report the past, present and future of coaching as a profession

7/31/2019 Report the Past, Present and Future of Coaching as a Profession

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Noble Manhattan Coaching Ltd 2

1. Introduction p3

2. A quest for change p4

3. The world today p6

4. The search for a new way p9

5. What options for change? P11

6. Coaching

What is coaching? P18

How coaching works p20

The client-coach relationship p21

The building blocks of coaching p24

7. The way ahead p31

8. Conclusion p34

9. Bibliography p35


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INTRODUCTION

In this report I will seek to argue that, although traditionally coaching has

generally been perceived by the public as an action based plan, working from the

present to move clients into the future and thus is distinct from treatments such

as counselling, therapy and psychotherapy, the situation is changing. There is a

general acknowledgement that the methods used by the more traditional 'talking

therapies' are not curbing the rise in unhappiness and depression in our society

and as a result there is a strong move to change modern psychological thinkingand methods of treatment. Many aspects of the new psychology now emerging

appear to be very similar to those of coaching and it's sister discipline, Neuro

Linguistic Programming. Both seek to empower the individual to be more

proactive in his own mental health before a crisis occurs and to focus on the

positive rather than the negative. However more notice will always be taken of a

piece of academic research done by an individual with a Ph.D. after his name

than of a book written by someone who merely has hundreds of hours of

personal experience. The work of the latter will inevitably be put into the 'self

help' section of the bookshop!

Although I agree with Curly Martin who says that Coaching is only about results

and is distinct from therapy, I believe that the results she mentions could make

the difference between a person having the tools to move forward and change

his mental state or remaining static and without hope.

It seems to me that links between these different disciplines could and should be

established in order to give more weight to the power of Life Coaching and its

effectiveness

Modern Psychology has been co-opted by the disease model. We've become too

preoccupied with repairing damage when our focus should be on building

(psychological) strength and resilience.

Dr Martin Seligman, 1998, APA Website


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A QUEST FOR CHANGE

As fledgling coaches we have been launched with a model to work with as well

as some hours of practical experience of that model. We have behind us many

hours of lectures given by Master Coaches as well as those with expertise in

many other areas. It is easy for us to assume that coaching exists in a vacuum,

unrelated to the talking therapies other than perhaps NLP. This is in fact not the

case.

In the 1950's the psychologist Abraham Maslow studied healthy, mature and

successful people and concluded that by overcoming inner blocks to our

development and maturity we could all be this way. He was the father of the

wave of humanistic psychology, a more positive form that displaced

behaviourism as the favoured model of humans. Its goal was the fulfillment of

human potential through self-awareness with value being placed on human

emotions.

Since 1998 there have been mutterings from the American Psychological

Association about the need to change the direction of its current treatment

methods and as a result attitudes in the academic realm appear to be changing.

Research on various of their websites reveals that Psychologists are actively

trying to produce a new model that will enable practitioners to DO something

practical towards getting their patients to focus on the positive.

This quote is taken from an interactive website called Positivity Central:

How far can we go with positive approaches? Can we heal anger, depression,

anxiety, fear etc by teaching positive behaviours, responses, actions, strategies?

Or can we boost the strength of interventions based on treating pathology by

adding positive approaches? We know so little about how far positive efforts

alone can go. This is worth exploring.

The site contains articles and tests written by Ph.D's and includes such

questionnaires as:

Subjective Happiness Scale

Personal Growth Initiative Scale


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Inspiration Scale

Gratitude Questionnaire

Satisfaction with Life Scale

Although they appear to be far behind what coaches KNOW works, the basis for

the research is to affect wide ranging change in clinical treatments and produce

scientifically proven data.

The heavyweight research projects now being encouraged can only serve to

support the message that disciplines such as Coaching, that seek to reinforce the

positive, are highly effective not just in achieving relatively short term goals, but

in changing society as a whole.


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THE WORLD TODAY

Our post war Society has changed out of all recognition and yet many of us andsome of our institutions are still holding onto the same beliefs and ways of doing

things that were applicable almost 60 years ago.

"It worked for my father"

"The doctor must be right"

"I've always done it like this"

"I can't do that"

How familiar are phrases like these and how easy it is for us all to stay in our

comfort zones and live life as our parents did, not questioning and accepting that

although life is pretty grim, it's our lot and we'd better get on with it. We'll just

keep on buying a lottery ticket because, hey, if we won it then suddenly life would

be fantastic and we'd be HAPPY!

Or would we?

60 years ago happiness was not something that people analysed in great depth

or about which they wrote a multitude of books and newspaper articles. This is

possibly because the focus in those days was not on one's own personal

fulfillment but that of one's family, and on a larger scale was on duty to the

community and ultimately to one's country. There was also far less affluence.

Cars, televisions, houses and holidays were a luxury. So why was there far less

widespread unhappiness? What is causing the pandemic of depression that is

sweeping the Western World and causing the NHS to buckle under the strain?

It could be that our world has changed around us and until now we've been

floating along reaping the physical rewards of better health, more consumer

choice, more of the good things in life, more travel, more job opportunities, more

choice, more of everything.

We are like kids in a sweet shop, trying everything, taking as much as we can.

Not only that, but we compare ourselves to the man next door who seems to

have more than we do and find ourselves lacking. We then push our children and

ourselves in an effort to achieve yet more.


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Thus we have arrived where we are, wondering what happened to happiness

along the way. Where on earth did we lose it? Well, if we do win the lottery it will

be the first thing on our shopping list.

Nick Williams writes in his book 1The Work We Were Born To Do :

Often people try to live their lives backwards they try to have more things or

more money in order to do more of what they want so they will be happier. The

way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do

what you really need to do, in order to have what you want.

Viktor Frankl, author of the book2 Man's Search for Meaningwrites of success

and happiness: Don't aim for success - the more you aim at it and make it atarget, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness cannot be

pursued it must ensue and it only does so as the unintended side effect of ones

dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's

surrender to a person other than oneself.

Anthony Robbins in his book3Awaken the Giant Within writes that it is up to each

of us to change our attitudes to events in order to experience enjoyment.

As long as we structure our lives in a way where happiness is dependent upon

something we cannot control, then we experience pain

All of these are wise words, but without a structure and process in which to use

their teachings, they are powerless to help us.

4The statistics are alarming: the rate of depression in the UK is the highest we

have ever seen. We are twice as rich as we were 40 years ago but ten times

more likely to be depressed. At some time in our lives 15 to 20 percent of us will

fall prey to a severe depression and about half will suffer a milder form. The

average age of a person suffering his or her first depression was once 30 years

old today the average onset age is only 15. Women report twice the rate of

depression as men (and twice as much happiness). In the past 40 years divorce

1 The Work We Were Born to Do Nick Williams, 19992

Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, 19593 Awaken the Gian Within, Anthony Robbins, 19984 Elle Magazine article Happy Days are Here Again, 1998 Dr Martin Seligman


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rates have doubled, juvenile crime has quadrupled and suicide among teenagers

has tripled.

It appears that as a society we have lost our way. This 'depression' may well be a

manifestation of a feeling of powerlessness and the resultant loss of hope of a

better future.

Coaching is a method for focusing people on the positive and empowering them

to create their own futures so couldn't it be used as a method for preventing the

start of depression?


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THE SEARCH FOR A NEW WAY

If you listened to a lecture in 2002 by Dr Walter Seligman, who was head of the

American Psychological Association from 1998 and is the founder of the new

movement ofPositive Psychology, the current methods of treatment are not

sufficient to deal with a growing problem.5"It won't be widespread psychotherapy

sessions that alter the epidemic of depression affecting young people, rather it

will require psychologists to teach people how to take advantage of a simple skill

they all have but tend to use incorrectly - 'disputing' or the act of monitoring andthen arguing against the catastrophic things that you say to yourself."He cites

the moral problems of drugging an entire generation of teen-agers (on Prozac) so

that they find happiness and productivity dependent on medication. And

Therapy? "There aren't enough of us to go round. What we can do as

psychologists is give away these skills, teach these skills so that on a widespread

basis we can prevent and make an inroad to this epidemic."

At this point any NLP practitioners and coaches listening must have pricked up

their ears and said 'But we've been telling you this for years!'

6In Coaching for Performance John Whitmore writes with regard to coaching

those in crisis: In-depth coaching is an invaluable resource for helping people to

clear away their defensive shields and self imposed blockages, so that they can

more readily experience their inner guidance, hearing and obeying the 'still small

voice within' early enough to overt a crisis. Coaching can certainly contribute to

that.

So why has no one in the establishment been listening? Apparently Americans in

1998 bought 28 million "Inspirational books" ranging from Susan Jeffers to

Anthony Robbins. Over the past 30 years 54,040 academic articles were written

about depression only 415 were written on joy!

5 The art of arguing with yourself. Patrick A McGuire, APA Website6 Coaching for Performance, Sir John Whitmore, 1992


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Part of the problem is plain old academic snobbery. Professor Sonja

Lyubomirsky, who studies happiness at the University of California, Riverside,

says with regard to self help books "We (psychologists) just sort of ignore the

whole (self help) section of the bookstore. We see it as so different from what we

do. We do science and these people are just spouting off their ideas"

The other is that social science has believed that negative states like anxiety and

depression are 'authentic' and human strengths like joy and optimism are

'copying mechanisms'. Seligman now disputes this, saying human beings are

born with a raft of positive attributes that need only to be brought out.

But wouldn't such a refocusing leave the real problems of mental illnessunattended to? He thinks it will have the opposite result. One of the most exciting

side effects of nurturing human fortitudes, he says, could be that some mental

illness might be prevented by building psychological 'muscles' before the

problems occur. It is a notion he propounds as "immunisation",


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What Options for Change?

On a lighter note, I counted no fewer than 3 radio programmes on the 7BBC this

week alone. The subjects that were covered included a radio phone in on Radio

2 about Happiness, with the Rabbi Julia Neuberger. It mentioned Laughter

Therapy, a treatment encouraging clients to focus on the positive. There was a

programme on Radio 4 about The Luck Schoolin Hertfordshire that trains people

and companies to change their attitudes and beliefs and thus 'change' their bad

luck into good and finally there was In Business on Radio 4 with the

heavyweight guru of business studies, Sir Robin Day who was experiencing Life

Coaching. To my mind, although the titles are different, the methods and

messages are the same. We can take control and by changing our focus from

negative to positive can change the results, both in our personal lives and in our

businesses.

So what are a few of the alternatives on offer if we are feeling lost and needing

support and direction in our lives?

Psychotherapy

The prescribed establishment methods for dealing with mental ill health,

depression and unhappiness are psychotherapy and counselling.

Psychotherapy involves regular face to face sessions with a trained therapist whowill seek to foster insight into the client through listening to that person talking

about him or herself, their relationships and their past. The client presents data

as facts about his life and the therapist offers ideas about that data, as well as his

own input. The therapist will express his feelings about it, his own past

experience and his theories. It is up to the client to agree or disagree with him. In

7 BBC week beginning 19th January 2004


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other words the therapist will tell the client what he feels is probably going on

and it is up to the client to say if he is right. The proof that an interpretation or

suggestion is right is the client's own reaction to it.

The therapy works by the client recognising a pattern of actions and reactions

after being guided by his therapist and then actively testing them. He can then

learn to change by changing his reactions.

Psychotherapeutic counselling involves a period of about 1year, meeting

once a week for an hour, depending on the severity of the problem.

It is essential that the therapist does not get involved with the client, unlike

coaching where coach and coachee can form a strong bond.

Counselling

Counselling uses the same principles as psychotherapy, having many techniques

in common, but differing in degree and depth. The aims are more limited than in

psychotherapy. Sessions are usually held once a week.

Both professions are compelled to instruct the client's GP should their client

show suicidal tendencies.

Strict confidentiality binds both professions.

Counselling is often used to treat traumas such as bereavement and divorce.

Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud is the father of analysis and his ideas were revolutionary when

he was working in the late 1800's. Today we all speak 'Freud', mostly without

thinking about it. In his original writings he stated that dreams are a manifestation

of the action of the soul and that the highly charged material that are our

aspirations, fantasies, hopes and fears will emerge as dreams, anxieties and

physical symptoms and can be interpreted and analysed.

Analysts are not interested in changing patients' behaviour, only easing suffering

and clarifying mental confusion. With greater insight into both the conscious and

unconscious factors determining their actions, people are better equipped to

make their own decisions.


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There are many schools of analysis and all are very specialised forms of

treatment but all involve seeing an analyst several times a week and a

commitment of 2 years and upwards.

The Analyst will interpret and tell you what he feels has made you the person

you are and what your symptoms mean.

The client may be on a couch during the sessions usually unable to see the

analyst. Most analysts will only deal with clients who have already had a

course of psychotherapy.

In session the analyst generally says less than a therapist would.

The client does not form a bond with the analyst.

Transactional Analysis

This is a branch of analysis started by Eric Berne, author of8The Games People

Play. He recognised that the human personality is made up of 3 ego states, each

of which is an entire system of thought, feeling and behaviour from which we

interact with each other. The Parent, Adult and Child ego states and the

interaction between them form the foundation of transactional analysis theory.These concepts have spread into many areas of therapy and education as

practiced today.

Eric Berne proposed that dysfunctional behaviour is the result of self-limiting

decisions made in childhood in the interest of survival. Such decisions result in

the life scriptof each person, the pre-conscious plan that governs the way life is

lived out.

Changing the life script is the basis of transactional analysis psychotherapy.

In this sense it bears some similarities to coaching and NLP.

It can be seen from these therapies that revisiting the past is critical. This makes

them different to coaching that concentrates on the present and the future. There

is also apportionment of blame on the external factors that may have created a

mental state in the client, as a means of explaining such things as unhappiness.


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In coaching, the client is encouraged to take responsibility for his own actions

and emotional states and is encouraged to change negative emotions to positive.

Luck School

Despite the name, this is not a flippant project but a genuine piece of research.

The founder is 9Dr Richard Wiseman of Hertfordshire University, UK, who has

spent 8 years studying the lives of 400 exceptionally lucky and unlucky

individuals. He claims to be able to improve people's 'luck' by encouraging them

to follow four principles:

1. Create, notice and act upon your chance opportunities by networking,

adopting a relaxed attitude to life and being open to new experiences.

2. Listen to your intuition and gut feelings. Take active steps to actively boost

your intuitive abilities by such practices as meditation and clearing the mind of

other thoughts.

3. Expect good fortune and this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy that will

help you persist in the face of failure and shape your interaction with others in

a positive way.

4. Employ psychological techniques to cope with and even thrive on failure. Do

not dwell on it and take control of the situation again.

This is a fringe activity but is providing scientific data and is linked with the field of

Positive Psychology. Many of the questionnaires used are similar to those on the

Positivity Central Website.

It appears to be different from the previously mentioned therapies, not dwelling

on the past, but focusing on the future and advocating a change of attitude rather

than apportioning blame.

In this respect it is similar to Life Coaching.

8 The Games People Play, Eric Berne reprinted by Andre Deutsch, 19699 The Luck Factor: Dr Richard Wiseman, Century, 2003


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Psychosynthesis

Psychosynthesis was conceived by Dr Roberto Assaglioli in 1911. He was a

student of Freud and like Carl Jung, he rebelled against Freud's visions of man

as pathological and animalistic. Unlike Freud, Assaglioli and Jung theorised that

man possesses a higher nature. Furthermore, Assaglioli had a theory that much

of the psychological dysfunction in the world stems from frustration or even

desperation about the lack of meaning and purpose in our lives. He was far

ahead of his time and thus psychosynthesis remained relatively obscure until the

1960's when it became a primary component of a new type of psychology. The

resulting 'transpersonal psychology' builds on the humanistic psychology started

by Maslow and adds the dimension of man taking personal responsibility and

placing others before self. Basing the psychology on the hypothesis that we each

have a deeper identity and are subject to a higher organising principle, our lives

therefore have meaning, purpose and direction. Assaglioli's writing also deeply

influenced one of the early NLP practitioners, Michael Hall, who republished his

work in 1965. Assaglioli is named as one of the possible sources of NLP

There are many areas of similarity between these two practices and thus

psychosynthesis seems to have had an indirect influence on the growth of

coaching methods.

Neuro Linguistic Programming

10NLP, as it is known, emerged as result of work done in California at the

University of Santa Cruz in the 1970's where a group of academics became

interested in personal enhancement, creativity and communications. The best

remembered of this large group are NLP's main founders, John Grinder and

Richard Bandler. Bandler's fields were varied but included Gestalt Psychology

and Therapy while Grinder was Assistant Professor of Linguistics. NLP theory as

it became, was based on a collection of techniques and processes, which, if used

10 The Elements of NLP, Carol Harris, 1998

Introducing NLP, Sue Knight, 1999


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effectively, can produce extraordinary results, the focus being on performance

and helping people get better at what they do. The essence of NLP is:

High performance requires both the development of skills and the

development of corresponding mental and physical states.

Mental and physical states can be broken down into small, distinct elements

and modified to achieve desired results.

What distinguishes NLP from any other discipline is the focus on modelling.

Modelling involves someone analysing and copying a person who achieves

excellence in what he does by replicating patterns of thinking, behaving or

reacting. The many methods employed to do this are characteristic features

of NLP.

This is a very simplistic explanation of a complex subject, but suffice to say that

NLP is probably the one that has the closest links to coaching and many of the

most successful coaches are also NLP practitioners. The practice lends itself to

the positive, forward thinking approach of coaching and the desire for the client

to make progress as speedily as possible.

Uses in coaching situations could be

to question beliefs

to alter a state

to change negative language to positive

to alter the coach's linguistics to suit the client's "type" e.g. kinaesthetic,

auditory, visual and build rapport

to match clients body language to build rapport

to help a client to reframe a situation i.e. take a different perspective on it

to chunk down tasks and goals into manageable parts

NLP has had a major influence on the development of coaching.


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Mentoring

Although not a 'therapy' as such, mentoring has always played a role in business.

The mentor will be someone more experienced in the same or similar business

as the client and will offer advice and support. In a corporate situation he will be

appointed from within the company to support his colleague. Problems can arise

because all experiences differ and the mentor is only reflecting back what is

relevant to him. However this may not necessarily be relevant to his colleague.

The mentor will usually employ a directive style of advice giving. A good mentor,

however, will also employ skills of listening and open questioning techniques.


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COACHING

What is Coaching?

There is a great deal of debate about the exact definition of a coach and what his

or her role should be. Should he advise clients, should he push them or let them

work at their own pace? Some coaches claim that expertise in the fields in which

they specialise is important. None of these is wrong but the disparity just proves

that coaching as a profession is what you decide to make it, based on your skills

and style. However all coaches agree that coaching is about achieving

results.

According to leading UK coach, 11Curly Martin, the definition of a Life Coach is

someone who closes the gap between thinkingabout doing and actually doing.

Coaching was originally a word linked primarily to sport and this has contributed

to the confusion that is still around it today. At that time the word coach could as

easily be replaced by the word instructor, in other words one who taught you to

follow by example.

Nothing could be further from the truth in coaching. In 1981 Timothey Gallwey a

Harvard Educationalist, published his book the Inner Game of Tennis, claiming

that if a coach can help to remove the internal obstacles to a player's

performance a natural ability to play will flow forth. "The opponent within one's

own head is more formidable than the one the other side of the net".

John Whitmore, a British expert in the field of Psychosynthesis, went on to be

trained by Gallwey and founded the Inner Game in Britain. (I was lucky enough tobe involved with a group of his students who taught the 'Inner Game of Skiing'

and I can personally vouch for its effectiveness.)

This lead on to Whitmore being asked to expand the methods he was using to

teach the Inner Game, into the business field and then into personal or life

11 The Life Coaching Handbook, Curly Martin Crown House Publishing 2001


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coaching. His definition is that8

coaching is unlocking a person's potential to

maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching

them.

8 Coaching for Performance, John Whitmore 2002


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How Coaching Works

For the purposes of this thesis I shall concentrate on personal or life coachingrather than business or corporate coaching. Although the latter does use the

same processes, its focus is not on the needs of the individual but on the

company and is usually driven by the need to address such things as efficiency,

profitability, delegating, problem solving, appraisals, assessments, planning and

reviews.

The principles of corporate coaching are the same as life coaching, with the

emphasis on giving the individuals in a team the responsibility for change, as

well as building their self-belief to enable them to carry out change. The needs of

the company are what will be addressed in the corporate coaching sessions.

Corporate coaching is usually initiated by management.

It is a proven fact that

if we are told something, after 3 weeks 70% of us will remember it and after 3

months 10% of us will remember it.

If we are told and shown something, after 3 weeks 72% of us will remember

it and after 3 months 32% of us will remember it.

If we are told, shown and experience something after 3 weeks 85% of us

will remember it and after 3 months 65% of us will remember it.

This works for negative as well as positive experiences and one of the facts that

any coach will try and instill into his client is that to 'fail'at something (but

experience it nonetheless) is one of the most profound learning experiences he

can have.Failure should be viewed as an opportunity to learn and grow.

The coach has an innate belief in the untapped potential of each client and

his own ability to unleash it during the coaching process.

The emphasis on ACTION in the coaching process is one of the ways it is

different to other 'therapies'.


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The Client Coach Relationship

As discussed earlier there are as many different types of coach as there arepeople, but probably the biggest difference in coaching styles is between those

who give advice and those who feel that coaching involves guiding clients to find

their own answers. The latter is the more painstaking method, but it is a fact that

if a human being feels that he has made the decision to take a course of action

himself, the chances of him actually carrying it out are substantially greater than

if he had been told to do it by someone else.

Whatever the style of coaching, the relationship built with the client is one based

on trust and discretion. The client must know that nothing they tell in confidence

(other than that which the coach deems to be illegal) will be divulged to another

person without their permission.

There are a multitude of reasons why a client may seek a coach, but all of them

will involve a desire for change. It could be career, lifestyle, personal fortune or

fitness to give just a few examples or it may even be to resolve what that change

should be.

However diverse the reasons for seeking a coach are, the coaching process will

follow a similar pattern. In other words a client can be coached on just about any

subject he chooses, provided he is prepared to take responsibility for his

thoughts and actions, thus ensuring change occurs.

Coaching sessions are typically conducted face to face (the norm in the business

environment) or over the telephone (the norm for personal coaching). E-coaching

over the internet is also a possibility.

Session One

This will usually be a free (taster) session prior to which the coach will have

asked the prospective client to fill out a short questionnaire about his lifestyle and

complete a 'wheel of life' diagram. These will give the coach insight into the

client's current situation and state of mind. During this initial session, the coach

will seek to build rapport with the client, listen to his story and following the


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TGROW or another model, explore with him what he wants to achieve out of a

coaching relationship.

The coach's fees, guidelines and code of practice will be explained.

The client will then decide whether coaching is the route he wants to take and

whether this particular coach is the right one for him.

Should the client wish to pursue a coaching relationship the coach will suggest

the number of sessions within which he feels he can realistically help the client

achieve his goal. If this involves a long period of time, the sessions will be broken

down into blocks of say 5 or 10 to be reviewed along the way. It will depend on

what time frame is set by the client for achieving the goal as to the regularity ofthe sessions. For instance, if he is looking for a rapid job promotion within a finite

period, the sessions will need to be held more often than if the goal is a longer

term one.

Sessions are usually held once a week or once a fortnight with the date and time

being set at the previous session. Time keeping is the responsibility of the client

and is an essential part of the process, indicating his commitment to the process.

A goal will be set that is to be achieved for the next session.

Session Two

This will involve a thorough exploration of the client's agenda and will probably

involve a Values Elicitation Exercise.

This prioritised list of values will be something that the client can use in all his

future decision making. Drawing up such a list is a highly charged event and may

result in the exercise illuminating some of the client's current stresses. I have

found a Values Elicitation session to be very tiring for anyone not familiar with

exploring such issues and that this alone is probably sufficient for him to tackle in

one session.


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Session Three

By now the client will be concentrating on the means of achieving the goal that

he has set himself and it is up to the coach to guide him to achieve smaller goals

toward this end and to stop him suffering from overwhelm.

The commitment to achieve any goal that is set can be rated on a scale of 1-10.

If the client's commitment to achieve the goal is rated below 8 on the scale, the

chances of him actually achieving it are low and therefore the goal should be

reassessed. Either the intention to complete it must be raised or the goal needs

to be altered.

Subsequent sessions

The client will become more focussed as he becomes more familiar with the

process and will often bring new issues to the session. The coach will have built

rapport with him and the sessions will be flowing more intuitively.

It is important to remember that the sessions are entirely in the hands of the

client. He may come to the session wanting to deal with a completely new

topic for one session, possibly wanting clarity on a situation that has arisen in

the past week. It is his own agenda and must be respected. It is also up to the

coach to find out whether this is a diversionary tactic and if it is, to get him

back on track.

Coaching will continue to break down major goals into smaller, more

manageable ones, thus removing the client's feeling of overwhelm.

The coach will constantly be refining the process and concentrating on the

details of the client's agenda.

The goals will be time related and the coach will hold the client accountable.

For example he will check (by email or phone) that the client has, for

instance, started the diet, spoken to the boss, booked the flight etc.


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The Building Blocks of Coaching

Coaching uses a range of skills that are not unique to it, but together form aunique package to be used within a coaching model.

It deploys a variety of skills that may seem self-evident and simply common

sense, but it is the skill and 'elegance' with which they are used that distinguishes

a mediocre coach from an outstanding one.

1. Listening

By listening well, we are providing for the client what Nancy Kline describes inher book Time to Think

12as a thinking environment. The client has an

opportunity, sometimes for the first time, to express his thoughts without

interruption. When you are listening to someone, much of the quality of what you

are hearing is your effect on him or her. Until he gets used to it, he may find the

silence intimidating or even threatening. We are not used to silence as long

silences in conversation are deemed socially unacceptable. Nonetheless it is

often the case that these silences create the space to produce what is often the

most interesting and informative information for both coach and client alike.

To help people think for themselves, first listen. And listen. Then - listen. And just

when they say they can't think of anything else, you can ask them the question,

'What else do you think about this? Even when people are sure there is nothing

left in their weary brain, there nearly always is.

13Co-Active Coachingdescribes 3 levels of listening:

Level 1

This is the most basic form of listening during which we absorb information that is

of relevance to us, the listener. If you coach only using this level of listening you

are coaching within your own (limited) experience and reflecting that back to the

client.

12 Time to Think, Nancy Kline 200113 Co-Active Coaching, Laura Whitworth, Henry Kimsey House, Phil Sandahl 1998


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Level 2

You focus entirely on the other person, reflecting back the information you are

receiving from them. Your responses become spontaneous as you listen to the

tone, pace and feeling of the speaker.

Level 3

This is intuitive listening when you are picking up information on a level higher

than verbal communication. Your senses are receiving signals from the client

about their energy levels, moods and feelings.

2. QuestioningQuestioning in the context of a coaching relationship is not done out of any sense

of anticipation of receiving a correct or an incorrect answer. Whatever answer is

given is one that will eventually lead to unlocking the client's ability to explore and

discover his own abilities. By skillful use of questioning the coach directs the

process of the client's thinking without influencing the specific content.

In Coaching for Performance John Whitmore writes that questions are there to

generate awareness and responsibility in the coaching process. Awareness isthe product of focused attention, concentration and clarity. Increased awareness

gives greater clarity of perception than normal. Responsibility is crucial for high

performance. Only when the client takes full responsibility for his thoughts and

actions will his commitment to them rise and thus his performance. Unless the

coach raises the sense of awareness and responsibility in the client, none of the

coaching models used in coaching would work at all. It would simply be a case of

both parties going through the motions.

As coaches we want to receive descriptive answers to our questions that

promote the clients awareness. To get these answers we must ask OPEN

questions. If we ask CLOSED questions that demand correct answers, or worse

still questions that demand yes or no answers, we will stop the coaching process

in its tracks.

Open Questions use interrogatives such as:

What?


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When?

Who?

How much?

How many?

Using the word Why? Can be construed as being judgmental and implies

criticism.

Coaches must avoid using leading questions, hoping to draw clients to give

what they feel is the correct answer.

The use of such open questioning techniques is a key feature of coaching that

makes it very different to counselling and psychotherapeutic practices.With practice a good coach will develop an elegant and relaxed style of

questioning unique to himself .

3. Building Rapport

Inevitably a coach is going to have clients with whom he has an immediate

affinity and others with whom it will be much harder to relate. Rapport building is

a technique taught in NLP that is useful in a coaching session. The principle isthat people tend to get on well with others who are similar to them in some way.

It is like looking in a mirror and seeing yourself. You are not intimidated or

threatened. Rapport can be created and maintained between the coach and

client by the coach making himself behave like the client. He can fit in with what

the client does by mirroring (doing exactly what the client does) or matching

(doing things similarly). The latter is a safer option as the client may feel himself

being ridiculed by mirroring.

Tone of voice can be matched, as can speed of speech, excitement, breathing,

gestures or emotion. At a subconscious level rapport builds naturally during this

process.

An important element of matching is to maintain 'congruence', i.e. consistency in

what you do so that your body language is giving out the same message as your

verbal language. A 'mismatch' will be interpreted by the client as insincerity on


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the coach's part, as he will instinctively be more attuned to the body language of

the coach than to his words.

The actual words we use form only 38% of what we communicate. Body

language forms 55% of the message of non-verbal communication. Part of the

reason why telephone coaching is so effective is that part of this influence on the

judgment of both client and coach is removed, as neither can see the other.

Nonetheless the words the client uses can give a coach insight into how they

think.

For instance, if a client regularly uses words such as hear, soundorsay, he

could be defined as an Auditory person. The coach could match him by usingsimilar words such as sounds, I hear what you're saying, etc.

Similarly if he was a Kinaesthetic person and used words such as feels and

touch, the coach would try to adjust his language to match this.

Finally should he instead use terms such as see and looks he would be termed a

Visual person.

(Other types of person such as Gustatoryand Olfactoryallegedly exist but are

fewer in number.)

The fact that the coach has modified his language to match that of his client will

only be evident to the client on a sub-conscious level.

For the coach it is essential to be able to build rapport with a client, as well as

rebuild it should it break down at any time, thus creating a relationship based on

trust.

4. Changing Limiting Beliefs

We have all been conditioned by external factors and it is not the factors

themselves that are important, but the way we have reacted to them and

continue to react in our day to day lives. Joseph Murphy in his book, The Power

of the Subconscious Minddraws a comparison between the subconscious mind

and a bed of rich soil. If you sow thistles you won't get figs. Every thought is a

seed and the resulting plant, positive or negative, will have an effect on you.


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The subconscious mind is a bit like the hard drive of a computer i.e. whatever

you programme into it will be fed back to you. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you

believe that you will fail at something, the chances are that your mind will feed

back the negative image that you planted and you will fail.

This is called a limiting belief.

It is a scientific fact that thoughts create physical pathways in the brain

(dendrites) that become enlarged with repeated use. Any thought, positive or

negative, will always use the largest pathway.

The coach's job is to encourage the client to enhance his own performance and if

he has negative beliefs about himself to help him change his thought patternsfrom negative to positive. In the same way that he created a pathway by thinking

negative thoughts, he can change it by thinking positive thoughts instead.

This might sound like common sense but often involves hard work for the client

using techniques such as

affirmations

pattern breaking

anchoring

The coach will teach these techniques to him and he will repeat the exercises on

a regular basis.

The coach can also use other NLP techniques such as reframing the belief in

order to enable him to view the situation differently.

One of the consequences of anyone having limiting beliefs about themselves is

low self-esteem. Negative thoughts will be fed back through the subconscious

and serve as a brake to personal development. It is the coach's role to break this

pattern and help the client raise his self-esteem.

5. The T.G.R.O.W. System

Coaching abounds with mnemonics

PURE: Positively stated, Understood, Relevant, Ethical

SMART: Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Time phased`

GRIT: Goal, Reality, Intention, Time phased


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TGROW: Topic, Goal, Reality, Options, Way forward.

All are aids for the coach to enable him to work through a structured, fluent

coaching session and by the end of it to have reached a conclusion or finite goal.

Coaching, as taught by Noble Manhattan Coaching, follows the tried and tested

model, T.G.R.O.W. that gives a basic framework easily followed by both novice

and experienced coaches. Using this as a support structure, experienced

coaches can build and elaborate on it, depending on their style. No matter

whether it is used for group-coaching, individual coaching, business or personal

coaching this framework will serve as a guide to the coaching process.

Although the coach follows the guidance of the framework he will not necessarilystick rigidly to it. For instance, the goal may have to be altered if at the reality

stage it becomes evident that it is not achievable.

TOPIC: This is always in the hands of the client. Whatever issue he chooses to

work on that day will become the topic of the coaching session. He may come

with a very clear idea of what he wants to discuss or may be uncertain. Careful

questioning techniques can establish a topic. Preparation by coach and client

prior to the call is important so as not to waste the client's time and thus his

money.

GOAL: Typical questions asked could be:

What would you like to have achieved by the end of your coaching?

What would you like to achieve in this session?

It is in the hands of the coach to lead the client towards his goal in the time

allotted, whether it is 20 minutes or an hour.

REALITY: The coach will now establish the actual situation that the client is in at

this time. How achievable is his goal? It may be that the goal he has set himself

is unrealistic and therefore the coach moves the process back to the GOAL step

to change or readjust it.


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OPTIONS: What are the options that the client has for moving forward to achieve

his goals? In the safe, listening, non-judgmental environment the client can come

up with as many options as he can think of. The quality of ideas is not as

important as the number. Extravagance of ideas is encouraged. Each of the

options in turn is assessed by the client and the consequences of doing each one

is then explored:

What would be the consequences of doing that?

The client can then make an informed choice between his alternatives

WAY FORWARD: The client will now establish the way forward towards his goaland agree on the subsequent action to be taken. The coach will sum up the

session and make sure that the client has understood and is committed to the

course of action.


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The way ahead

We have established that coaching works as a mechanism for change and formoving people forward towards their goals. We have also established ways for

them to find out what their goals might be, based on their desires. Coaching can

break down the self-imposed barriers that have been stopping those desires

become actual goals.

What we have not established is whether coaches are sufficiently able to coach

people through a major crisis of meaning, which is what may often be classified

as a minor breakdown or the onset of a depression. In other words, a state where

the material life of the individual concerned, no matter how successful, has

become profoundly at odds with the spiritual aspect of his life or the lack of it. A

situation where there is frustration or even desperation about the lack of purpose

and meaning in life.

Humanistic psychology and its emphasis on the value of the emotions has been

used in a limited way in the business world since the 1970s, but in 1995 Daniel

Coleman's book Emotional Intelligence took the business world by storm and

made emotional intelligence acceptable. The words have now entered the

vernacular. He writes that ourEQ is as important, if not more important than our

IQ.

Emotional Intelligence can be described very simplistically as the social skills of:

Knowing one's emotions

Managing one's emotions

Motivating oneself

Recognising emotions in others

Handling relationships

Emotional intelligence as a concept was soon followed by Spiritual Intelligence.

Danah Zohar, author of the books Spiritual Intelligence and Rewiring the

Corporate Brain writes 'Spiritual Intelligence is our access to and use of meaning,

vision and value in the way that we think and the decision that we make'. Enter

another quotient, SQ!. 'Where IQ and EQ are naturally bounded and can be


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quantitatively measured, it is in the nature of SQ to defy boundaries, to

continually seek a broader perspective, a bigger picture. As such it resists

quantification. Indeed its essence is not about quantity, but quality.'

Her writing also gives credence to the fact that many people today are facing a

real crisis of meaning.

The diminishing importance of proscribed religions in our society has left a

vacuum in our Western way of life leaving our earthbound desires and ambitions

as the dominating force on our psyche. Eastern philosophy and psychosynthesis

teaching says that if either of the two elements i.e. the spiritual/value element or

the knowledge/material element, become too unbalanced, a crisis of meaningcan occur. In other words if the accumulation of knowledge far exceeds the

tempering effect of our values we feel stress. We experience a breakdown of the

false sense of security provided by the illusion of power and certainty that great

knowledge gives us.

Whitmore writes that to coach such a person, normal high quality coaching

training should be adequate. In fact under almost all circumstances if a coach

sticks tightly to non-prescriptive principles and follows the coachee's agenda,

almost nothing can go wrong. A problem only arises when a coach,

unaccustomed to extreme outbursts and sudden swings of emotion, panics and

intervenes to try to help the person control their feelings. The coachee needs to

enter into and if necessary, re-live residual suppressed emotions at his own

pace, albeit with process guidance and protection. Coaching someone through a

crisis of meaning will take a series of sessions over a period of several months

and may well result in them making a complete life change.

Whitmore, who uses the principles of psychosynthesis in his own coaching work,

believes that it gives coaches the ability to help their clients to reframe their lives

and thus diffuse the crisis that so many people today experience. In other words

it will give them the psychological muscle to cope with the crisis.

He advises that coaches may be more confident coaching those experiencing a

spiritual crisis or crisis of meaning if they have some psychotherapeutic training,

such as psychosynthesis.


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A psychosynthesis-trained coach may invite the coachee to reframe life as a

developmental journey, to see the creative potential within each problem, to see

obstacles as stepping stones and to imagine that we all have a purpose in life

with challenges and obstacles to overcome in order to fulfill that purpose. The

coach will assist the coachee to focus on the positive aspect of any actions he

chooses to take.


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CONCLUSION

Thus we see that as coaches we have the tools available to deal with most things

that our clients present to us. Obviously we are not qualified to deal with severe

mental illness and chronic psychiatric conditions, but the majority of

commonplace depressive disorders have a root in our processing of information,

our beliefs and values. If we as coaches can guide our clients to find their own

life purpose and find balance in their lives we will be making a major contribution

to the mental health of society.The one serious drawback for highly trained and experienced coaches is that

today anyone can call themselves a coach regardless of qualifications or lack of

them. Coaching as a profession needs to follow ethical guidelines and be

accountable to its governing bodies such as the European Coaching Federation

and the International Coaching Federation and have the power to control those

'coaches' who may bring the profession into disrepute.

Only then will those who 'do science' be convinced that coaching is a

heavyweight contender in the battle we all have to achieve a more positive

society in the 21st Century.

I stand by my assertion that despite the understandable reluctance of coaches

only to involve themselves with clients trying to change very practical elements of

their lives, the coaching process is a very potent tool. We have within our grasp

the power to stall feelings of hopelessness and despair in our clients and help

them to find deeper meaning in their lives.

Who knows where that could lead?


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Direct reference has been made to the following books:The Life Coaching Handbook, Curly Martin. Crown House Publishing 2001.

Coaching for Performance, John Whitmore Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1992.

Co Active Coaching, Laura Whitworth, Henry Kimsey-House, Phil Sandahl.

Davies Black Publishing, 1998.

Effective Coaching, Miles Downey 1999, Texere

A Layman's Guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis, Eric Berne Penguin Books

1947.

The Work We Were Born to Do, Nick Williams Element 1999.

The Power of the Subconscious Mind, Joseph Murphy Simon and Schuster,

1963.

Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, Susan Jeffers 1987, Arrow Books.

Time To Think, Nancy Kline Cassell, 1999.

The Elements of NLP, Carol Harris Element Books 1998.

Introducing NLP, Sue Knight CIPD, 1999.

Awaken the Giant W ithin, Anthony Robbins 1991 Simon and Schuster.

Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl 1959, Simon and Schuster.

Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Coleman 1996, Bloomsbury.

The Art of Living, His Holiness the Dalai Lama Thorsons, 2001.

The following additional books were used for research into this report:

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen J Covey 1989, Simon and

Schuster.

Be Your Own Life Coach, Fiona Harold 2001, Hodder and Stoughton.

Take Time for Your Life, Cheryl Richardson 2000, Bantam.

Modern Buddhism, Jacqui and Alan James 1987, Aukana Trust.

The Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan W Watts 1954, Rider Books.

How Brains Make Up Their Minds, Walter J Freeman 1999, Phoenix.

The Road Less Travelled, M. Scott Peck 1978, Rider Books.


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Are you interested in finding out about the courses and trainings offered

worldwide by Noble Manhattan Coaching Ltd.

Please contact our friendly customer care team

Contact Details

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Noble Manhattan Coaching Ltd

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Web www.noble-manhattan.com
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report the past, present and future of coaching as a profession

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