How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching | Seite 516

3.52 CHALLENGING THE COACHEE
Challenging skills are part and parcel of the skills toolbox for an
effective coach.
So what do we mean by challenging in the coaching context?
Challenge in effect is about not accepting at face value what is
being said by your coachee. In challenging as a coach you are
offering your coachee your own observations and presenting
them with the opportunity for them to think more deeply and
adopt an alternative viewpoint. Your challenging skills can help
in a number ways.
Firstly it is about stretching your client, taking them beyond
their usual self-imposed limits. For example they may say they
will complete an action by the end of the month and you may
respond with ‘I challenge you to complete that by the end of the
day.’ They may reply that that is impossible but take up a
challenge of completing the task say by the end of the week.
Challenge is also about confronting with your client what you
have heard and picked up in the coaching sessions for example,
inconsistencies, goals consistently not achieved or challenging
current beliefs, thinking and values. Here as a coach this is about
not being afraid to point out to your client what you have noticed
in order to raise their own awareness of the situations.
In a counselling interview, challenging is the stage that follows
exploration and precedes solutions. When you have exhausted
your discussion on what the current situation is, you should have
an idea of what the problem boils down to. It ought to be
something that can be expressed in one sentence. In the work
context, it will be the difference between how the organisation
needs things to be and how things are. Challenging means
putting this gap between what is and what should be to the
employee and F