited to the following:

• There is something at stake (a challenge, stretch goal or opportunity), and it is urgent, compelling or exciting or all of the above;

• There is a gap in knowledge, skills, confidence, or resources;
• There is a desire to accelerate results;
• There is a lack of clarity, and there are choices to be made;
• The individual is extremely successful, and success has started to become problematic;
• Work and life are out of balance, and this is creating unwanted consequences; or
• One has not identified his or her core strengths and how best to leverage them.

What has caused the tremendous growth in the coaching industry?

Coaching has grown significantly for many reasons. Generally the world has changed a lot, and coaching is a useful tool to deal with many of those changes. For example, coaching is a great tool for today’s challenging job market. There is more job transition, more self-employment and small business. Some of the real life factors include:

Rapid changes in the external business environment

 Downsizing, restructuring, mergers and other organizational changes have radically altered what has been termed the “traditional employment contract”-companies can no longer achieve results using traditional management approaches.

There is a growing shortage of talented employees in certain industries-to attract and retain top talent, companies must commit to investing in individuals’ development.

There is a widening disparity between what managers were trained to do and what their jobs now require them to do in order to meet increasing demands for competitive results.

There is unrest on the part of many employees and leaders in many companies-people are wrestling with fears around job insecurity and increased workplace pressures to perform at higher levels than ever before.

Companies must develop inclusive, collaborative work environments, in order to achieve strategic business goals, and to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.

Individuals who have experienced the excellent results of coaching are talking to more people about coaching. In short, coaching helps people focus on what matters most to them in life: business and personal. People today are more open to the idea of being in charge of their own lives. Coaching helps people do just that; so the industry continues to grow.
   How is coaching delivered? What does the process look like?

The Coaching Process-Coaching typically begins with a personal interview (either face-to-face or by teleconference call) to assess the individual’s current opportunities and challenges, define the scope of the relationship, identify priorities for action, and establish specific desired outcomes. Subsequent coaching sessions may be conducted in person or over the telephone, with each session lasting a previously established length of time. Between scheduled coaching sessions, the individual may be asked to complete specific actions that support the achievement of one’s personally prioritized goals. The coach may provide additional resources in the form of relevant articles, checklists, assessments, or models, to support the individual’s thinking and actions. The duration of the coaching relationship varies depending on the individual’s personal needs and preferences.

Assessments

 A variety of assessments are available to support the coaching process, depending upon the needs and circumstances of the individual. Assessments provide objective information which can enhance the individual’s self-awareness as well as awareness of others and their circumstances, provide a benchmark for creating coaching goals and actionable strategies, and offer a method for evaluating progress.

Concepts, models and principles

A variety of concepts, models and principles drawn from the behavioral sciences, management literature, spiritual traditions and/or the arts and humanities, may be incorporated into the coaching conversation in order to increase the individual’s self-awareness and awareness of others, foster shifts in perspective, promote fresh insights, provide new frameworks for looking at opportunities and challenges, and energize and inspire the individual’s forward actions.

Appreciative approach

Coaching incorporates an appreciative approach. The appreciative approach is grounded in what’s right, what’s working, what’s wanted, and what’s needed to get there. Using an appreciative approach, the coach models constructive communication skills and methods the individual or team can utilize to enhance personal communication effectiveness. The appreciative approach incorporates discovery-based inquiry, proactive (as opposed to reactive) ways of managing personal opportunities and challenges, constructive framing of observations and feedback in order to elicit the most positive responses from others, and envisioning success as contrasted with focusing on problems. The appreciative approach is simple to understand and employ, but its effects in harnessing possibility thinking and goal-oriented action can be profound.

How long does a coach work with an individual?

The length of a coaching partnership varies depending on the individuals or team’s needs and preferences. For certain types of focused coaching, 3 to 6 months of working with a coach may work. For other types of coaching, people may find it beneficial to work with a coach for a longer period. Factors that may impact the length of time include: the types of goals, the ways individuals or teams like to work, the frequency of coaching meetings, and financial resources available to support coaching.

How do you ensure a compatible partnership?

Overall, be prepared to design the coaching partnership with the coach. For example, think of a strong partnership that you currently have in your work or life. Look at how you built that relationship and what is important to you about partnership. You will want to build those same things into a coaching relationship.

Here are a few other tips

Have a personal interview with one or more coaches to determine “what feels right” in terms of the chemistry. Coaches are accustomed to being interviewed, and there is generally no charge for an introductory conversation of this type.

Look for stylistic similarities and differences between the coach and you and how these might support your growth as an individual or the growth of your team.

Discuss your goals for coaching within the context of the coach’s specialty or the coach’s preferred way of working with an individual or team
Talk with the coach about what to do if you ever feel things are not going well; make some agreements up front on how to handle questions or problems.

Remember that coaching is a partnership, so be assertive about talking with the coach about anything that is of concern at any time.

 Within the partnership, what does the coach do?

 The role of the coach is to provide objective assessment and observations that foster the individual’s or team members’ enhanced self-awareness and awareness of others, practice astute listening in order to garner a full understanding of the individual’s or team’s circumstances, be a sounding board in support of possibility thinking and thoughtful planning and decision making, champion opportunities and potential, encourage stretch and challenge commensurate with personal strengths and aspirations, foster the shifts in thinking that reveal fresh perspectives, challenge blind spots in order to illuminate new possibilities, and support the creation of alternative scenarios. Finally, the coach maintains professional boundaries in the coaching relationship, including confidentiality, and adheres to the coaching profession’s code of ethics.

The Individual?

The role of the individual or team is to create the coaching agenda based on personally meaningful coaching goals, utilize assessment and observations to enhance self-awareness and awareness of others, envision personal and/or organizational success, assume full responsibility for personal decisions and actions, utilize the coaching process to promote possibility thinking and fresh perspectives, take courageous action in alignment with personal goals and aspirations, engage big picture thinking and problem solving skills, and utilize the tools, concepts, models and principles provided by the coach to engage effective forward actions.

What does coaching ask of an individual?

To be successful, coaching asks certain things of the individual, all of which begin with intention. Additionally, clients should:

Focus-on one’s self, the tough questions, the hard truths–and one’s success.

Observe-the behaviors and communications of others.

Listening-to one’s intuition, assumptions, judgments, and to the way one sounds when one speaks.

Self-discipline:-to challenge existing attitudes, beliefs and behaviors and to develop new ones which serve one’s goals in a superior way.

Style: leveraging personal strengths and overcoming limitations in order to develop a winning style.

Decisive actions:-however uncomfortable, and in spite of personal insecurities, in order to reach for the extraordinary.

Compassion-for one’s self as he or she experiments with new behaviors, experiences setbacks-and for others as they do the same.

Humor:-committing to not take one’s self so seriously, using humor to lighten and brighten any situation.

Personal control-: maintaining composure in the face of disappointment and unmet expectations, avoiding emotional reactivity.

Courage-to reach for more than before, to shift out of being fear based in to being in abundance as a core strategy for success, to engage in continual self-examination, to overcome internal and external obstacles.

How can the success of the coaching process be measured?

Measurement may be thought of in two distinct ways. First, there are the external indicators of performance: measures which can be seen and measured in the individual’s or team’s environment. Second, there are internal indicators of success: measures which are inherent within the individual or team members being coached and can be measured by the individual or team being coached with the support of the coach. Ideally, both external and internal metrics are incorporated.

Examples of external measures include achievement of coaching goals established at the outset of the coaching relationship, increased income/revenue, obtaining a promotion, performance feedback which is obtained from a sample of the individual’s constituents (e.g., direct reports, colleagues, customers, boss, the manager him/herself), personal and/or business performance data (e.g., productivity, efficiency measures). The external measures selected should ideally be things the individual is already measuring and are things the individual has some ability to directly influence.

Examples of internal measures include self-scoring/self-validating assessments that can be administered initially and at regular intervals in the coaching process, changes in the individual’s self-awareness and awareness of others, shifts in thinking which inform more effective actions, and shifts in one’s emotional state which inspire confidence.

What are the factors that should be considered when looking at the financial investment in coaching?

Working with a coach requires both a personal commitment of time and energy as well as a financial commitment. Fees charged vary by specialty and by the level of experience of the coach. Individuals should consider both the desired benefits as well as the anticipated length of time to be spent in coaching. Since the coaching relationship is predicated on clear communication, any financial concerns or questions should be voiced in initial conversations before the agreement is made. The ICF Coach Referral Service allows you to search for a coach based on a number of qualifications including fee range.

 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. Or Contact me, John White NLP Coach at

enquiries@knowyoucan.org.uk

Telephone 0208 405 8025

Mobile 07795186451

This article has been reproduced due to kind permission from Kristin Kelly, Marketing Specialist. International Coach Federation.

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

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.

Match or Crossover Match

• You might use your hand movement to pace another person’s breathing.
• Move your foot to pace another’s head movements.
• Tilt your shoulders slightly as the other person tilts their head
• Lift a finger as the other person lifts an eyebrow

How useful would this be for you in your everyday life? Do let me know!

I run a workshop, called “The Magic of Rapport” which goes into more detail.

For more information on the workshop contact me at info@knowyoucan.org.uk

With kind regards

John White

NLP Coach

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’.

NLP Logical Levels

NLP Logical Levels provides a structured way of understanding what’s going on in any system including the human personality, a partnership or marriage, a family, a team, a department, or even an organisation. You can use the model to recognise how the various levels interact and how they are related. And it provides a means of

1. Asking for, and verifying the relevance of, information.
2. Recognising at which level a problem is occurring.
3. Recognising the most appropriate level at which to target the solution.

The key to a healthy psyche, according to Dilts, is to align the levels from top to bottom so that the Identity has the Values & Beliefs to acquire the necessary Skills & Knowledge to demonstrate Behavior appropriate to the Environment. For example, someone who is a teacher (Identity) would almost certainly behave differently in the classroom (Environment) to when they were being a worshipper (Identity) in a church (Environment).

With acknowledgments to Robert Dilts http://nlpuniversitypress.com/

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

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)

 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

The following are well-formed conditions

1. 1.   Stated in the positive “What do you want?”

“What will that do for you?”

1. 2.   Demonstrable in sensory experience – evidence procedure

 The following are stated using the three main senses VAK  Visually (V), Auditory (A)Kinesthetic (K)

“How will you know when you’ve got it?”

V “What will you be seeing when you’ve got it”

A “What will you be hearing when you’ve got it?”

K”What will you be feeling when you’ve got it?”

V”What will I see you doing when you’ve got it?”

A”What will I hear you saying when you’ve got it?”

1. 3.   Started and Maintained by You

“Can you start and maintain this outcome?”

1. 4.   Appropriately Contextualized/ Be Specific

“When, where and with who do you want it?”

“When, where and with whom do you not want it?”

“How long for?”

1. 5.   Maintain the Current Positive Byproducts

“What do I get out of my present behavior that I would wish to preserve?”

6.   Ecology Check

“Is it worth the cost to you?”

“Is it worth the time it’s going to take?

“Is this outcome in keeping with your sense of self?

Happy New Year

John White
NLP Coach

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