How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching

Attention to their own well-being - The preparation they undertake before the coaching session - The rituals or routines they use before the session to get into ‘the zone’ - Their ability to stay present and focused during the session Preparation for a session depends on the individual coach. Some would read through the notes from previous sessions; others would look through coaching models or frameworks. The key, however, was letting go of analytical thoughts, of getting ‘grounded’ and quieting the mind. It meant being congruent, receptive, fresh, attentive and calm. This helps to develop the vital ingredient of rapport which allows the coaching conversation to access deeper levels of communication and beliefs, attitudes, emotions and feelings. Yet it also means having a level of detachment and objectiveness in accessing and applying intuition, and to present an observation as an offering as opposed to a profound truth. As one coach said, it means being “willing to put it out there and willing to get it wrong”. This is not a celebration of ignorance. As one coach commented, “you have to know your stuff”. Hence, intuition is mainly used by more experienced coaches. This is because they operate at an unconscious competence level. Experience enables coaches to chunk information so that they can store and retrieve it easily (Hayashi 2001). It would be wrong to read too much into what is, at best, a small scale study. However, the findings here on intuition in coaching, seem largely consistent with much of the general literature on intuition. The study raises some important themes that are certainly worthy of further exploration. It is often possible to know things or have a gut feeling about something without having any real tangible indication or evidence, by just having a feeling, an impression. The coach could express this intuition. Be cautious though, because the coachee is usually not aware of it yet and it may be hard to tell initially whether your intuition is right or not. Take into account that the feeling you get with this coachee is an interpretation based on your own experience, it doesn't have to match 543

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