To niche or not to niche?
Do you believe that in order to be successful you need to pick a “niche”? Most marketers and sales people suggest that picking your niche is a very important and necessary part of your business strategy. The same is true for our coaching industry. We are told that as coaches and mentors, we need to pick a niche – the more narrow, the better – in order to make it clear what we offer and to whom. Do you agree or do you find it frustrating and limiting?
Personally, I do believe in creating a strategic plan and prioritizing what you want to offer and to whom. However, I never really bought the idea that in order to be successful – you must have a niche. I do believe you need to know WHO you are and what you bring to the table. The rest will sort itself out… I can bring lots of examples of people in a variety of industries, including coaching, who became successful because of who they were. We can’t be all things to all clients, but we don’t have to be. We just have to be ourselves.:) What do you think about that?
Improving Coaching Skills
1. I usually learn the same way I suggest in my coach training classes – by listening back to recordings of my own coaching. And sometimes I stop the recording because I think OMG, this was a great coaching question, I must write it down. And then, the next day, when I look at the question I wrote down, it doesn’t look powerful at all. The reason being, the context was lost, the moment is gone, and it becomes meaningless. So even though most of the time you can’t pluck the question or a certain response out of the context and hope it’ll be just as brilliant at another time, with another client, during another session, etc.- you can still learn more from it if you write it down. You will deposit it in your memory bank and it will create another choice that you can possibly adjust for another client and their situation.
2. Another thing that I do – and that may feel a bit “risky” to you – I ask my colleagues (who are experienced coaches) to listen to the recordings of me coaching others and to provide their feedback. There may be some blind spots and improvements they can offer that I might not be able to catch and/or discover on my own. As my mother would say, one brain is good, but 2 or 3 is even better.:)
3. I also learn when I teach my coach training classes, and it’s always exciting.
4. And last but not least, I learn by observing and listening to other coaches coach and by reading new and old books about coaching and self-improvement in general.
What are your best learning methods for improving your coaching skills?
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Gremlins: Our Agenda or Our Client’s?
For some clients, putting themselves down is their “default” system. We understand that when they do – their “Gremlins” must be acting out. Our clients know that they are not stupid. They know it, but these voices – their Gremlins – do creep in. So, of course, we must create awareness around that. And, once the awareness is established and our clients still put themselves down… then what? At times, when that happens, I feel it’s healthier to take a beat and move on, rather than focus their attention on it once more. After all, we strengthen what we focus on. I definitely don’t want to give more energy and more strength to their Gremlins. We also must watch out for this not to become our agenda for “fixing” our clients. There is a significant skill that is required for bringing Gremlins to light at appropriate times while still staying on your client’s agenda. One of the ways to do it is to simply ask if they would want to talk about it or stay on their original agenda. However, it becomes challenging if a client does it over and over again as a habit of sorts. What are your thoughts and experiences?
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Establishing the Coaching Agreement: The Misunderstood Competency
ICF’s explanation of this competency is the “Ability to understand what is required in the specific coaching interaction and to come to agreement with the prospective and new client about the coaching process and relationship.” Many coaches take this to mean that it’s all about the coaching contract and all the logistics around the coaching relationship. However, as ICF assessors, we are instructed to apply this competency to determine how coach creates an agreement with a client about the topic and the results that are expected from each given coaching session. It’s one of the most important and yet one of the most misunderstood competencies. And, for a masterful coaching (MCC), establishing “what is required in the specific coaching interaction” needs to be thoroughly explored before moving on to the rest of the session. In my personal experience, exploring what my client really wants often resolves the very issue at hand. What is your understanding and experience with this competency?
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Passion is Not The Answer
Building a Coaching Vocabulary
I believe that coaching is a new language. In order to learn that language and build a coaching vocabulary, at the beginning of my coach training classes, I ask my students to memorize coaching questions and coaching responses. Along with that, we use role playing to simulate a variety of coaching situations. Once we build our vocabulary, the true power behind these questions and words may and will be revealed only when they are being personalized by the coach. However, to make that language “your own” takes time. And when the time comes for my students to coach real people, I ask them to forget everything they’ve learned and trust that their deep listening and deep caring will bring about the right response without them having to consciously search for it.The danger to watch out for is for coaches to hold on to these responses and questions as a child holds on to their safety blanket for too long. When a coach clings to these memorized questions, these type of questions will stick out like a sour thumb, feel out of place and may be foreign to the language their client can naturally relate to, which may result in lack of trust. When we train people to coach, we must be careful to set that expectation for their own “freedom” — letting them know that what they must learn at the beginning will and must become their second nature after they practice for some time; and their coaching language will become a language they speak fluently without having to look up words in a proverbial “coaching dictionary”. What are your best practices for building your coaching vocabulary?
Copyright 2013 © Marianna Lead. All Rights Reserved in All Media.
Coaching on Number 13?
Welcome to 2013! Do you expect helping your clients to overcome the number 13 superstition this year? Do you yourself have some trepidations about having to live with number 13 for a whole year ahead?
In a nation that has omitted 13th floors from buildings and 13th rows from airplanes, and even has a word for this fear (“triskaidekaphobia”), facing this fear is unavoidable now — whether we want it or not. We can’t invite our secretary, like President Franklin D. Roosevelt used to do, to make sure that there won’t ever be “thirteen” guests. This number is here to stay with us for a whole year. Every day when we look at the calendar or type up a date, it’ll end in number 13. Ironically, I just checked my LinkedIn group, “ICF Coach Mentors and Mentees”, and 13 people joined the group on the first day of this New Year.
The meaning of the number 13 is both about endings and new beginnings. That makes sense, since every beginning denotes the end of something else. So, to the new beginnings and a wonderful year ahead!
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When “Powerful Coaching Questions” are Truly Powerful and When They’re Not
What makes powerful coaching questions so powerful? Sometimes coaches get so carried away asking “powerful coaching questions” prior to thoroughly establishing trust, understanding where our clients are, and learning their vocabulary. I believe if we truly want our questions to be powerful, we need to ask them when our clients are ready to hear them. We also need to use the kind of words and phrases our clients can relate to. That takes getting to know your client first. Otherwise, even the most “powerful” question falls flat and is not powerful at all. When we take a coaching course, these questions are a great learning tool and they sound awesome out of context. However, when using them with clients, we need to trust that the “right” question will come up when we commit to being in the moment. And when we force these “powerful” questions, they feel contrived and almost superficial. They often stick out like a sore thumb, feel out of place and are often foreign to the language their client can relate to. It also results in lack of trust between you and your client. So, to ask a powerful coaching question – stay in the moment and listen deeply. The right — and most powerful — questions will generally come out organically. And the question that is the most powerful for one person in a given moment, may be totally ineffective for another. What are your thoughts?
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Passion v. Inner Peace: Is passion a necessary attribute of happiness?
Many coaches believe that passion for what you do, passion that gives meaning to your life – is a necessary attribute of happiness. However, to feel deeply about something and to be passionate about it, are not necessarily one and the same. When we experience our lives as having significance and meaning, we often experience a sense of inner peace — as opposed to the energized feeling of being passionate about something. That inner peace comes from knowing deeply within that we are doing what we are supposed to do in life — that we are living out our “life’s purpose.” It could be as ambitious as running a huge business or being totally satisfied being a mom and growing a family. We all determine and define our own happiness. “Passion” is at the top of the emotional scale. We don’t feel “passion” all the time, even as we do a job or a task we totally adore. We just feel good. We experience inner peace — a sense of wholeness, and truly being in the moment… What are your thoughts?
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