If you have never worked with a professional coach before, you might wonder - what it's like. What happens in a coaching session? Is it similar to therapy, training, mentoring or counselling? In this post, I will briefly explain what to expect from a coaching session that is delivered by a professional coach.
Coaching vs mentoring and training
First of all, it is important to understand, that even if there might be blurred lines between #coaching and training and other similar tools - it is not the same.
If you want to learn a new skill (public speaking, agile leadership, effective negation skills etc.) instead of coaching a more appropriate method for that will be #training, where qualified trainer will share with you best practices, specific techniques and latest trends and create an environment for practicing the new skill. Coaching can support you in identifying competencies and skills you might be missing in order to achieve your goal instead of actually teaching them. However, coaching can be a great approach to work with your attitude as it can create mindset shifts or perspective change on how you see or approach certain things in your life or career.
Coaching is also not #mentoring as a professional coach will refrain from sharing their personal experience and success stories, unlike mentors. When you choose a mentor - you want to select someone who has achieved great results and learn from their unique journey towards success. Professional coaches rather focus on your personal journey and your uniqueness and allow you to see your talents, strengths, motivations, development areas to design the best possible journey towards your goals.
Also, #therapy is different as it focuses more on emotionally heavy conditions where people feel depressed, anxious, burned out, and deeply unhappy and try to find and reframe the reasons why it is like that. The goal of therapy is to help people to get back to baseline, back to normal. In coaching sessions you will rarely explore past and dig deep in reasons why... Coaching is goal oriented and works with present moment: where you want to be and where are you now?
Coaching is an approach that is future-oriented, it focuses on creating clear goals and solutions and how to achieve them fast and effectively. And unlike #consultants coaches will not really give you ready-to-use solutions or advice on what to do, but rather will ask you questions to enable you to come up with your own answers, solutions and ideas on how to overcome your challenges. Why is it effective? Because you are the author of your solutions that promotes your engagement and empowerment to take the action. Coaching gives you power back.
What happens in a coaching session?
Once it is clear what is coaching, here is how a coaching session will be held:
We discuss how we will work together and manage the expectations on how coaching can support the client.
Then we start exploring what goals and challenges the client has and create clarity on measurable desired outcomes that the client will be focusing on while working with me.
In our second or third session, we start working with one selected topic, chosen by the client, to overcome the challenge or start moving forward to achieve the goal.
The client picks the topic, we agree on what will be a good outcome from today's session, we explore the topic using open-ended questions or some specific coaching tools or approaches, the client gains a new perspective, insight, and clarity and we conclude the session with the agreeing on some action steps to take before our next session.
I always ask the client to reflect on what was valuable in the session for them and what they learned or understood that will have an impact on their lives further on.
The most important part of coaching is what happens between the sessions - is the client using the new perspective or taking action - that’s within the zone of control of the client.
When we meet for the next session I always ask about the experience between sessions and what impact our previous session has made.
If nothing has changed we explore why and come up with a different action plan if motivation is still there and explore the next topic.
Over time we measure progress and celebrate success… usually meaningful changes happen sooner than expected :)
And once we get to the point where there is nothing really to explore and improve it’s time to conclude coaching partnership until something new comes up.
What does a client needs to know about coaching approach?
There are many coaching schools and coaching styles, however, if you work with an International Coaching Federation accredited coach (ICF ACC, PCC, MCC) like myself, we all follow same Code of Ethics and practice 8 Coaching Competencies.
Some principles to be aware of that I like to share with my clients before we start working together:
Coaching sessions are confidential. Coach is not obliged to report anything discussed within the sessions to anyone, even if coaching sessions are paid by your company. Company might collect some data, like number of sessions, names of participants in coaching programs and ask coach to share some common insights (if coach has worked with multiple clients from same company to ensure anonymity) after running coaching programs for general or systematic improvements in the company.
Coach very likely will ask questions you have never thought before - they are deeper than usual casual conversation and make coachees think deeper. It is normal if you don't have ready answer right the way - take your time to think. Also resistance to answer a question is normal - share it with your coach and see how you can work with it.
There are many coaching tools, scripted techniques that coach can utilise in sessions, but one of the most effective coaching tool is an open ended question.
When appropriate and after asking a permission to challenge - coach might ask provoking question or share an observation that challenges client's perspective.
In coaching sessions we work with topics that are within zone of control or influence of the client. In coaching sessions we can not change how colleague A or auntie B behaves.
Sometimes clients are focused on things that they don't want anymore or want to quit or avoid, or in other words - clients might be focused on the negatives. In coaching we shift the focus towards the positive - what do you want instead?
Sometimes in sessions strong emotions might come up and while coaches are trained to manage strong emotions and work with deeper topics like limiting beliefs, fears, negative feelings etc., if those emotions repeat often in the sessions, it might mean that more appropriate specialist to work with is a therapist.
It is important to feel that you can trust your coach, that you feel that you can open up and don't feel judged, evaluated or misunderstood. Coach is your thinking partner. Coaching session should be a neutral and safe space to explore what you think, feel, want or don't want. And then to create a tailor made action plan that suits specifically you - your unique personality and situation.
Coach is responsible for facilitating thinking and exploring process and applying coaching approaches, tools and techniques that fit client needs. Client is responsible for selecting meaningful goals, topics that are high priority and taking action between the sessions. Client is entirely responsible for the progress they make (or don't make).
How to prepare for the first coaching session?
The more prepared you are the sooner you will be able to get to the point and start working on solutions. So it is within your interest to invest 15 minutes prior the coaching session to create clarity and answer questions below:
What do I want to achieve - in 5 years, 1 year, 1 month?
Why is it important to me to achieve that goal?
What do I want from today's session? (a plan, clarity, idea, solution, to feel more peaceful, confident, inspired, motivated, make a decision, transform fear, understand my options, scenario for communication with my employee or boss etc.)
What do I need to focus on or explore to achieve that result?
What are some major challenges or obstacles I can identify now?
Usually, at least 4-5 sessions are needed to see the meaningful impact of the coaching and sometimes 8 sessions is all that one client needs to completely change something important in their lives. But growth is never a never-ending story and at some point, there might be the need to go to the next level and partner with a coach again.
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