I often get asked, “What do you do?” & depending on who I’m talking to there is a wide variety in the answer that I give. The reason for this is because the results people get from the coaching that I do can depend completely on the people I’m working with at that time & I talk about the results people get. Coaching can help you to figure out the next steps in your career; can help you to get clear on the decisions you want to make so that you’re not stressing out whether you are making the right decision for you. Coaching can help to build up your confidence when dealing with conflict at work or managing upwards or giving feedback to your team.
Coaching is a profession that is continuously growing in popularity & being self-regulated has a wide variety of definitions. The definition I use is that coaching is “a methodology that allows us to work with change, on a personal level, organisational level or a relationship level…it is about helping individuals and teams to achieve results that matter.”
To me, the important thing in this definition is about “achieving results that matter”. Each coaching sessions I have with clients focuses on one specific outcome. One area in their life that is important at that moment. The coaching process helps you, the person being coached, to get clear on what specifically the outcome that is important for you to achieve. Being clear on this, allows you to make decisions more easily & take action. Once you can start to take action, you see the impact it makes & the progress being made. You can build up confidence in your decision making so that you can continue to make progress long after the coaching process has been completed.
How does coaching work?
Coaching is a focused conversation about specific topics concentrating on a specific outcome to be achieved & working to continuously make progress towards that outcome. Before each coaching session, you consider what you would like the specific topic of focus to be for the session. A coach does not give advice or tell you what to do. During coaching sessions, I give you feedback on any specific behaviours that I notice & on any trends at sessions or in between sessions.
A simplified version of the coaching conversation is:
G – Goal: What is the outcome that I want to achieve?
O – Options: what are the options that I have to get this done -3D’s – Delegate; Do myself; Don’t need to be done
A – Actions: from the options – what are the most important actions that I am going to take to get the outcome?
L – Look again: Look back at my Goal and ensure that the actions that I have chosen are the ones that will get me to my goal most effectively.
Between each coaching session, you get the opportunity to put things into practice & from this, you will see what works & what doesn’t work. This allows you to develop the skills and habits of self-reflection to ensure that learning will continue after coaching ends. By doing this, you are taking responsibility of owning actions & making progress towards outcomes that you want to achieve.
Awareness → Decision → Action
According to Edgar Dale’s research, his cone of experience outlines that when people are involved in action learning / experiential learning, they can retain somewhere between 70% – 90% of the learning whereas passive learning can be as low as 10%. This is one of the reasons why coaching is successful. By putting things into actions straight away, you get to learn what does & doesn’t work & you can apply this learning again & again in different situations.
[1] Co-active coaching, changing business, transforming lives 3rd edition – Henry Kimsey-House, Karen Kimsey-House, Phillip Sandahl & Laura Whitworth
How Coaching works at AMA Results:
We work with individuals or teams in corporate environments that want to achieve more or different results. Areas that we cover typically include career direction; promotion; salary; my brand at work; managing my team; managing upwards, work-life integration; feedback; conflict.
You are leading a team & think coaching can help the team:
If you are a leader with an experienced team & you want them to flourish in their roles, coaching can help. They’re busy & you’re busy. You know you don’t have the time to dedicate to support them through their development into leaders in your organisation. You want them to take time to understand the impact they want to make as a leader. I can work with you & your team to ensure they are focusing on the right things to make the team a success & so that they feel like they are being a success as well.
You’re ambitious & think coaching can help you to succeed:
You’re ambitious & you’re in a role in an organisation where you are not sure how to move onto the next role or set yourself up to succeed in your current role. Coaching can help you to get clarity on your own branding.
You’re at the top & want to stay there:
You are at the top! You make the decisions with your leadership team & you know where the organisation is going. Sometimes you don’t know who you can talk to about certain work situations. Coaching allows you to talk through your ideas to get clarity & make decisions before having discussions with wider team members.
Our coaching programmes are conducted remotely through video calls – you don’t have to spend any time traveling just find a quiet corner where you won’t get distracted & can concentrate on the progress you want to make for that particular coaching session.
The structure of our coaching programmes generally start with one 90 minute session followed by a minimum of 3 * 40 mins sessions by video calls. Prior to each session, you will receive a questionnaire to start to get you thinking about what you want to achieve in the session.
If you’re interested in talking to us about a coaching programme in your organisation, talk to us here.
