Thursday, February 25, 2016

Coaching as a second language


The organization that certifies me as a leadership coach - Coach Approach Ministries - held another free webinar a couple weeks ago. It was on a day I had a storage auction at work so I wasn't able to listen live. However, they usually record them and I did get a chance to listen to it the other day. In fact, I listened to it twice - once just listening, and a second time to copy down some notes. I thought it was pretty good.

My friend Brian Miller and his cohort, Chad Hall, presented the webinar. It was on "Coaching As A Second Language." I don't know if others can get to it through this link or not: https://coachapproachministries.org/coaching-as-a-second-language/. It's a tad long - almost an hour - but I listened/watched on my phone while I was at work. Below are the notes/slides I copied down (hopefully they don't mind me sharing them):

FIVE Stages of Learning A New Language:
  1. Receptive; learn the rules of the new language
  2. Vocabulary Acquisition; translating
  3. Simple sentences; not grammatically correct
  4. Fluency; thinking in the second language
  5. Mastery; dreaming in the second language
FIVE Stages in Learning the Language of Coaching:
  1. Silent/Receptive: what is coaching?
  2. Translating: I want to get the client to ______, how do I do that as a coach?
  3. Awkward, but effective. ACC level coaching.
  4. Thinking like a coach. Professional. PCC level coaching.
  5. Coaching with beauty and complexity. Masterful. 
FIVE Shifts from ORDINARY Conversations to COACHING Conversations:
  1. Unintentional to Intentional (ordinary=no agenda; just talking. intentional=intentional questions; headed somewhere)
  2. Ping Pong to Spotlight (ordinary=back and forth dialogue. coaching=focus the conversation on the client)
  3. Waiting to share what I think to I'm curious about what you think
  4. Comforting to Challenging (not challenging what the client is thinking/saying, but always challenging them to upgrade their thinking/improve/evaluate goals & practices, etc)
  5. Controlling to Engaging (coaches don't control the conversation, we engage with the client where they are)
 This was a really helpful reminder to me about some basic coaching habits, but also stretched me a bit in the need to continue growing. Good stuff, and I appreciate them sharing these freebies now and then.