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Coaching
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What is coaching?
Coaching is an ongoing professional partnership that helps people produce extraordinary results in their lives, careers, businesses or organisations. It provides a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires people to maximize their personal and professional potential. Through the process of coaching, clients deepen their learning, improve their performance and enhance their quality of life.
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Qualifications and Experience
Rachel is a trained coach from one of the International Coach Federation’s (ICF) accredited coach schools, Coach U. She is also an associate certified coach (ACC) with the ICF. An ICF Professional Coach agrees to practice the ICF Professional Core Competencies and pledges accountability to the ICF Code of Ethics. Rachel is also a Corporate Coach U Coaching clinic licensed facilitator: This permits Rachel to provide various coach related training particularly of value to managers and leaders in organisations.
Type of Coaching
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Life coaching
Coaching focuses on creating the type of lives individuals want to create and how and who they want to be in their life. Coaching often includes a focus on an individual’s personal foundation, creating a strong and resilient base in essential areas: physical health, emotional and mental health, spiritual wellbeing; financial health; and creating environments which nourish and sustain these areas.
Professional Coaching
Professionals (who by definition are people who have been trained and have formal qualifications in an area of work, often supported by a code of ethics / practice), can be found in a range of businesses and organisations.
They often have a reporting requirement to a Manager, who may provide a form of supervision or who at least creates an environment for reporting.
Professionals often need an environment in which they can honestly share their ideas, thoughts, feelings and or concerns without the sense that they are in an environment of performance assessment. In addition, they also face unique challenges associated with being a professional such as ethical challenges; finding their voice as a professional and promoting the profession as well as enhancing their professional skills and proficiency;
Coaching can provide an ideal forum and space for conversations which enable professionals to honestly but safely critique their performance and reflect on the challenges in their practice knowing that these discussions are not related to performance. This does not mean that coachees are happy with the status quo. Coaching gives them the space to consider taking calculated risks, to experiment with ideas with the aims of growing as a professional and gaining enhanced satisfaction and fulfillment from their vocation.
Coaching Managers
Like professionals, managers have unique challenges. They are the “meat in the sandwich” reporting to a Director as well as managing direct reports. They have to implement organisational policy and goals and inspire others to participate and be accountable.
The role, while often one that can be very fulfilling, can bring unique stresses and demands for which coaching is a very useful support.
Coaching can support Managers to clarify areas of priority; consider strategies for implementation in “political” environments, e.g. how to have tough but motivating conversations with staff; how to lobby senior management for support; how to assist managers to reflect on their motivations and values and how to remain grounded and anchored in times of uncertainty; as well as opportunities to celebrate successes and assist in learning from mistakes.
Coaching Executives
Coaching executives is fundamentally about giving an executive space to think and reflect on strategy, whether this is an internal or external focus. People in these roles have the greatest need to balance a focus on internal performance with the challenges of sustaining and expanding market growth, position and reputation.
These challenges rely on the effectiveness of an executive’s leadership - their ability to inspire, motivate and enable action throughout the organisation.
Coaching is the space where reflection on these issues can be provided giving an individual time to consider what is working and alternative forms of action; It is also a time for an individual to reflect on the “who” – what type of leader are they? Do they want / need to change? What would change be like for them?
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How It Works
Coaching is provided by phone and / or via face to face meetings, depending on the location and needs of the coachee(s).
Coaching can be provided to individuals and groups and teleconferencing technology is used when groups meet by phone.
Key Themes often addressed in coaching
Despite our unique differences, Rachel’s experience with coaching over several years has identified that there are often recurring themes which either emerge during coaching or are the reasons people ask for coaching. They include:
• Getting clear on legacy / personal mission and vision
• Managing stress
• Managing complex and competing work demands
• Managing change – personal and organisational
• Keeping empowered and keeping focused
• Keeping and sustaining energy
• Obtaining support in problem solving
• Simplifying complex lives to the things which really matter to the individual – often a focus on work life balance
Information Sheets
Some concepts often referred to in coaching include the following:
Personal Foundation
The concept of personal foundation is really a focus on a person’s “structural” system that supports a person’s life, like foundations support a house or roots support a tree. This is needed so that they, the person, is well grounded and anchored under stress. -
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Strengthening this structure greatly contributes to a person leading the life they want to lead. These foundations focus on three critical issues – the what, the who and the how.
The what – what others see - how we present to others
The who – the essence of who we are; your unique spirit.
The how – how we do the things we do.
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Coaching focuses on what these three essential things are for a person and more importantly how they integrate so that you live in integrity, leading the life you really want.
Where are you in integrity? Where do you think you are out of integrity?
Tolerations
When coaches talk of a toleration, they are referring to something – a situation, an influence, a condition that we have allowed to exist, which we have chosen to put up with but which drains us of energy. It is a hindering influence. Coaching conversations may look at tolerations being experienced by a person and ask if the person wants this to change and if so, what maybe some options to address these.
Consider for a moment, where and when do you feel repeatedly drained? Have a look around you. What is it you are choosing to tolerate? What would it be like if it was no longer there? What could you realistically do to address this?
Designed Environments
At first glance you might think this “doesn’t’ fit here”….. “I am not thinking of becoming an architect!!”, but in actual fact… you are!
When you are thinking about the life, the career, the job you really want, you are becoming a designer. When you want to think about how you can be more effective, more focused, more (of anything), you are thinking about what you need around you to make this work. You are designing your environment.
Consider for a moment…. You are at your desk at work.
What stops you being the most effective you can be? In what way do you contribute to the problem? How do you let others contribute to this? In other words, what is your environment like and how do you interact with it.
Designing the environment is a unique thing for each person.
Why not get coaching on designing the best environment for you?
