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Coaching basics

1 Focus on the person being coached

The role of a coach is to enable someone else to identify and achieve their objectives, and to do so through self belief, whilst maintaining responsibility for their actions and results.

2 Guide, not tell

You are there to guide, facilitate and motivate them through change, and ensure that they remain responsible throughout. It may seem easier and quicker to ‘tell’ them what to do, and there are times when this is necessary.  However, time must be put aside to coach the person or team into discovering and committing to how they will achieve their goals.

3 Don't give the answers

The skills, attributes and attitudes required for successful coaching are different from those needed in leading and managing.  Coaching is all about getting the coachee to do the thinking, and come up with answers.

4 Practice the right skills

In order to take on the role of a coach the skills that you need to develop include:

  • active listening
  • good questioning techniques
  • letting the people look through their lens at the world and not yours
  • knowing when to challenge to encourage people to make change where necessary
  • being able to stop yourself giving the answers

The last is fundamental to the success of being an effective coach, and probably the most difficult skill to practise!

5 Maintain the right attitudes

As a coach the attitudes you portray should include:

  • a positive outlook
  • a high energy to keep up the motivation of your coachee
  • a high level of interest
  • a never ending desire to enable your coachee to succeed in their language
  • having only one agenda – that of the person being coached

6 Their needs, not yours

Be:

  • non judgemental
  • a good listener
  • consistently honest with integrity
  • professional, ethical and confidential at all times
  • a good communicator

7 Learn the GROW model

GROW is an acronym for Goals, Reality, Options and Will.  As the acronym suggests, it is a 4 stage framework that enables the coach to provide a structure to a coaching session, without getting in the way of the coachee’s agenda.

8 Remember both partners have to do the work ...

... the coach and the person being coached. It implies reviewing what is going well as well as what is not going so well, and being prepared to do whatever it takes to improve on the not-so-good areas.

9 Start from where the person is, now

The coach must always take the individual as he or she is. For example, adult workers are already in the middle of their lives, and come with particular views, attitudes, commitments, potential and concerns - all of which go to make up the individual person.

10 Not immediate but long term

The aim of coaching is that people being coached are able to produce more successful and effective performance repeatedly over a longer period of time. Coaching is not about short term motivation.

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