How to Coach Yourself and Others Popular Models for Coaching | Page 240

doing things. Here, we work with the coachee to clarify what they want to achieve, and increase the options that they have to tackle their goal. Hone goals – generating alternatives to the situation gives coachees a sense of what they want to achieve. The next step is to get SMART – or define exactly what it is they want, so that it’s measurable and they know when they’ve achieved it. Initiation and evaluation of options – When the coachee has a clear goal and a range of options to get there – that’s when we evaluate what’s the best option to take. This isn’t a case of sticking with the familiar, this element of the process is to carefully sift ALL the options to choose, and then take, a first step. This incorporates thinking from business planning processes, but we’ve kept it simple – a straightforward evaluation matrix with the criteria defined by the coachee. Valid action plan – with the deliberation over the ‘what’ nearly completed, we now move onto the ‘how’. A concrete and practical action plan breaks down what are often big changes into smaller, doable steps. Encourage momentum – all the way through the process, the coach is there to keep the coachee on track, enthused and positive. This takes place between each session as well as at the end of the sessions. This last part illustrates an important characteristic of our model – although it’s displayed in a linear diagram, the process is not linear – it is iterative and completely dependent on the coachee, and so parts of it are used at different times, and may be repeated. For example, setting goals is done at the end of every session not just the end of the process. 242