Burger Bites: Celebrating
The Burger Bites Series Is Designed To Bring You A Taste Of Coaching.
A year ago, when I had just finished a nearly eight-month coaching class, I wrote a blog post that touched on the idea of celebration. At that time, feeling that I had grown in my skills as a coach and wanting to elaborate on what I had learned and share it with other people, I committed to writing this Burger Bites series to introduce coaching in a detailed way, a bit at a time. Looking back on the year since completing the class, I remember the joy I felt then. Since I’m closing out the year by completing this series, another big accomplishment for me, it’s fitting that I end by exploring what it means to celebrate in coaching.
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Burger Bites: Acknowledging Strengths
The Burger Bites Series Is Designed To Bring You A Taste Of Coaching.
Early in this series I explained how Action is the Core of coaching, and how that is counterbalanced by building awareness because Learning Focuses Action. The International Coach Federation (ICF) says coaching isn’t really coaching without those two components. One more thing must occur for the session to be sound coaching. The coach must acknowledge at least one of the client’s strengths.
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Burger Bites: Championing
The Burger Bites Series Is Designed To Bring You A Taste Of Coaching.
An unfortunate misperception of the coach’s role is the cheerleader who offers strings of quotes, empty platitudes and exaggerated encouragement. When composed well, a coaching session gives a client a lot of encouragement, but it’s not based in empty words or sentimental positivity. The encouragement comes from the coach’s very specific and personalized understanding of the client’s strengths and past accomplishments. There are times, though, when a client needs much more than encouragement or borrowed confidence. Sometimes he needs a champion.
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Burger Bites: Setting A Challenge
The Burger Bites Series Is Designed To Bring You A Taste Of Coaching.
Since each coaching session follows an overall pattern, a client can learn to anticipate certain things. Although the content, the emotional tone and intensity, and the focus of coaching can be very different from one session to the next, the client knows her coach will start by asking her what she wants to focus on in coaching and end by asking her which specific steps she wants to commit to taking next. Both are up to the client. But occasionally the coach steps in to suggest an action and encourage the client in a big way.
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Burger Bites: Committed To Truth, Even Hard Truth
The Burger Bites Series Is Designed To Bring You A Taste Of Coaching.
One thing each of us needs in order to see where we are and how we can improve is clear, precise feedback. Coaches try to act as mirrors for their clients, reflecting exactly what they see so clients can also see it and understand themselves better. Sometimes, a coach has to act like a wrap-around mirror under glaring light.
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Burger Bites: Clarity and the Bottom Line
The Burger Bites Series Is Designed To Bring You A Taste Of Coaching.
I remember the coaching skills class where our instructor told us the following week we would be discussing articulating, paraphrasing, and clarifying. I nodded my headed gently and smiled, comfortable that this would be old ground for me. After all, I’m trained in client-centered approaches to therapy. Clear communication skills are the core of that process. But imagine my surprise when our instructor introduced the topic in class by saying, “Don’t do this!”
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Burger Bites: Metaview
The Burger Bites Series Is Designed To Bring You A Taste Of Coaching.
One of the most basic reasons a person will seek some sort of advisor or counselor is to hear another point of view. The saying, “Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees,” can be especially true for people feeling overwhelmed. Skilled coaches don’t settle for describing the forest to their clients. They lift their clients out of the forest so they can see it for themselves.
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Burger Bites: Vision
The Burger Bites Series Is Designed To Bring You A Taste Of Coaching.
Everything that any person ever created was first created in the mind. Every invention was first seen in imagination. When any one of us makes an intentional change in our lives, we start by conceiving of a different way of doing things. The role of seeing what we want in our minds before we have it is referred to as vision in coaching.
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Burger Bites: Presence
The Burger Bites Series Is Designed To Bring You A Taste Of Coaching.
Coaching is first and foremost an improvisational performing art. It produces a dynamic, creative conversation that empowers and motivates the client to develop a long-term vision, break it down into achievable goals, and start moving forward. To be the artist in charge of guiding this creation, a coach has to be mentally, emotionally, and otherwise fully present in the conversation. So what in the world does any of this have to do with dancing?
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Burger Bites: Intuition
The Burger Bites Series Is Designed To Bring You A Taste Of Coaching.
The word intuition has some connotations that place it in a box to be easily dismissed. For example, intuition is sometimes considered to be a paranormal experience like a psychic ability available to only especially sensitive people. It’s disregarded as nagging worries and concerns without logical foundation in the phrase “woman’s intuition.” But coaching has a creative and surprisingly realistic view of intuition that reclaims it as a powerful tool available to all of us.
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