Content free coaching

Sounds puzzling? Impossible? Not impossible but definitely a challenge!

This is one of the best ways I know for honing your coaching skills, whether you’re experienced or new to coaching.  Content free coaching:

• Improves your ability to tune in to what is going on for your coachee beneath the words they are actually saying;  to pay more attention to the ‘music’ and ‘dance’ (their tone and body language) which really indicate what they are feeling and thinking.
• Develop and practice powerful questions that don’t rely on content, such as “what’s happening now? ”, “what else ?” “and what else?” “and what else?”!!
• Remove any temptation to ‘solutionise’  - when you don’t know what their topic is you can’t possibly start thinking  about your solutions.

The quality of your attention is exquisite.  Where will your question take them?  How will it land?

I’ve used this to hone my own skills and also when training other coaches.  It was particularly striking with a group of managers whose career success so far was largely based on coming up with answers – it made an immediate step change in their ability to be curious about the coachee’s ideas rather than their own and stopped them solutionising, one of the biggest challenges for manager-coaches.

So how do you practice coaching content free?

• Find a friendly fellow coach.
• Ask them to think of a topic they want to be coached on.
• Ask them coaching questions and reflect back – after each question they should think through their answer and indicate when their thinking is finished and they are ready for the next question or observation from you.  Your next question or reflection is based on what you have detected and what your intuition suggests will help next.
• Get feedback from your coachee on what you did that helped …or didn’t.

Caroline Talbott

What are your key tips for honing your skills? Or your powerful ‘content free’ questions?   Share them with us at Facebook.com/ICFHQ.

Caroline Talbott coaches and develops leaders, especially those who have had success in a profession (eg lawyers, chartered surveyors, engineers, HR specialists) and then moved into a leadership role.  She is also a coach trainer and passionate about her own professional and personal development. Professionals in Leadership blog. Caroline Talbott - catalyst for change. Twitter: @CaroCatalyst.

Coaching’s time to shine

International Coaching Week (ICW) is the coaching profession’s time to shine. Held the first full week each February, the premise of ICW is to allow coaches everywhere the opportunity to share the value professional coaching brings.

Coaches across the globe celebrate ICW in different ways—some offer pro bono coaching, others (in conjunction with the ICF Chapter they belong to or with other local peers) provide workshops, and still others reach out to local media channels to share coaching with the public. The sky’s the limit when it comes to promoting the value coaching offers! (Use this page as a starting point.)

ICW will be here February 5-11, 2012. That leaves just about two weeks to get those final plans in place!

How are you planning to commemorate ICW? We’d love to hear about it—let us know what you are doing.

Haven’t planned anything yet? There is still time! Take a look at how others have celebrated in the past. 

Don’t have a lot of time to plan anything? Take a look at these five simple ways to get involved during ICW without a lot of effort or pre-planning.

And don’t forget: findings from the greatly anticipated ICF Global Coaching Study will be released during ICW. This is the perfect way to promote coaching at the local level. Find out more.

Learn more about International Coaching Week.

A coach’s toolkit

Last month, in an effort to see what kinds of assessment tools coaches are using, we asked our Facebook fans to share their “must-use” coaching assessment tools and why they like to use them.

Here’s what we heard:

"1. Innermetrix DISC - behavioural and communication styles. This is where we can uncover and work with the cause of interpersonal conflicts, workplace stress etc. This relates to the environment mostly.
2. Innermetrix Values - motivators and drivers. This is where we uncover passions - and how we need to be recognised and rewarded. This relates mostly to culture, vision etc.
3. Innermetrix Attribute Index - natural talents based on how you think and make decisions. This is where we uncover a person's deep value structure - not their specific values, but 'how' they value. This area is the key to fulfillment and high performance.

The first two are psychometric, and rely on self-reporting. The last is valuemetric (based on the Hartman Value Profile) and is does not rely on self-reporting. Number 3 enables us to measure soft-skills such as emotional intelligence, empathy, strategic thinking - which translates into being able to reliably measure and predict performance in particular roles such as leadership, management etc.

Most importantly, it enables us to uncover a person’s natural talents, which is their key to fulfillment, higher levels of performance, and the often elusive 'meaning and purpose' that the right kind of role and can provide.

When coaching - the combination of all three shows us a person's areas of innate strength (rather than skill) - which is the place to focus on and use when creating change. Self-awareness is key - and I believe these assessments are the best 'self-awareness' tools on the market.” (Paul Coughlin)

“StrengthsFinder 2.0 provides great insight to clients. Every time I have used it, the impact was impressive and very empowering.” (Katerina Kanelidou)

“I would have to second Katerina’s vote. StrengthsFinder is a great way to give clients clarity into strengths they weren’t aware of because our talents to us are nature. It can also help build the foundation for future coaching sessions.” (Jasmine Goris)

“I like to keep the life balance wheel handy because it’s simple and yet highly effective in uncovering where we are at present, just as quickly as we can uncover where we want to focus or move forward in our lives.” (Shontay Dumas)

“Two—I have a cultural diagnostic by Human Synergistics I use with teams that is fantastic! And it doesn’t label people!! And I have an eight question new client diagnostic that finds where people currently are with their goals/wants/needs/dreams. Why do I used them? It takes the temperature where people are for the moment and helps them to open the dialogue for where they want to go (and more but no room to fill in).” (Tammy Redmon)

“1. I use the life wheel—very true, as Shontay says very handy. 2. I use a fantastic tool called “Inner Engineering”—unique as very few coaches use this tool! But very powerful!” (Sonia Sant)

“I use Angeles Arien’s ‘Preferential Shape Test’…meets the diversity of all with multi-cultural perspectives. It brings out full areas for reflection, focus, discussion, decision, and change.” (Janet Ver)

Would you agree or disagree? What would you add to this list…and why? We’d love to know—leave a response below or join the conversation at Facebook.com/ICFHQ.

The “Power of Three” Coaching Brand Challenge

The below post is by Brenda Bence, a 2011 ICF Annual International Conference speaker. Watch for posts from other 2011 conference speakers on the ICF blog over the next several months.

I recently ran across a fascinating article about “The Power of Three.” The basic premise of the article is that three is an important – and almost ‘mystical’ – number for a whole host of reasons.

Here are just a few:

• Three shows up in mythology: three fates, three muses, three graces.
• Three is a prevalent component of fairy tales: three wishes, three little pigs, three bears.
• Three is enough to create a series – a pattern of cause and effect.
• There are three stages of truth: first a concept is rejected, second it is violently opposed, third it is accepted as self-evident.
• Three is a basic structure of life: carbohydrates, protein, fat: electron, proton, neutron.
• There are three dimensions of time: past, present, future.
• And three forms the basic structure of stories: beginning, middle, end.

Interesting, isn’t it?

So, as we enter a new year, I figured we could benefit from this same ‘Power of Three’ concept to look back and reflect on your brand building efforts as a coach in 2011.

If you joined us at the ICF Conference in Las Vegas in September 2011, you’ll know that I define your “brand” as “the way you want clients to perceive, think, and feel about you as a coach.”  With that definition in mind, here are a few “three-related” questions for reflection…

• What are the three biggest actions you took in 2011 that strengthened your brand as a coach the most?
• Knowing what you know now, what three branding actions would you have done differently in 2011 if you could do them over again?
• Reflecting on your answers to the questions above, what three actions will you take in 2012 to grow your brand as a coach even further?

Let’s share the learning!

(Of course, after you’ve given these questions some thought, I would also encourage you to take time out and thank at least three people who have helped you build your brand this year. Who would that be for you?)

Brenda Bence

Brenda Bence is an experienced senior executive coach, dynamic trainer and speaker, internationally-recognized branding expert, and author of four award-winning corporate and personal branding books.

With an MBA from Harvard Business School, Brenda spent the first 20 years of her career building mega brands for Fortune 100 companies, where she was a senior executive responsible for billion-dollar businesses across four continents and 50 countries.

In 2002, Brenda left the corporate world and founded BDA International. Now, with clients that span the globe and with offices in both the U.S. and Asia, Brenda travels the world speaking, training, and coaching individuals, entrepreneurs, and corporations to greater success through creative yet practical brand development.

Letting Go Letting Go

SIG  Energy Work and Coaching: The Next Wave Presenter: Rhona Post, MCC
When: Third Monday of Every Month, January 16 2012
Virtual +1.212.457.9879
Pin: 622186#
Title:  Letting Go Letting Go 

Welcome to the Energy Work and Coaching SIG where coaches from all over the world bring their knowledge and wisdom of natural and energy healing to their coaching practice.  Our SIG participants are interested in deepening their skills in various coaching competencies including cultivating a centered presence, powerful communication and listening.

December’s topic was Holding Patterns--how what we hold onto holds onto us. We explored how something innocuous like waiting in an airplane that is being forced to circle the airport (holding pattern) can ignite a variety of emotional, physical and psychological responses.

During the 2011 SIG sessions we got underneath our story lines to observe the real drivers that pull or push us in one direction or another. Why? Because we’re interested in bridging our own four aspects, mind, body, spirit and emotions, and learning creative ways to better assist our clients incorporate their four aspects.

January’s call is an invitation to investigate the art and science of Letting Go so that we can bring more of ourselves to the 2012 party.

Rhona Post, MCC

Whether you approach a new year on tiptoes or throw yourself fully into the month, how can you make the process of Letting Go more joyous for yourself and others? Letting go is not for sissies, as it requires a release of control. Our January topic is multi -faceted topic and it will arouse excitement and anxiety. For more information on how you can incorporate healing in your coaching practice, contact Rhona Post, The Healer Coach, at rpost@thehealercoach.com or by phone at +1.941.554.8466.