Coaching with POSITIVITY! In life, at work, with teams.

On balancing the science and the art of coaching

November 12, 2022 Angelos Derlopas
Coaching with POSITIVITY! In life, at work, with teams.
On balancing the science and the art of coaching
Coaching with POSITIVITY +
Exclusive access to bonus episodes!
Starting at $3/month Subscribe
Show Notes Transcript

Today we are focusing on how to balance the science in the art of coaching. So we start by what we call the Triple A coaching, and we ask coaches and coaching trainees never to coach below this standard when they're going for their PCC credential. Now, the first step is the agreement, the structured foundation of the agreement for the coaching cooperative work. The second step is awareness to connect many sources and drawing interpretations that contribute to the creation of awareness of the invisible or the misinterpreted.

And the third step is actions. By that we mean the collaborative creation of opportunities for continuous learning and for undertaking new actions that lead to the agreed goal. PCC coach should perform well in all the competencies and the respective PCC markers, but I think as probably most of you already know from the work as coaches that act, these three steps are very important. And let me clarify why we talked about agreement earlier. Let's talk about actions. Now, as we always say, even when we're starting for when we're training new, new people that want to learn coach coaching if no actions come up from the session, then it was not coaching. It might have been a very good conversation, but it was not coaching. So this is something that you don't yet to never negotiate. You should always have actions in the end, of course, actions should be aligned with the agreement that we made in the beginning.

But there is no simple role that passes. There's no right line that does not cross from awareness. It does not pass from awareness. We need to first create the awareness and then design the actions. For me, this is something that is not negotiable. If we, if a coach ends up designing actions with the client without creating any kind of awareness, that means these actions were already available for the client. So there was not really a significant contribution from the coach. Yes, and I know that this may sound strict, but I, I believe that I'm fair when I say that. We really need to focus and invest our time and our efforts as coaches in the coaching session to make sure we hit all these three pillars to make a AAA coaching for senior coaches. This might not be something groundbreaking or something that they don't know, but I think it summarizes what is truly at the core of what we are trying to achieve through coaching and our level of artistry.

He's creating the difference between the three credentialing levels. Senior coach is not groundbreaking. And our level of this last thing that I said is that our level of artistry is what differentiates our performance in in the three different credentialing levels. So if, if this is about doing, if the AAA is about doing the next slide, and I will share my screen again, the next slide will be more about being, and we call it the triple C. And we are focusing here to the level of mastery that we need to reach, the capacity that we need to build in order to be able to perform at a higher level. So my guide to myself and anyone who might ask me is that the people who want to coach at the MCC level should always coach above the standard. We call this the triple C coaching.

So the first is the first pillar is connecting with the self, connecting with myself, becoming aware of who I am and what is influencing me, being fit to consciously connect, use, and develop the self in service of the coaching relationship and process. And the second one is connecting with a client, being in position to understand, to connect and to work with the layers of relationship that exists in the coaching process. And the third one is connecting with the systems, the system or the systems, everything that is including us me as a coach, the client, and perhaps whatever is in closing our, the coaching process and the client in his environment, whether it's a life coaching session, or a somehow a workplace environment, coaching executive, executive business or something similar, all the systems that are involved. And by that we mean to be able to recognize, connect, and work with the dynamics of human systems and inspire action for intentional change at any scale and in any context of human interaction.

And, and the reason that I'm seeing through these lens is that I believe that we need to step up to become something that is be, that will be able, that will become more easily organically and naturally come from who we are and our identity as a coach. And from that, we'll derive all, all of the ways that we are coaching. And they will come down to earth and they will embody in the, in the competencies as we know them. So what do we mean by connecting with a self? There are a number of things we have described here. We have included here a small number of those attributes. And we invite you to reflect to other, to others that might be important for you in order to better connect with yourself. So the first of all, what is described as organic flow there needs to be a flow in the coaching session a natural flow, something that will flow out of us organically that will make the, the session sound and feel more like a conversation rather than a session to be able to partner with a client to explore the topic or focus of the session at the level that is meaningful to the client, and make this conversation in a flexible and natural and gentle manner.

Now, the, the second one is the absence of models and tools that might be a challenge. So at this level, we don't need to, and don't have to base our coaching in any specific models and tools. The conversation itself and our art history will be all that is required to deliver the, out the, the desired outcomes without relying to any specific models and tools. So being aware of this absence requires a sense of deeply connecting with ourselves to feel safe enough and happy enough and confident enough that we will do that. And it's not about the, the sheer confidence that is needed because confidence is needed at any level, but it's also about the inner understanding that there is a joy into that. We'll, we will see later that any kind of methodology that we might need in the coaching session will derive from our deep partnering with the client, and the client will have a say in that.

The third thing is about curating my feelings as a coach. Create your own feelings as a coach and have a complete ease and naturalness in what you're doing in the coaching session. We could have two different categories here because there are so many things that we wanted to include. Because you need to be aware of your feelings, You need to be able to curate your feelings. You need to be emotionally intelligent. And being com, as it says complete, I don't need to repeat that. So the, the fourth, the fourth one is non-attachment, which is a big concept not being attached to anything. Now, if you ask me what kind of attachment are you referring to, I would say, you name it, it could be attached. Yes, please go on. It could be attachment to a specific model. It could be attachment to a methodology.

It could be attachment to me being right, It could be attachment to me proving that I'm a great coach. And the last bubble here is to create own personal and professional development. And I'm sure this is not the first time they are cheer. Listening to this is for everyone that has started being a coach. And this is in the code of ethics. But then at again, it appears that it's not the case for everyone. So this is why I'm emphasizing it. It appears that this is not the case for everyone. This is not something that everyone is really upholding. And what I mean by that is that there are some people that think when they, when reach a certain level, that they, there is nothing left to learn or that they don't need anything more. And this is not the way that I see it.

I believe that we should, there are always trainings, new trainings that we can attend. And there are always supervision to be engaged with. Let's think about this. We ask people, we ask coaches at all levels to be to have genuine curiosity. So we should embody that genuine being genuinely curious about anything about new ways that people can thrive. So let's move on to the next slide because I believe that it's a big conversation and I just want to trigger your curiosity here. So the next slide is about connecting with the client. So first of all, being intentional about own intention and also being aware of how you are entering the session, how you're entering the coaching space, how you're connecting with the client, thank you. And the, the, the the next one is invest on depth and breadth of insights and growth. So this is linked with seven and eight that we saw in the actions, in the awareness, but we naming it insights and growth because it's important to produce really important insights, really significant awareness, not just any awareness, probably a transforming kind of awareness.

And the next one is orchestrate the energy in the field. You say in the past that when you are entering a coaching session, there are three entities that are in the room. It's the coach, it's the client, it's the coaching relationship. So how do you invest yourself and how do you organize or orchestrate the energy the way that the other perceives you all the, the feelings, the intentions, and all the things that are most subtle that really play a role. The next one is no agenda for the content. We know that for you beginner coaches as well, but it's never, it's always good to, to remind us that to ourselves, we don't have any particular intention or agenda or attached to any particular outcome or where we want to. What is their result or what is the, the direction and building on that, We add no agenda for the process.

No agenda for the process. We have no particular intention, no attachment on we have nothing that we have prepared already before we came to the session on how we will run the process of the session. All agendas must come from the client, the agenda of, of the session, what is the, establish the agreement and maintain the agreement the content of our discussion and the way that we will work together as well. Moving on to the third c, connecting with the systems, as we said earlier, depending on which are the systems here. So we should ask ourselves, what is the sponsor or impact, being mindful of the collective experience, How does our coaching interventions, coaching sessions affecting the experience of the organization? And we need to take into account the <inaudible> analysis, the, the acronym, meaning political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental, having agility regularly engage in supervision.

We emphasize supervision here with the systems because the more complex the, the system, the more important, helpful, supportive supervision will do for us. And being mindful of the stakeholders of the impact that coaching might have on stakeholders of the expectations that the stakeholders might have from perhaps not the coaching, but the work of the client. And finally, commit and exploring ethical dilemmas in a community of practice. For example. I have found this is very, very helpful, being aware of the different ethical dilemmas you might face or a colleague might face. I have found this is very helpful as it makes us much well prepared into understanding even the existence of ethical dilemmas. I have deep respect of this work, and I have found that it's very, very supportive. You never know which dilemma will knock on your door. 

Thank you very much.