Archer Coaching

Coaching you on your path to joyful abundance.

Posts Tagged relationship

What Does a Coach Do?

Feb 7

Posted by Laura in balance, change, choice, clarity, Coaching, Coaching Week, Communications, Creativity, definition, Dreaming, Goals, Making an impact, momentum, Path, Powerful questions, practice | 1 Comment

In honor of International Coaching Week, February 6 through 12, I am posting a series of short articles about coaching.

Day 2: What Does a Coach Do?

How does a coach go about supporting clients in creating what they want? There are many techniques, approaches, tools, and exercises available for coaches. Today I’m going to discuss in broad terms how a coach might go about helping a client achieve his or her goals.

A relationship between coach and client, first and foremost, is focused on the client. A person comes to a coach with a goal in mind–something to achieve, create, or change. The coach honors that goal and helps the client keep it in mind as they drill down to specific action steps together. The coach holds an objective viewpoint (as objective as possible, this is often called “coach position”) to help the client see a bigger picture and rise above distractions. The coach holds the client accountable for his or her commitments.

In a coaching relationship (lasting anywhere from a few sessions to more long-term work), the coach is responsible for the following:

  • Asking powerful questions that elicit the client’s inner resourcefulness
  • Keeping the client focused on the big, overall goals
  • Providing a safe, creative space where the client’s creativity can come forth
  • Respecting and honoring clients’ views of the world—they are the experts in their lives
  • Helping clients see the bigger, broader connections of their choices, changes, and growth
  • Encouraging the client to dream
  • Maintaining a clean “coach position” and not offering opinions, judgment, analysis, or advice
  • Communicating clearly and directly
  • Holding clients accountable as they request

A single coaching session is essentially a powerful conversation. Whether it is held over the phone or in person (or virtually), a coaching session creates a space and time in which the client can be focused on his or her goals, creativity can flow, and new options are explored. Thinking and beliefs can be examined, changed, and boosted. A coaching session can be a welcome “oasis” for a client, who may be so busy with day-to-day tasks and activities that an hour to focus on the future and desired goals helps him or her create true momentum for change and transformation.

In a coaching session, the coach might do any or all of the following:

  • Step into coach position, and listen powerfully to questions asked
  • Match the client’s energy, body language, vocal tone
  • Check in to see how things went with the client’s action items from the previous session
  • Ask what the goal for the session is and be sure it is clearly stated and measurable
  • Inquire about how achieving that goal will help things change for the client, asking whether it is compatible with the overall goal and life values of the client (connecting to big picture).
  • Invite the client to brainstorm on how he or she might go about making that change or reaching that goal
  • Offer exercises, tools, and techniques that could help a client get “unstuck” or tap into deeper resources (it is the client’s choice whether to make use of these tools)
  • Keep the client focused on him- or herself and on the future
  • Help the client choose among potential action items to develop a plan to implement
  • Ask how the client will remain committed to the action plan and how he or she wants the coach to follow up

A trained and experienced coach has many other tools to offer clients in a session or across a working relationship. The description here is very broad!

Tomorrow: The Education of a Coach

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Balanced by Relationships

May 24

Posted by Laura in Appreciation, balance, blessing, choice, difference, joy, love, openness, relationship, Uncategorized | No Comments

I have blogged about life balance before, and I give presentations on that topic as well. I also spend time thinking about how my relationships with various people provide a supportive balance to me as a person.

Most of my friends have heard me wax poetic about how my darling husband is very different from me — in a way that I appreciate, because I feel it makes us a good team. He’s very relaxed and laid-back and thinks in terms of the big picture. I’m assertive, a go-getter, and detail-oriented. He lives in the moment, I tend to pace toward the future. He tends to think things through very carefully, sometimes taking a long time to make a decision. I tend to be rather impulsive and impatient! We have been together 15 years now, and I have come to love these differences. Just by being himself, he helps me relax and enjoy things as they are. We have many things in common, but the differences keep it interesting. I started to respect, honor, and cherish our differences when I went through coach training and began to perceive things differently.

My sister is another case in point. We are only 14 months apart in age, and we couldn’t be more different. We inverted most of the standard older child/younger child dynamics (she’s younger, but was much bolder than I was). We have dealt with common issues in our family, of course, but beyond that we are extremely different. We fought like cats and dogs growing up, of course, and we could never live in the same house again without maiming each other (if the last time we tried that is any indication). Over the years, I have come to truly value our differences, as she gives me a totally unique perspective on things. If we had met as strangers, I don’t know if we would have become friends — the differences would have made it seem as if we had nothing in common. As sisters, our relationship is all over the place, in a good way! We are starting to discover the things that we do have in common now.

My book group, of which I have been a member for 15 years, is another great example. We have a wide range of women in the group — some are mothers, some are grandmothers, some have never had kids. We have marrieds, divorceds, and never marrieds. Some young, some older, some in between. A variety of hobbies and careers are represented. The discussion is always lively. Heated disagreements, loud laughter, and a lot of thinking and interpreting. It’s a monthly discussion that really challenges and stimulates me because of all the differences in perception.

Enough about me! What relationships balance you? Whom do you love because of (not in spite of) your differences?

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