Becoming a coach: me and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme

I’ve got a permanent sugar rush of thoughts and feelings about coaching and training. I’m like Monsieur Jourdain in Moliere’s ‘Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme’, who discovered that, all his life, he had been speaking prose without knowing it.

Fifteen months ago, I started a serious executive coaching programme. Two days ago, I attended a final assessment day. Soon I will find out whether or not I have met the standard.

To get to the assessment day, I had to notch up one induction day, four residential training modules, four tutorials, dozens of practice coaching sessions, much reading of coaching texts and articles, four required learning logs, two unplanned blogs, and one theoretical essay. Having gone through all of that, it’s no wonder I am having a rush of thoughts and feelings about learning and coaching. 

What lies beneath my training approach

I’ve made a connection between Gestalt based coaching and my approach to delivering leadership training. Like Monsieur Jourdain, I have discovered that, all my life, I have been using Gestalt methodology to underpin my training courses, without knowing it. 

Instinctively, I design training programmes as participative learning journeys. I encourage learners to:

• listen and observe
• notice what they are thinking and feeling
• gather and make sense of data
• keep an open mind, and
• work together to make sense of challenges and dilemmas.

From a Gestalt coaching perspective, this is about being and learning in the moment, and noticing patterns and connections. It’s about raising awareness of real needs, and mobilising energy towards appropriate action. 

I’m still processing what I have learned. I can’t wait to review my training practice through a Gestalt lens. Meanwhile, here is the 'before' and 'after' of my approach to coaching.

How I coached before the course	How I coach now
Took responsibility for solving the client’s dilemmas and problems	I work in partnership with the client
Analysed what the client was telling me	Observe, reflect, summarise
Tried very hard to be nice	Not afraid to challenge appropriately
Asked lots of unhelpful (dissonant) questions	Comfortable with silence
Talked about my experiences	Appropriately disclose if the client is interested in hearing about my experience
Believed I must have the answers	Not afraid to say ‘I don’t know what to do with this’
Pushed the client into action	Create space for the client to discover what they want to do
Made assumptions about what the client was telling me	Form working hypotheses AND keep an open mind
Thought ahead constantly which affected my ability to be present	Stay fully present with the client
Relied on listening and questioning	Invite the client to experiment Gestalt and Cognitive Behavioural methodologies
Felt awkward contracting and closing	Am more confident when contracting and helping client to identify what they have learned

It’s been quite a journey. I really must apologise to all my friends who volunteered to be coached by me, when I didn’t know what I know now.

16 March 2013

Thanks for reading my blog. If you liked this page, you might like to check out my business website which has more content on leadership and learning.

www.kellowlearning.com

Who was that person?

‘Who was that person?’

Who did you meet recently who made you feel glad to be alive? Who made you laugh out loud? Who shared something with you that made you want to do more / learn more? Perhaps they shared an experience, an insight, a book or a film, or even a dream they had last night? Like the lady in the cheese shop who told me that she had dreamt she was cutting cheese. In her dream she could feel the texture of the cheese as she was cutting. "That's unusual", she said.

‘I just met a wonderful girl / guy…’

I’ve been meeting a lot of new people, recently. I can’t help noticing there are some people I am really glad to have met. They leave a warm impression. I think about them next day, and the day after. I tell my friends about them.  And there are others, who, though I spent time with them, I just didn’t meet.

Block Button Blues

The people I didn’t meet are ‘the blockers’. There are at least two types of blockers: conscious and unconscious. The conscious blockers don’t ask, or tell, because they don't need to. They know everything. The unconscious blockers are not aware that they could ask, but they do like to tell. Conscious blockers have their block button permanently set to 'On'. Unconscious blockers talk ‘at me’ about themselves, until I can find an excuse to move on. I prefer not to use the block button, if I can possibly avoid it.

It’s all about connecting

The reason why I am thinking about good and bad conversations, is that I am learning to be an executive coach. One of the things I have learned is that coaches don’t need tools and techniques. The key to being an effective coach is to focus on what is happening in the space between the coach and the coachee. Coaches have to be fully present, and be willing to disclose their thoughts and feelings, provided they do this in the service of their clients' learning. It’s all about connecting.

Marvellous meetings

Some of my best conversations recently have been with complete strangers: a very cool Jamaican grandfather, who I met with his daughter, and granddaughters, in the queue for David Hockney at the Royal Academy; a funny, original Turkish businesswoman on a flight from Istanbul to London; a straight-talking Scottish fundraiser in Oxford who, like me, loves St Andrews in Scotland. There was a kind of energy and openness between us that made the time pass quickly.    

Memorable meetings

You can’t expect to connect with everyone you meet, I hear you say. And yet, one of my beliefs is that it is important to be curious about the people around you. You never know who they are, what they do, or who they know. You don’t know what opportunities there might be for something new and good to come out of conversation with this person. You might learn something. You might be able to help each other in some way. Or you might just spend a few very pleasant moments in a queue, on a plane, or a train. And days, or months, or years later, find yourself remembering.