Copyright 1999, Shirley Anderson

Ask questions and later in the call, have situations ready that you'd like to be coached on by me and by the participants on the call.

I.  DO YOUR HOMEWORK
Pay your dues; read EVERYTHING printed from Coach U.  Start with the CTP Welcome Letter, then read the Coaching Forms Book from cover to cover.   Make sure you know and every client gets a copy of the pieces Thomas wrote on the Nature of Professional Coaching and the Basics of the Coaching Relationship.

Another MUST READ is the Coaching Primer -- I believe it’s available from the web site.  Much of it has been incorporated into individual modules, but together, it’s a fabulous collection of Lists of 7 -- this pre-dated the Top 10 Lists.

When you start classes, read EVERY word in the Module Workbook.  This is the way you will be able to take in the mass of the material, one bite at a time.

- Regardless of where we came from, what we bring with us, what we knew before, we are all humbled at our introduction to the mass of  information and ideas that are available at Coach University.  It is easy to be overwhelmed. It is easy to be discouraged and/or turned off by what there is to learn and assimilate.   BUT THIS IS THE PATH TO WISDOM in coaching.

- I was lucky.  I started a long time ago with Thomas, and I proofed and edited much of his early documentation and nearly all of what he did up until the beginning of this year.  While I wasn’t reading to learn it, I did read it.  And, as happens in other disciplines, the consistency of thought and
point of view became the foundation of my education as a coach. 

- But that didn’t help when I first started on the teleclasses in the very beginning of Coach U.  Thomas led all the classes.  Even though I had known him for a long time, I felt left out and left behind.  Everyone seemed to be
on the inside track, and I was running as fast as I could and not keeping up. But, it comes ever so slowly; it occurs over time; being able to see how things fit together.

- I believe that the principles of coaching are first learned, then practiced, then integrated, then forgotten, as we begin to apply them from the mass of our experience and training.  Then the coach can re-visit the material
and discover its freshness and vitality all over again, in a completely new way.  This is certainly true for me as I go back and read the modules years after I helped design them.

 - The value in this is that you can mentally extract stuff from your filing cabinet during a conversation.  This morning I was talking with an attorney about her frustration with collecting money from clients and she was making it be about not being a competent lawyer.  Truth is, it’s about the High Hidden Costs of Being an Attorney.  I faxed her the list for Coaching.  Just something to do; it’s not about who she is as a person.  Another great WHO vs WHAT distinction.

ANY COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS?

II.  FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE
Coaching begins with the well-being of the coach.  You need a plan to take care of your life, while you gain knowledge about your profession.  When you, yourself, are well taken care of, your full attention can be shifted to the client.

The coaching material must  be applied to your own life:  first to learn it thoroughly, then to model it for your clients.  Do this with an experienced coach.  Use your coach to not only move effortlessly through the Coach U training maze, but also to have your life be wonderful.  This is not a one shot deal.

By you having a strong personal foundation, you can take a stand for the truth, for what you believe to be true and for what you want for your clients. This allows you to access your wisdom.

As a coach you are able to embrace the warts and bumps on others, because you have embraced your own -- and you can reconnect the client with their strengths, because you have reconnected with your own.

As a coach, you need a spiritual and philosophical grounding.  It may be through traditional or modern religious practices, from a transformational training such as Insight, Lifespring, the Landmark Forum, or from other personal development work.  Wisdom comes from contemplation.  It comes from gaining education, life experience, from developing intuition, from practicing and from being centered.  But all of that only provides fodder for contemplation.  To be able to observe ourselves and laugh and love our humanness.   There is also the element of fearlessness, but that is discussed later.

The Coaching Primer has a list of the 7 Universal/Spiritual Laws.  This happened to be written well before Deepak Chopra wrote his book.  Page 43 in the original Primer.  This was expanded to 12 Spiritual Principles in C15.\

The Spiritual Path Module.

1.  You attract who and what you are ready for.
2.  If you don’t learn the less now, it will return and return.  Message, lesson, problem, crisis
 3.  We are all connected via energy, yet distinct.
 4.  A Personal Foundation makes life available and easier
 5.  Having it all is just the beginning.
 6.  Integrity first, Needs second, Wants third.
 7.  The trust shall set you free, but may make you miserable at first.

ANY COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS?

III.  FIND OUT ABOUT PEOPLE

 Coaching is not just another tip or technique, not just another skill.  It is a way of relating to people that is unique and distinct.

In the quiet of the telephone coaching conversation, the hopes and dreams and fears of the client are revealed.  As a coach, .you listen for what is true that honors the client’s highest standards And you champion the client. You speak well of the client -- TO THEM SELF.  You listen with compassion and understanding.  You speak to the dignity of the human being, to the knowledge and experience of the able, talented, honorable human being who the client is.

In coaching, its also important to focus on what is antecedent to whatever is being said, to whatever it is that came before what is being said.  Exactly what is the source of the problem or question or concern.  Coach U had an early model that was called Symptoms, Sources, and Solutions.  As you work with people, you will recognize between 5 and 10 basic conditions that we get upset about.    But the coaching has to start with having the client see how it all began, so they aren't looking at some outside cause for the problem.  The cause and the solution is their own.

ANY COMMENTS FROM THE THERAPISTS ON THE CALL?

Experience working with offenders in groups.  Worked with several thousand offenders in past 20 years.  They all think they are victims.  Before we can look at any strategy or fix, I take them through an exercise.  The exercise
gets them to see that they are the one who made the choices, and who they are upset with is really themselves.  The same thing works with attorneys I coach. We are not so much different as human beings.

Getting to the truth with a client is essential.  You know it when they laugh. I’m doing a Roundtable on Edge at the ICF Conference, and there I’m going to talk more about the truth and how freeing it is.  How it leaves us able to take some actions that will work.

You need to be able to trust that the person you’re working with has a good answer to their dilemma somewhere. The coach must be committed to NOT having the answer.  This is especially a “guy” thing.  One of my mentor clients was a really smart, well trained, highly evolved individual, who was Mr. Advice.  That he was also a doctor made it worse.  His chiropractic clients EXPECTED him to give advice.  We worked long and hard on shifting this, and he discovered that giving advice had always been so much simpler than being in relationship with people.

I’d like to refer you to a piece that Thomas wrote and published in the original Coaching Primer.  They are included elsewhere in the modules also. 

This is WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT PEOPLE (Useful assumptions and stereotypes).
In my printed copy, it’s on page 27.

 
1.  People do exactly what they want to do, anyway.
2.  The client has the answer, but the coach can accelerate it.
3.  Humans get energy from any available source, even if it’s not healthy.
4.  The better we are to ourselves, the better stuff we’ll attract.
5.  We are a product of our upbringing and culture.
6.  Civilization is growing, improving, developing.

IV.  TRUST YOURSELF - TAKE RISKS WITH YOUR INTUITION

This is a paraphrase of my favorite quote about friendship:

A coach hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.
 When you do your homework; when you know yourself; when you know about
people; then, you can relax, listen, and truly hear.  You will be able to not
accept clients  who you can tell are unable or unwilling.   You will be able
to -- at any moment -- offer to turn a client over to another coach or to a
specialist, because it is in the client’s best interest.

You will be clearer, more resourceful, more creative with your client’s
challenges than you are with your own.  You will open yourself up to
partnership with your client and bring to the relationship the richness of
your learning, your experience, and your humanity.

You will detach from your own ego and be with people so they have an
experience of their own wellness, their intelligence, their ableness, their
nobility.

THE FIVE BOX MODEL - a variation on
Thomas’ Symptoms, Sources, and Solutions Model
 
 

3  Source THE TRUTH: WHERE THE COACH WORKS.   (look for the strengths, the  best, most able, most loving part of the client.)

2 Symptoms  what does   it look like?

1  Situation "problem"

4  Shift  client sees they are able,  have done this before

5 Solutions client creates strateg. with coach's asstc.

This is a brief version.  I'm going to do a longer version with more detail,
but if you start using it, the process will become apparent. In step 3 is
where you ask the client, "What's the truth about that?"  And don't let them
go into "something's wrong with them, someone else, you, or whatever."  Keep
them looking at the truth from the point of view of what's good and able about
them.

Also in Step 3, look for a situation in the past where the client may
have done something similar and was successful at it.  You can help them make
the connection.  There's always something to work with.  Be creative and
empowering and compassionate.  And champion and honor the client.  Find what
is good and right and able about them in the truth.  That will facilitate them
having the breakthrough.  Then, and only then can you create a strategy or
solution with them.