“Coaching cracked the code on a tough career transition.”
—Senior Director
“How do I…”
This is how coaching often begins: a question that eludes obvious answers. Please hold that thought. Let's begin by taking a step back to determine what makes this situation so difficult in the first place.
Humans are storytelling creatures. We’re hard-wired for it. In coaching, we employ archetypes and narratives as metaphors for one’s capabilities, resources, and challenges. We would collaborate to identify a coaching objective and observable outcomes that tackle both the pressing concern as well as the deeper challenge that lies beneath the surface.
During sessions, we would draw upon observational and behavioral practices to spark insights as we journey toward outcomes. Outcomes designed to build the capacity to adapt to situations and create answers on our own. While outcomes would be specific to each of us, they generally build awareness, alignment, and capability to sustain desired changes.
Greater awareness of emotions and behavior to change how we interpret and respond to situations.
Closer alignment with our emotional and biological selves as sources of data to inform decisions.
Capability to sustain our new behavior to impact the long trajectory of our lives.
Coaching as our development engine
Consider personal development to be like an engine that works in cycles to produce growth.
This engine uses a main gear to generate power as we ratchet through six stages of development:
Concern: the issue brought to coaching.
Assessment: exploration of the deeper challenge behind the concern.
Objective: an agreed-upon goal that addresses the challenge.
Practice: exercises that provoke experiential learning.
Insight: a discovery sparked by exercises that suggests solutions for both the concern and deeper challenge.
Outcome: new perspective or behavior that unlocks new behavior and, often, a next concern or question…
Coaching conversations serve as the small yet mighty cog that drives personal development, turning the gear as we pursue insights and outcomes.
