We know that being an effective coach requires that we have certain skills and knowledge, and that we have a healthy and positive attitude towards the nature of people at work and their potential to grow, develop and become the best they can be. .
The most effective coaches care about helping other people raise their awareness levels, encouraging them to make positive decisions and take meaningful action. Effective coaches build trust by training with an open mind and with great sincerity.
To become an effective coach, we need to develop and practice our probing and active listening skills. The central goal of coaching is to provide a high quality thinking environment for the people we train. Everything we do as human beings is preceded by thought and it follows that the quality of our actions and decisions is totally linked to the quality of our thinking. This is where coaching can have its most profound effect.
Such quality coaching provides direction for our thoughts and allows us to focus. Through focus, we will become even more aware of things that affect our performance and make lasting changes and improvements without the need for someone else to suggest it.
However, what is needed is a framework to put all this in place and navigate through a training session.
In previous articles, I’ve explored the various qualities that good coaches develop and shown how coaching is a particularly powerful development tool because it works on both mindset and knowledge and skills.
How do we bring all this together in a framework that is easy to work with and easy to remember? There are numerous frameworks and question sequences and you may want to explore them after reading this. However, here I will concentrate on a framework I developed called Training ARROW. Those of you familiar with the ubiquitous GROW model will recognize the origins of my approach, however I hope the ARROW sequence sparks new ideas.
We know that we can develop people very powerfully by raising awareness and generating responsibility in an environment of trust and that is achieved by asking questions. But what kind of questions and in what order? How do these questions promote focus? And how we can guide people to a positive outcome in a coaching session. See what you think of this conversation:
Wife:
Isn’t it about time we thought about a vacation this year? I fancy a bit in the sun.
Husband:
Yes, I agree, and preferably soon.
Wife:
Well, I could certainly take some time off in September.
Husband:
Free time is not a problem for me, but we probably need to save.
Wife:
We should be able to save enough for September.
Husband:
Are you okay. I’m going to find out how much we have saved right now.
Wife:
I calculate that we can spend a week in Florida or fifteen days in Spain.
Husband:
Great, we’re going to Florida for a week in September. Let’s book time off from work tomorrow and I’ll call the travel agents on the way home.
You may not have noticed that much training was being given to each other, but that was exactly what this couple was doing. To begin with, they thought about what they were trying to accomplish: they set their goals. Then they thought about how the situation was at that moment: they considered the Reality. This was followed by a short Reflection on the distance between goals and reality. They then pondered the options they had and finally committed to a course of action – the way forward.
Whether they realized it or not, they were using the ARROW training
Objectives – Reality – Reflection – Options – Way forward
The coaching ARROW provides a simple framework around which to build our coaching questions. Keep an eye out for future articles where I’ll examine each part of the model so you know exactly how to best use it.