Tag Archives for Viya

Seizing and Energizing the Moment to Create Positive Energy

 

Energizing is about supporting, motivating and enthusing both our selves and others. To enthuse someone means to make someone enthusiastic about something. The act of enthusing involves “energizing” the moment. Motivation is intrinsic, but positive or negative energy are contagious.  All humans desire to move forward positively. Specific energy fields were localized to a range of value that corresponded to sets of attitudes and emotions.

Optimism is at a much greater level and is built around creating intent of optimism. If we commit to being optimistic this would impact on the level of energy you have and give out. As an Energizer you want to support the Source to make positive changes. But you need to do this in a way that builds their sense of worth and allows them to develop skills and judgment.

The powerful engagement: the more we have positive energy, the more effective we will have.  Energized them is to encourage your client to take actions. Your life will be different and optimistic because of full with positive energy, if people around you enthused you instead of got angry at you for everything they wanted.

The first stage of enthusing involves defining the opportunity, or “seizing” the moment. The second stage is about “energizing” the moment, which requires the Source you are enthusing, to completely see, hear, taste and feel the situation so it becomes completely real and alive for them. Enthusing is a supportive action for the Source. By doing so, we support them in shifting their perspective. Enthusing enables the Source to get excited about the actions they are about to take. It also gets them inspired to make the changes they want in their life. Enthusing creates a powerful space for the Source to step into. They will be able to take big steps knowing they are completely supported by someone who understands them, the Energizer.

Enthusiasm is infectious. Positive energy builds on positive energy until positive action becomes irresistible. When you enthuse, you make an emotional connection with the Source. The Source “feels” your enthusiasm as much as they respond to your actual words. If you think of positive energy as a fuel that powers movement, enthusing could be described as giving the Source a “top up” of enough positive energy to help them move into action. Enthusing really is a powerful gift to give and will really empower people.

Sometimes people accept change with reluctance. Other times they welcome it with open arms. The more willingly we embrace change, the more likely that we can shape it to meet our needs. A common method people use to force someone to change their way – or make a shift – is to imply that they are bad or wrong. As coaches we believe that the client is the expert in his or her life. We want them to exercise their judgment, not rely on ours.

If we are secure and confident in our own lives, we are able to allow others to make their own choices. As coaches we try to “energize” or enthuse our clients to take action to bring about changes in their lives for the better. We support them to shift to a place of positive energy.

 

Ethics is About Determining What The Right Thing Is

Ethics is more than doing the right thing. It is about determining what the right thing is, in a range of situations, and then doing it.  It is a compass in the sea to give you the right direction when sailing in the open sea with endless possibilities.  You need some ethics framework to support your client’s vision and see their changes when they invite you enter their lives as an observer. 

A recognized way to make moral judgments is to evaluate the facts of a case in the context of ethical standards. There are three kinds of standards as relevant to the evaluation of ethics:

1. Basic ethical principles that are widely accepted and generally regarded as so fundamental as to be applicable to the past as well as the present;

2. The policies of government departments and agencies at the time; and

3. Rules of professional ethics that were widely accepted at the time.

ImageBasic Ethical Principles

Basic ethical principles are general standards or rules that all morally serious individuals accept. There are some basic ethical principles relevant to the works of coaching and consulting, including: create a safe space for sharing, non-judgmental, not to deceive others, hold client’s vision, support their goals and prevent harm, treat people fairly and with equal respect.  These principles state moral requirements; they are principles of obligation telling us what we ought to do.

One of the aims of coaching is to encourage a client to become their “best self”. Ethical behavior is the best way to demonstrate the positive qualities of coaching. Ethical behavior builds a reputation, which in turn builds client loyalty, which fuels business growth. The responsibility of a coach is to:

1. Discover, clarify and align with what the client wants to achieve

2. Encourage client self-discovery and exploration

3. Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies

4. Hold the client as responsible and accountable

5. Support the client in their journey

Creating an ethical coaching practice

1. Create policies and procedures that outline how you run your coaching practice. Make sure you share those policies and procedures with clients BEFORE they begin working with you.

2. Make sure your marketing materials or in-house communications are an accurate reflection of what you do.

3. Refer clients to other professionals when necessary.

4. Be willing to admit you made a mistake, clean it up, and move on.

5. Have a support system in place to help you make ethical decisions.

6. Join a professional body. When you join a professional body like the International Coaching Federation. The ethical framework is robust, tested and backed up by the industry.

Things to avoid saying and doing as a coach

It is up to the client to make the shifts necessary to create change in their life. They make the decisions and choose whether or not to take action. Ultimately, it is up to the client, not the coach, to succeed. Make sure all clients receive a copy of your policy and procedures and go over the documents with the client in the first session. Never, ever, ever gossip about your clients. Let your clients know that you can keep what they tell you as confidential.

Ethical Dilemmas in Corporate, Business and Executive Coaching

As business, executive or corporate coaches, you have an additional set of ethical challenges to meet.

1. Be clear on who the client is.

One way to distinguish this is to view the client as the person paying for your services and to be accountable to them for the outcomes you identified on being employed. 

2. Identify and coach to documented outcomes.

Document the outcomes your clients want to achieve from the coaching. It will be helpful to conduct pre-coaching assessment and post coaching evaluation.

3. Maintain confidentiality at all times

It is essential for the coaching to be effective that the client can expect your full confidentiality at all times. Before the coaching begins, clarify the sorts of information you will pass on and the sort of information you won’t.

4. Know when to terminate a coaching relationship.

One of the weaknesses of company funded coaching programs is that it is possible that your coaching clients are not 100% committed to the coaching.

5. Be prepared to coach your client out of their job.

Corporate, executive and business coaching is most successful when the vision and values of the client are aligned with the vision and values of the company or business. The company needs to prepare for this to support the success of a business coach.

A Non-Judgmental Communicator Listen, Feed the Message Back and Spoken Back to the Elephant

A good communicator is none judgmental, good listener, good at verify and clarify other people’s point, consider the view of others, openness and respectable, create the loving space of sharing, connect to the audiences. All forms of communication are important; including non-verbal communication, tone of your voice, body languages, gestures, and eyes contact.

Communicating is often thought about in terms of the clarity in which a message is transmitted. Their message travels to the recipient. The recipient has a different world, different language, and different emotions. As the message is being sent, it depends entirely on its meaning how the recipient chooses to understand it. If either person takes the time to check in with each other, to get clarity around the tone of the message or how it was received, then this moment grows. The only way to change the communication occurring between these two people is for one of them to want to change it. Otherwise it will never change.

Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives? The primary obstacle is a conflict that’s built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems – the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort – but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.

In the book of Switch : How to Change Things When Change Is, Hardthe Heaths show how everyday people have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results via developing the support system and technique for overcoming the obstacles of change.

This book begins by delving deep into the human psyche to examine why we all so resist change so much of the time. The authors argue that if we can learn some fundamentals of how our minds function, we can do better overcoming our opposition to change. We can figure out how to keep our desire to improve things from being overwhelmed by our skepticism, caution and fear.

People usually mean different things by change. Corporate consultants mean organizational change, and they purvey “change management” advice. Self-help authors peddle change for individuals. And activists of every stripe seek change on a bigger scale. They want to change the world.

This book looks at all kinds of change, individual, organizational and societal, in the same light. You may want to help your brother-in-law beat his gambling addiction, help your team at work cut its travel expenditures or get your neighbors to bike to work–the underlying pattern is the same. It always begins with one individual deciding to act differently. Every change, on every level, starts with a person at a time deciding to take the lead.

Change works best when each individual who begins a change or who leads changes focuses on three big things at once:

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1. Motivate the elephant. The elephant is our emotional, instinctive side, which is lazy and skittish and will take any quick payoff over a long-term reward. We all have that. The elephant is usually the first cause of any failure to change, because the change we want usually involves short-term sacrifice in pursuit of long-term benefit. Think of any time you have chosen to oversleep or overeat or think about it tomorrow, and so on. You can’t get anywhere with any change effort unless you engage a person’s emotional side to get their lazy elephant to turn to the path of change.

2. Direct the rider. The rider, perched atop the elephant, is our rational side. We presume our rational side holds the reins and chooses the way forward. But the rider’s control is precarious, because he is tiny compared with the elephant. Whenever a six-ton elephant and a 150-pound rider disagree about where to go, the elephant wins. But often what looks like elephant resistance or rider weakness is really just lack of clarity. You must give the rider clear direction with which it can steer the elephant.

3. Shape the path. Change often fails because the rider can’t keep the elephant on the road long enough to reach the destination. The elephant’s hunger for instant gratification pulls against the rider’s strength, which is the ability to think big picture and plan beyond the moment. The more you can make straight and clear the path ahead, the more you can diminish confusion between elephant and rider and make progress for both of them easier and more likely, no matter what is going on between them.

The book also takes on what its authors consider to be popular myths about change. A big one is that we’ve constantly got to solve problems. When something is broken, we worry about how to fix it. We commonly bring in outside management experts to implement industry best practices. But people naturally resist solutions brought in from elsewhere.  They suggest looking for “bright spots” within the organization instead. Native solutions can often be found by asking a simple question: “What is working, and how can we do more of it?” That question may sound simple, but at most organizations it is never asked, the authors have found.

It is not an ordinary book about organizational change, which has been a very popular topic for management advice books over the last couple of decades. It begins by delving deep into the human psyche to examine why we all so resist change so much of the time. We can learn some fundamentals of how our minds function, we can do better overcoming our opposition to change. We can figure out how to keep our desire to improve things from being overwhelmed by our skepticism, caution and fear.

In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.

Listen, Feed the Message Back and Spoken Back to the Elephant.

Being a good communicator is about recognizing that when a person speaks, the message is about where they are at in that moment. It is about them. A good communicator will also recognize that their response to a message is about where they are.

Everyday the language you use is a record of who you are and what you are feeling and thinking. It is totally and completely about you. If you stop and listen to yourself then the message that you transmitting is totally about your opinions, thoughts and feelings. It is totally about your Underlying Beliefs (UB’s). It is about your judgments, your perceptions and your perspective.

The role of coach is to listen to a message and to feed that message back to your client, and spoken back to the transmitter.  It is a great way to raise their awareness of how they communicate and the language they use. It is also a great way for your clients to see their UB’s. The language a person uses is also an important indicator of how they feel about themselves. As their coach you might want to share the language a person uses, and what the meaning is behind it. Check in with them to see what meaning they are taking, as this will give you great insight into both your way of communicating and how they are interpreting your message. The interpretation of a message is about what a person believes so it can unlock great understanding for the client.

The key of everyday communication is to take responsibility for your language and the messages you send out. Raise your awareness of the language you use and how it is a reflection of you. Don’t fall into the trap of telling someone they don’t understand what you are talking about. Own the message you are transmitting.

The second key in everyday communication is to remember that any messages that you receive are about the recipient. You do not have to take on the emotion of someone else’s message. Whatever they say is about their belief or perception.

Communicating across cultures means that language and concepts can have different meanings. It is always important to not react to the message but to check in first for it’s meaning as intended by the transmitter. You will not become offended by someone’s message, as it is not about you. Instead you will give it the distance you need to be able to see the person behind it and get the meaning of the message that the transmitter intended.

Communicating is a bit like sending a message out into a space. A person then sees the message in that space and responds to it. By doing this, it takes the emotion and the personality out of a message. It gives it enough space for us to be able to ask questions to get clarity around it.

If we always recognize that a message is based on the transmitter’s world, judgments, perceptions, etc, then we will check in to ask questions about that world to get clarity about the message. We will also make sure that both the transmitter and the recipient understand the meaning of a message.

Don’t Stuck in the Past, Create a Process and Role Model to Focus on Grows

If we focus on our strengths, they will take us to great places, if we focus on our weaknesses, they will dominate our lives and prevent us from moving forward.  The secret of being success is: “Focus on Grows”.  One of the best ways to move someone into action is to focus on their strengths and to acknowledge them.

Life is a journey starting by facing the changes every day.  If we make commitments to change and focus on our vision, we will create shifts in our lives, to change our behavior and achieve our desired goals. Making commitments creates a great structure for causing things to really happen. By making a commitment, you are holding yourself responsible and accountable to take a specific action to produce a given result.  A good question to ask ourselves would be: “What’s the best way that I need support now to move into action?”

Anyone who has accomplished anything worthwhile has consciously or unconsciously followed through on a goal. Goals have the power to keep us focused on a purpose. But we all need the support from our family, friends or coach to remain in action and achieve goals.  Sometimes, we feel that we are getting stuck in the past, there are a number of techniques to shift our thinking forward:

“How would I like it to look?”

“What would I like in my life right now?

“What have I learnt from this experience?”

“How can I apply that learning to the current situation?”

“What can I put in place to make this goal easier to achieve?”

“What kind of job would make me feel fulfilled and excited to get up each day for work”.

“How can I best support myself to achieve these goals?”

Unfortunately in life there are some people only too willing to focus on weaknesses and shortcomings and precious few willing to focus on strengths. The reality is “constructive criticism” is never constructive at all.  To build on these strengths instead, is to grow and believe in our uniqueness.

Most of us live full and busy lives with competing demands for our precious time and energy. We need to priorities so that only those things that really matter get our full energy.  Reasons why people make goals for themselves that are not aligned with their value is social pressure from peers or pressure from family and friends. This misalignment can present itself in two ways. First they can achieve the goal and then be left wondering why it doesn’t make them as happy as they thought it might. Alternatively, it can manifest itself as setting goals that are never achieved.

Creating a Process

A process or system has values attached to it so ensure the values are aligned with the client. Making and keeping goals is an art rather than a science. There are many paths to successful goal achievement.

1. Keep goals up front. Put the goals in a prominent place or review them daily.  Ask yourself: “How can I keep those goals in sight so that I don’t forget about them”.

2. Be on the lookout for goal hijackers. Goals and actions must work together. Another way is for you to ask: “How will this decision support my goals?” or “Will this take me closer or further from my goals?”

3. Remember that goals are a marathon, not a sprint. Swaying from time to time happens to all of us. It is the journey that counts. Setting a combination of short and long term goals is important. Long-term goals provide a vision; short-term steps along the way help us to remain focused and to feel a sense of achievement. Remember to always look for the acknowledgement.

4. Remain flexible. Most people move from the realm of the “known” and discover things that we “didn’t know they didn’t know”. By keeping focused on our values we can feel free to rework goals when necessary to match our evolving ‘reality.’

5. Support: Some goals can be achieved alone, but some require the support of others.

6. Structures: We are much more likely to achieve goals if we have structures in place to support us. We need someone to play two roles to support us: one role is to enthuse us; the other is to make sure that we maximize the chance of success by putting in place structures.

7. Pull Towards Positive.  If we feel that we are being pulled towards something positive rather than pushing themselves away from something negative, we will have much more success in achieving our goals.

8. Negotiate accountability. No one else will hold the account for goals unless we specifically requests someone or a coach discussing goals, or has asked them to look over our goals.

9. Often we get locked into a goal, feeling perhaps that the goal is “a must have.” If we do not achieve the goal we may feel like a failure. It will be helpful if someone will help us to re-frame the situation so we can go for the goal, but not get locked into it.

10. Celebrate! It is so important to celebrate the achievement of goals. Celebrate our achievement as well as the small steps. We can motivate ourselves by asking the question of “How am I going to celebrate reaching this magnificent goal?”

Recognizing Action

If you have a coach to support your growth, remaining in action is a fundamental of coaching. At the beginning of the relationship, most of the coach will make it clear that they expect them to be in action.

When it comes to action, the three most powerful tools are acknowledgement, acknowledgement and acknowledgement! Also acknowledgement is essential. Simply by pointing out how you have come, or how well aligned our actions are, can be a fantastic motivator to continue in our path of growth.

Our coach may be the only person in our life who acknowledges our growth. He or she may be the only person who knows about their most important goals. Having someone acknowledge how far we have come can make the journey seem light and full of joy and ensure that we get the very most out of the coaching relationship.

Enhancing Strengths

We can create a Strengths Inventory by brainstorming with our family and friends about what our strengths are. As we continues to create action in our life it will be important to draw on the strengths we have when things become difficult. Any focus on weakness is bound to amplify it. Most of us will remember criticism long after they have forgotten praise.

A more constructive approach is to focus on our strengths and set goals that build on our strengths. Only after our strengths are thoroughly explored should the focus turn to distractions, barriers and roadblocks.

Gathering resources to support the action will be an important step in the process of achieving goals. To be successful in the process, we will all benefit by preparing ahead of time before setting out on our journey. When we are creating a list of what we will need to do, both internally and externally, to prepare for the journey. This may include aspects such as creating time every day for meditation, writing a journal or exercising. It may also include getting our finances in order, or creating a strong support system.

Goal setting is only the beginning. Once the goals are established, we will need to create an action plan to reach the desired goal.  One goal may have many sub-goals that need to be accomplished before achieving the final desired result.

Prevent slipping into old patterns – sometimes, temptation might slip in and the we may take a few steps backwards before moving forwards. If this happens, understand that this is normal. There are many reasons why people fear success and unconsciously sabotage their own development. It is important to acknowledge the clients efforts in maintaining a forward focus, even if you are not seeing much action.

Creating an action plan – Once we work through the process and has established the goals that enthuse them – that we feel passionate about – it is time to create an action plan. This plan will create a structure for us to work with in the future. By creating an action plan, we will have a road map to follow, as well as a process to track successes and challenges.  Affirmation is also a good tool to use when negative self-talk creeps in.

Focusing on solutions – When creating action, it is more useful to focus on the solution rather than on the problem. Taking action and moving forward, staying focused on solutions. When you discover something that doesn’t work, do something different. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results is fruitless.

Build on past successes – One of the most powerful tools to use is to build on past successes. Reminding us the past successes can provide a shift in perspective.

A tool for tapping into past successes is to create a Success Life Line. Starting from the left side and working toward the right, have them write the date and a short statement of every success we have had since then. Whenever we becomes discouraged we can review our success life line and tap into the power of that moment to gain encouragement.

Create a list of encouraging role models – Support ourselves by discovering who our role models are and why. Role models can be very powerful in providing courage and inspiration to follow through with those things that we might not otherwise think we can possibly do. Role models let us know what is possible for us. If they can do it, so can we.

Enlist the help of a support team – As we begins to take action, we will need the help of a support team. We must surround themselves with people that are going to be helpful and encouraging.

Creating action is about setting up a good solid structure for the purpose of moving us forward. We can finally achieve what we desire by simply creating action.

Creating Action: Inspiration and Empowerment Models

Coaching is all about creating Action. Action is about self-development, an opportunity for you to experience something new.  A good coach is to create inspiration, not only motivation. Motivation is an external driving power, while inspiration will create the sense of internal empowerment. When someone take action align with their value, there is the inspiration comes from. People who passionate about their changes, will be happy in the life and the possibilities for their life.

Action is about energy, timing and motivation.  You will need to reflect your situation, take the ownership to embrace the chance, measure and celebrate your progress.  You can use START doing, STOP doing or CONTINUE doing model to create something differences … Keep your goal positive and flexible, instead of negative, will help you to adjust the rhyme and create the pace of change.

GROW, SMART models and VISION Board will also bring “positive information” to help you to clarify your mind, realize your goal, and understand if your action will achieve realistic goals.

G (Goal): This is the end point, where the client wants to be. The goal has to be defined in such a way that it is very clear to the client when they have achieved it.

R (Reality): This is how far the client is away from their goal. If the client were to look at all the steps they need to take in order to achieve the goal, the Reality would be the number of those steps they have completed so far.

O (Obstacles): There will be Obstacles stopping the client getting from where they are now to where they want to go. If there were no Obstacles the client would already have reached their goal; and (Options) Once Obstacles have been identified, the client needs to find ways of dealing with them if they are to make progress. These are the Options.

W (Way Forward): The Options then need to be converted into action steps which will take the client to their goal.

SMART goal (from Top Achievement) including below elements: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time Frame relating to how you achieve your goal.

A Vision Board is simply a visual representation of your aspirations in life. It is a tool for you to be able to manifest all of your dreams into reality by focusing your energy on them.

It is based on the Law of Attraction that simply states that “like attracts like”. Your thoughts are a form of energy and whatever energy you send out to the universe, the universe conspires to bring like energies back to you.

The idea behind this is that when you surround yourself with images of who you want to become, what you want to have, where you want to live, or where you want to vacation, your life changes to match those images and those desires.

There is a part of our brain called the reticular activating system or RAS which filters all the incoming information. The RAS is also responsible for identifying certain information that we consider important.

Create DOT Types of Vision Boards:

(1)  “Desired” Vision Board

Do this vision board if: You’re very clear about your desires.
- You want to change your environment or surroundings.
- There is a specific thing you want to manifest in your life.

(2)  “Opening” Vision Board

Do this vision board if: You’re not sure what exactly you want
- You’ve been in a period of depression or grief
- You have a vision of what you want, but are uncertain about it in some way.
- You know you want change but don’t know how it’s possible.

(3)  “Theme” Vision Board

Do this vision board if: It’s your birthday or New Years Eve or some significant event that starts a new cycle.
- If you are working with one particular area of your life, eg: work & career.

Success

  • Success is the achievement of the things in life we are passionate about.
  • Success is not what we have been told or instructed to believe.
  • Success is personal and can only be achieved when measured against the goals we have set for ourselves.
  • Success is a change in the way we view life.
  • Success is moving forward.
  • Success feels great.

Actions create a momentum and this in turn shifts us out of our current situation. This movement shifts the energy in our bodies and helps to even change our perspective. This is the beauty of creating action. It moves you to a new space, time, and journey.

To create action requires personal discipline. The result of this personal discipline is success and personal achievement. It is at this moment that you need to get focused again. Loss of focus means loss of action. Creating action can be challenging – what next step to take, how to take it?  Your need some practice or coaching to help you to think about these questions:

  • Have you ever written a letter to yourself in the future? It is five years from now. What does the story say? What have you achieved, what are you known for? Draw or write what you see.
  • List all the things you have achieved by this time?
  • How are you feeling now that you have achieved these goals? Can you visualize yourself?
  • What are you most passionate about?
  • Write a list of the top 5 things you have achieved.
  • Prioritize this list. What is number one all the way to five?
  • Under each item identify 5 steps you could take to begin to achieve this goal?
  • Share this information with someone you trust and who will support you.
  • Tell your support person how you want them to support you in achieving these 5 steps and 5 goals.
  • What is the first step or action you need to take now to achieve these goals?

After you have gone through this process you may observe an increase in energy in your body. It is very exciting to be thinking about moving forward, achieving the vision you have just created. Acknowledge your achievements. Bring yourself back to the moment of energy positively flowing through you, the excitement rising again. Exercise, meditate, do yoga, or whatever you need to do to bring yourself back to this moment of energy and focus. Think about what you have already achieved and what you are grateful for. Notice how you are now feeling. You will notice that your energy has gone from an inward reflecting, perhaps even negative self talk conversation to an outward focus. This shift in energy will propel you forward and you then need to work out what is your next action step.

The role as a professional coach is to create a space for listening, asking questions to help their clients to clarify their plans and to acknowledge their development.

Here are some examples of a Motion Question:

  • What’s the first step you need to take?
  • What would someone, who is fearless, do about this?
  • What needs to happen now?
  • What would it make sense to do now?
  • Can you come up with some action steps to take this week?
  • What is the risk involved in this if you do not do it?
  • What is stopping you from moving forward?

There may be many possible ways to move forward and, one thing we know for sure is that the one the client comes up with him or herself is the one they are most likely to follow through on. If a coach feel a suggestion coming on, he or she will try counting to 5. More often than not, if the coach gives clients the space, and ask the right questions, they will make their own action suggestions. The coach may send an invitation to the client: “I invite you to take half a day out of your schedule this week to finish setting up your home office. Do you think you want to do that?” Frequently, making an invitation supports the choice for the client and they take up the opportunity.

Deliver Coach’s Strengths and Passions

There are different ways that coaching niche, model and tools can be developed and structured; a well-trained and professional coach will focus on the structure that best suits his strengths and passions:

  • How long are your sessions? 30, 45 or 60 minutes
  • How regular are your sessions? Weekly, biweekly or bimonthly
  • Face to face or phone? Skype is also a easy-to-use medium
  • How do clients pay? Cash, check or credit card
  • How much do they pay? Your price you charge vs value you offer
  • What standards will you commit to for your clients?
  • What do you require of your clients, and how can you powerfully hold them accountable to this?

Laser Coaching is a very precise form of coaching that cuts right to the heart of an issue. Laser coaching takes between 5 and 15 minutes and focuses on one main issue. This may involve strategies such as asking the client to describe the “truth” around their problem, and then pointing out an alternative “truth” about the situation, which the client can either accept or reject. It could involve asking the client: “What else is true about this situation?”

Group Coaching

The requirement to remain positive and look for strengths and opportunities needs to be maintained by the whole group and not just the coach. Group coaching has a slightly different dynamic to individual coaching as each participant has less time to be individually focused on.

Corporate Coaching

You have to answer to two sets of needs: the organization’s and the individual’s.  On occasion you may find yourself in a situation where the needs of the organization and the needs of the individual are quite different.  The first issue is confidentiality.

Face-to-face and phone coaching

The speed and convenience of telecommunications means that a lot of coaching these days is conducted over the phone. The strategies covered in ‘Power Listening’, such as responding, paraphrasing, and checking perspectives become extremely important.

Professional standards

Just as you have standards for your life, it will empower you to also commit to standards for your practice. Standards will give you a level of performance or quality to aim for and achieve.

Policies

It’s important to have a document that outlines what someone can expect from working with you and that answers most questions they may have. The best time to introduce clients or prospective clients to your policies is in the beginning of coaching session. While we will refer to it as a Policies document, you might call it a Coaching Guide, or All About Coaching.

  1. Procedures: What I do when X happens
  2. Logistics: How the coaching works
  3. FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

To construct a Policies document, ask yourself:

1. What does the client need to know to get the most out of our relationship?

2. What do I need to communicate up front so there is no misunderstanding?

3. How do I set up a powerful structure for accountability with my client?

Keep it clear

When you are immersed in a specialized field of knowledge such as coaching, it’s often easy to forget that others don’t share your knowledge. Start with a definition of what coaching is and then briefly describe what you do and why you do it.

Logistics

Logistics involve creating structure around when and how the coaching will take place. Logistics covers when, how and for how long calls will occur.

Structure, Freedom and Flexibility

Structure allows for freedom and flexibility, because it gives a platform from which people can negotiate the things that are really important.

Frequently Asked Questions

Giving what your client’s most frequently asked questions you can assure them that you are aware of their concerns.

Believe in the Beauty of Coaching

Being a coach is being in touch with the deepest thoughts and beliefs, believing in opening to learning in every aspect of life, facing the fears, recognizing them and finding a solution to move beyond them. Coaching is all about self-awareness, self-development, as well as living with a mindset that is built around positivity and possibility.  It’s about really knowing who you are and what your strengths area. What are the strengths that can leverage with the coaching lifestyle?

As a coach, I am visionary, forward looking, imagination, creativity, balance, action orientation, think out of box, life passion, and accountability. When I work from my strengths, my confidence will be strong and my energy in the coaching session will be invigorating.

Being a coach is the most wonderful profession to be in. Everyday I work with people who see new ways of loving who they are. I see the moment when a client shifts their perspective. I feel the power of possibility. I can see how my client’s lives change and how their changes impact other lives. Coaches will be part of these joyful wondrous moments in life. This is what being a coach is all about.

Always reflect these questions in you life.  What are your … (1) VISION: the picture image of the desired future that you seek to create (2) VALUES: How you expect to travel to, what do you believe and how you intend to operate, to behave as you pursue your vision? (3) PURPOSE: “What am I here to do?”

Having a COACHING MANIFESTO with vision and knowing ”Who am I? Where am I going? Why am I going there?” will help me clearly define my work in the below areas as a Coach:

INTUITIVELY identify my Inherent Coaching Talents (Niche), recognize the type of coaching situations and circumstances that naturally and easily attract my attention and passion.  This will keep me interested in my client…and make me interesting to my client as my competence and experience in the areas of: business and leadership management, marketing communication, career development and cross-cultural transition.

CHOOSE my clients is essential to building a practice that is founded on integrity and professionalism.  I am more comfortable with the person who wants to explore their potentials in career, business and set the aggressive goals.

Create my Coaching Presence is an effort that will be ongoing throughout your coaching career.  My coaching niches may shift over time.  There are NO absolute paths to creating my presence. I will go on the journey and discover the marketing methods that work best for me, and create the style and the type of reputation I want.

ACKNOWLEDGE & Set Boundaries For my Coaching Practice, which is one of the first behaviors incorporate into the business structure by establishing a clear perspective for the clients, increase credibility and minimizing misunderstandings. We teach people how we want to be treated, respected and appreciated.

CLARIFY and Establish my Coaching “Net Worth” is a true test of our self-esteem and self-perception. What would I be willing to pay a coach? The value of my time, my special talents, my resources, my cumulated experience.  Clarifying and establishing the coaching’s “net worth” will empower me to stay focused on the value of my coaching, while offering my clients a perspective that my services are unique, unmatched and well worth every penny they invest.

HONOR my Personal And Professional Values is essential to building a coaching practice that is based on integrity and professionalism. My top 5 guiding principles in life including: Achievement, Balance, Creativity, Life Passion and Personal Growth. Honoring my personal and professional values will enable me to IDENTIFY my GOALS which will specify my ACTIONS and produce my DESIRED RESULTS which will… reflect my VALUES!

Coaching is a Lifestyle, not a Job

The “heart of coaching” is the engagement between coach and client.  Developing a unique coaching tools is a journey, which can support the learning opportunity from sharing the reality.  Developing an effective coaching tool help the coach to refine and focus on business, prioritize the works to meet the demand of different types of customers.  It’s “the power of saying”: the more you are talking to, the more your mind is ready to accept the opportunity.  Developing a writer’s blog can also keep the thoughts and ideas of being a skilled professional.

The coach, at the point of engagement with clients, determines the best strategies to use to move forward with an individual based on his or her unique combination of skills and knowledge.  A coach has to internalized the process, test and modify the model.  All models can be added as “coaching tool kit”.   A big part of the process of writing coaching tools is confidence: knowing that the ideas and practices that you bring into coaching are valuable enough to document and put out into the world.  The reason for coaches to develop an own tool is because every coach is unique.  They find that developing their own tools is an extension of developing their own unique coaching model.   When a coach becomes confidence and expertise in the journey, the financial reward will come.

Developing a coaching tool is a fantastic marketing process, the coaches are putting their own expertise out into the world.  By branding new coaching tools, the coach can promote their own expertise and distribute the brand widely.  The journey of building a tool will help the coach to Build a Confident Business.

A coaching tool will help to build and reinforce clients’ strengths.  It will include a template for preparing coaching sessions, including clients’ reflection and developing goals, which will help both parties to focus the coaching session.  It will also be powerful to develop a tool for shifting perspective and use in a strategic way in the coaching processes.

ICA (International Coaching Academy) provides an organized and sophisticated training to new coaches.  If a coach can develop and integrate these tools into the practice, it will create a unique coaching model and business, either individual or group coaching.  It helps their clients to aware and build their goals, identify the issues, appreciate their strengths, understand the structure, engaging with other people together.  The coaching will impact and do something differently, make their clients’ life and this world different, and hopefully, make this world better.

Coaching ROI

Measuring application, implementation and impact of coaching is the heart of measuring the Return on Investment (ROI) of coaching. At these levels, we look beyond the coachee’s reaction to, and satisfaction of, the coaching, and consider how they have taken what they have learned and applied their learning in a meaningful way that produces a business impact. 

It’s not uncommon for coachees to rate their coaching as relevant, useful, important, and also indicate that they have learned about their strengths and development areas, but still not translate these learnings into changes in behaviors that result in business impact.

Final Report of ICF Global Coaching Client Study now available

The first worldwide survey of coaching clients reveals coaching generates a solid return on investment for clients and creates positive changes in client goal areas for both individuals and companies.

According to the Final Report of the ICF Global Coaching Client Study commissioned by the International Coach Federation (ICF), companies that use professional coaching for business reasons have seen a ROI of 7 times their initial investment, Individual clients reported a ROI of 3.44 times their investment.

“Whether contemplating using coaching as a business strategy for these precarious times, or looking to achieve personally relevant goals, people will find great value in the results of the ICF Global Coaching Client Study,” says Karen Tweedie, PCC1, 2009 president of the ICF, the world’s leading professional organization for coaches. “This study shows 86 percent of companies that use or have used coaching report at least a 100 percent return on their initial investment, as well as a significant impact in other client goal areas.”

Three distinct phases of research were conducted: qualitative coach research; qualitative client research and quantitative client research. This included a series of 14 in-depth interviews with coaches; 5 focus groups with 41 client participants; and the key component of the research, a 20-minute online survey of 2,165 coaching clients from 64 countries, conducted September to November 2008.

This study is the most ambitious global research project to date. It had gathered valuable information from around the world on the coaching profession from the unique perspective of the coaching client. In addition to putting a value to ROI, the study examines client motivations and their assessment of the effectiveness of coaching, which create a huge benefit to coaching professionals and the public.

This study showed a positive change in many of clients’ goal areas.  80% of coaching clients report they have experienced a positive change in self-esteem/self confidence as a result of partnering with a professional coach. In addition to a boost in self-esteem/self confidence, respondents also reported experiencing a positive impact in relationships, communication skills, interpersonal skills, work performance and work/life balance as a result of their coaching partnership.

The ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. Coaching is a distinct service and differs greatly from therapy, consulting, mentoring or training. Individuals who engage in a coaching relationship can expect to experience fresh perspectives on personal challenges and opportunities, enhanced thinking and decision-making skills, enhanced interpersonal effectiveness, and increased confidence in carrying out their chosen work and life roles.

And, without establishing an ROI approach upfront where there are clear linkages of learning to behavior change to business impact, it is less likely that learning will be transferred to behavior change and even less likely that changes in behavior are connected to the most important business impact measures for the coachee and the organization.

Application, Implementation, and Impact Overview


Whether you manage a coaching program for an organization, or you are a coach who provides coaching services to one or two people within an organization, you can capture both application/implementation data as well as impact data.  The measurement coaching, linking coaching to results involves 5 different levels:

- Level 1: Reaction and satisfaction that coaching is relevant and useful

- Level 2: Learning of new skills, knowledge or insights of behaviors outlined at the start of coaching

- Level 3: Improvement or changes in behaviors defined at the start of coaching

- Level 4: Monetary impact to organization such as improved revenue or reduced costs

- Level 5: Return-on-investment for every $1 invested, the return of that investment

The International Coach Federation is the leading global organization for coaches, with more than 12,800 members in over 90 countries, dedicated to advancing the coaching profession by setting high ethical standards, providing independent certification, and building a worldwide network of credentialed coaches. The ICF is the only organization that awards a global credential which is currently held by over 5,100 coaches worldwide. For more information on how to become or find an ICF Credentialed coach, please visit http://www.coachfederation.org.

 

 

Self-Development is a Life Commitment

Developing a Self Development Plan is a Life Commitment.A self-development plan must always be flexible enough to allow for insights, new ideas and opportunities that can’t be planned in advance. When we begin our self-development plan, we concentrate on the things that “we know we don’t know”, however along the journey we hit the territory of things that “we didn’t know we don’t know”. By mapping the new direction of the journey, we have a powerful tool for reflection on the way we learn and develop which we can apply when we take on a new learning challenge. The most effective tool in learning is a commitment. We need to think carefully about where we want to direct our learning and what we want to get out of any new learning endeavor. A self-development plan can help us to think through this. There are many forms that a plan can take, including pictures, graphs, colors or tables.
The structure plan includes: (1) A description of an end point, (2) Some strategies to reach that end point, (3) Some milestones and achievement, (4) Timelines to measure the journey, (5) A reflection of your learning – evaluation
Coaches are passionate advocates for learning. One of the key skills and attributes of a good coach is a commitment to continual learning. In adult learning theory, “transfer” is the ability to apply in one context something learnt in another. Coaching has a high level of learning “transfer” for a number of reasons: (1) It is ongoing to use “spaced practice” of new skills with their clients.
(2) It is experiential to learn and reflect their experience that will come up new insights or ideas.
(3) It is supported by self-reflection and goal setting
(4) It is measured by client’s development.
The first step to take and to create a self-development plan is to develop “vision of life”, couple powerful questions will help you to clarify your life purpose, 
i.e. “I am … I will not … I will like … I will … I love … and I believe”. Here is the vision of my life:
I am a dream weaver 
I will not stagnate in life and don’t grow 
I will like to be freedom and be grateful 
I will maximize my potential and help others to fulfill their dreams 
I love traveling in different cities, working in different places, living in different culture, and meeting different people
I believe in positive energy, self-development, self-awareness and self-leadershipAfter I visualized my life vision, I start to create my Development Planand set up my milestones, I use quarterly and yearly goal as well as measurement for each goals.
(1) Share my learning via Blogging as an ongoing self-reflection via “www.viyacoach.com”
(2) Participate ICA as an active member in global and Chinese communities
(3) Complete a learning level in every month x 6 levels: April – Oct 2012
(4) Explore a new coaching model in every 2 month: eg: NLP
(5) Start my Peer Coach in May and complete 24 sessions in August 2012
(6) Coach 5 clients in June and complete 60-80 session in Oct 2012
(7) Confirm the topic for my research paper in August 2012
(8) Start my Coach business before my Birthday in 1st Oct 2012
(9) Accredit my ICA certificate before Dec 2012
(10) Certified as ACC by ICF with 100 hrs experience in Q1 2013
(11) Pursuit PCC (Professional Certified Coach) with 750 hrs experience in end 2014I will also use four points or levels to evaluate my self-development learning journey:
Reaction – outline learning expectation and how the activity met these expectations. Most post-workshop evaluation forms follow this model of evaluation.
Learning – develops the learning activity, including knowledge acquired or attitudes changed.
Behavior – a very similar principle to “transfer”, which is the ability to apply the newly developed skills to a practical situation.
Results – with the ability to produce new achievements is the ultimate indicator of learning success.
 Viya Chen April 12, 2012, Singapore

Explore Potential

The coach’s working life is to support a client on their unique learning journey, trigger their self-learning processes via their own style.  Client has freedom and passion of being self, see self-accomplished.  The role of coach is to explore client’s potential, determination, organized different sources of information, and take proper actions to fulfill their dream.

Confucius’s “Experiential learning” philosophy: “Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand.” Is the best description of how a coach can help client to involve the self-directed learning processes, develop the ownership of their solution and take next steps.

I am an activist learner, who enjoy involved in new experience and enthusiastic about new idea.  However, as the role of a coach, I need to practice as a Reflector who stand back and look at situation from different perspectives.  I also need to expand my logically theories as a  Theorists to integrate observations into complex, as well as take the advantage as a Pragmatists who apply concepts to their job.

The most interesting part as a coach is to explore self-awareness and shift the paradigm, and apply different learning style during the role-play.  We also need to strategically know client’s learning style in order to listen, encourage, support, question, challenge and co-plan with the client so that the client learns to manage the challenges of their own lives.

By learning client’s learning styles instrument, a coach will be able to speed up by focusing on that style, understands their barriers to learning, help a client in their relationships with others, and help shape the coaching sessions.

Bring a Positive Impact

My vision is to have the freedom to travel, work and live in different places and have the change to meet people from different part of this world.  It will be great to help people and bring a positive impact to people I meet.  Coaching might be a profession that I can put my efforts to work on as my 2nd career.

Coaching is a hybrid field, needs a strict set of quality guidelines to ensure practitioners having the skills to be an effective coach.  Coaches choose to become credentialed, operate within a professional framework and follow good ethical standard.  Ethical standard is the business foundation of being a coach.  It helps coaches build a trusted relationship with clients.  ICF has outlined 11 core competencies fit into 4 headings and can match different stage in the coaching process.

The highlights of core competencies of coaching are to use an open style to employ active listening, powerful questioning, discover clients’ concerns and build trusted relationship.  Coaching bring positive impact, design goals with actions and progress, with the ethical attitude.

The 11 key words have already highlighted the competencies required as a professional coach in below 4 categories.

Co-creating the relationship via producing mutual respect and trust as well as employing a style that is open, flexible and confident.

Communicating effectively including active listening to support client self-expression, ability to ask powerful questions to revel the information needed to the coaching relationship, and use language has the positive impact on the client

Facilitating learning and results via creating awareness, designing actions for ongoing learning in work/life situation and taking new action, goal setting and managing accountability.

Related behaviors have been developed by ICF, including what the competencies look, sound and feel like in practice.

If the coach has a clear vision of “bring a positive impact” to the clients and help people to achieve their dream, this role will improve people’s spiritual life and make small changes to this world.

Self-directed Learning

“Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand.”

Thousands years ago, Chinese philosopher Confucius had already shared this concept of “experiential learning”.  However, until today, most of educational systems in Asia still prefer to “tell” students what to remember.  My younger son in his 7 years’ learning have already transferred to 5 schools with different system; best private school in Taiwan, Australian school, American school, Singapore government school, then moved to Independent school in his 1st year of secondary education.

I really tell the differences between systems and fully understand that “learning” cannot one system fits all.  But it is really a tough challenge for teachers to see the difference of kids, identified the difference of needs and offer different ways of learning to nourishing our future leader.

I found that if we can understand our kids’ learning style, they learn better and enjoy more.  If the leader of a group can tell the difference of his team members’ learning style, the manager can facilitate the team and build a high performance team.

(1) Activists

Activists like to be involved in new experiences. They are open minded and enthusiastic about new ideas but get bored with implementation. They enjoy doing things and tend to act first and consider the implications afterwards. They like working with others but tend to hog the limelight.

(2) Reflectors

Reflectors like to stand back and look at a situation from different perspectives. They like to collect data and think about it carefully before coming to any conclusions. They enjoy observing others and will listen to their views before offering their own.

(3) Theorists

Theorists adapt and integrate observations into complex and logically sound theories. They think problems through in a step-by-step way. They tend to be perfectionists who like to fit things into a rational scheme. They tend to be detached and analytical rather than subjective or emotive in their thinking.

(4) Pragmatists

Pragmatists are keen to try things out. They want concepts that can be applied to their job. They tend to be impatient with lengthy discussions and are practical and down to earth.

Peter Honey and his team had developed Honey & Mumford learning styles questionnaire (LSQ) to help respondents better understand their preferred ways of learning and become a better all round learner.  The tired and tested LSQ has two versions of the LSQ, the 80-item and 40-item.

We all have preferred ways of learning and learn better from some activities than others. The tried and tested Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ) will help you become a better all round learner.

80-item questionnaire is the original questionnaire:

  • Ideal for people who want a more comprehensive questionnaire
  • Better for a longer session where there is time to explore

learning styles and the suggestions for action in more depth

  • More appropriate for people who can relate to the business references
  • More likely to appeal to traditionalists who want to use the original Honey & Mumford questionnaire.

40-item questionnaire:

  • Ideal as an initial introduction for people who have not previously given much consideration to how they learn
  • Useful if time is at a premium – the questionnaire takes less time to complete and score
  • Helps people stay focused – there are fewer suggestions for action to choose between
  • The wording is concise and better suited to a more diverse audience.

The modern and systematic way of learning analysis will help Confucius to better leverage his theory and help his students become a all-round learner by facing his or her own learning style.

Tell me, show me and involve me … in the real life, even we have difficulties to “involve” all learners in all aspects, this LSQ, at least, remind us how to allocate our resource in better balance in telling, showing and involving people.