Two Essential Themes for Productive Conversations

We are covering the steps in a coaching conversation. intention - exploration -decisions -accountability

Just to recap what coaching is-

partnering with clients to maximize their personal and professional potential we don’t act as a subject matter expert -mentoring consulting or advising we are equals working towards the client’s goal and a coach approach means using a method of asking instead of telling, providing the what and not the how

We covered the GROW model in a previous podcast – but I thought I would get even more generic on you and cover the main areas we are trying to address in every coaching conversation whether conducted by a professional, credentialled coach like myself or by a leader using coaching skills. There are dozens of models and I encourage you to play with them for what feels most natural and effective for you.

There are two overarching themes with every model that are essential and in fact, are required for productive conversations. One is partnership- the conversation is imbued with a feeling of partnership aligned. The conversation isn’t one-sided like an interrogation.
The other is being. Being is an encompassing term that reflects that you are in the moment, present, and agile to the direction of the conversation. It ensures you’re not just checking the boxes of a flow chart and you’re responsive to the needs of your conversation partner. You’re not distracted but pleasantly engrossed. There is a lightness to it.

Now I’ve distilled two very master skills into simple definitions, but the more they are practiced the more natural they will become. So let’s get started.

Intention – Just like the agenda and objectives of a meeting – please tell me every meeting! Otherwise, why are we having it!? We name the intention- it could be to solve a problem, reconnect, think out loud, process a decision, determine strategy, etc. Have a topic and the desired outcome. And we want to be strategic about these intentions, why is it important? Why now? What will this do for you? How will it affect the other areas of your work or life?

Let’s start with an example. I learned long ago as a coach to never accept a client whose goal was lose x number of pounds. If that kind of intention was effective there would be no weight loss industry. I’d sound the buzzer – nope- try again. And they were sincere and frustrated. So I explained. No one ever got excited about losing weight- it was the why that was important and why now.
So we would dig deeper – and after a few minutes of me saying ‘and’ we would get to “I just took my grandkids to the park this weekend and I couldn’t keep up, I had to rest before I could catch up and I don’t want to miss out.” Ding ding ding – that was the correct answer. It was personal, heartfelt, animated – they could visually see and feel what keeping up was like, and it was probably going to be difficult. (HARD Goals link) Now we have a clear intention and the why – and we can follow up about all of the benefits of losing weight will have for them in terms of increased health, energy, esteem, and so on. This will also allow us to come up with a concrete desired result by the session’s end. Such as 3 things I am going to start tomorrow.

So we have covered the intention part of the coaching conversation

Then we go into exploration. Continuing with our example we might ask if they have ever tried losing weight before? Did it work? Could they leverage that? What sounds like fun, what is challenging, what is easy, and so on. We want to leverage personal character strengths, networks, tools – anything that will provide support for this goal. This can look a lot like brainstorming but with one difference – if the Coach is contributing ideas – they must remain unattached to those ideas and depending on the rapport of the coach and client they may even ask permission to share an idea.
This is because in coaching we believe the client has the ideas within. And what may work for the coach and their persona, may not be a good fit for the client. And especially in the case where the Leader is using coaching skills with a subordinate, we don’t want the subordinate to feel pressured or compelled to use the superior’s idea. We also don’t want to convey the message that we don’t believe the client is capable of coming up with their own ideas.

After thorough exploration, we move into decisions. A big portion of coaching is about moving forward – results-oriented. We don’t want all of our ideas to be a simple academic exercise, we want the generation of energy and possibility to be placed into a vehicle that will move forward. This might be to stop doing something, enforce a boundary, begin a new habit, or create a new relationship. Notice these all have verbs- there is activity happening here. If you’ve been following for a while you have noticed we always have a portion of our message that talks about coaching without action are just entertainment. Decisions that include when, how, how often, with whom, are all good. I personally like deadlines- because as a coach I can shorten them – we don’t need two weeks to make a call or a Monday to start a habit.

But what we are really aiming for here is decisions that lead to commitment. How committed are they- if they are only so so, we may have missed the mark – and we go back to exploration, or even intention. The process isn’t linear it’s dynamic.

Assuming we have a decision with full commitment we are ready for accountability. How will they hold themselves accountable? We don’t necessarily want to be their accountability- we don’t want them dependent on us – but we can act in that way when we have to follow up. I always intend to grow their intrinsic motivation – so they feel accountable to themselves. But I recognize it's easier for me as an upholder – See Gretchen Rubin’s 4 tendencies for a more thorough explanation. Generally after a warm hello and catch-up – I will be asking about their commitments from our previous session. If their actions didn’t have the impact intended we might do a bit of tweaking before we move into today’s topic and intention.

So those are the key steps with that umbrella of partnership and being.

If you’d like to learn more about coaching skills or want to schedule a full 2-day workshop for your team email me: shawna@shawnacorden.com

This brings us to our tool of the week: Begin with the end in mind

Do you want your team to be happy, productive, and stay with you? Do you want them to have better conversations that lead to better results and happier more fulfilling home lives? Do you want to be the Leader employees want to work for? Then Begin with the End in Mind – The third of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – the classic from Steven Covey.

Dream out your ideal work environment. What are people’s attitudes, accomplishments, and growth? What is the tone of the office or team? What is the reputation or brand you want to have with others? What do you want the flow of your day to look like? What does balance look like? Once you’ve got a full picture – and you’ve created the movie in your mind – engaging all the senses: images, sounds and smells – break it down. What are the values demonstrated? What are the operating procedures in place? What are the characteristics of the staff? What is the environment made up of?

What will you need to do as a Leader to paint that vision and inspire the action that will create that end state?

SO HERE’S YOUR fieldwork –because COACHING WITHOUT ACTION ISN’T COACHIng – IT’S JUST ENTERTAINMENT

Spend some time thinking and recording your ideas about your ideal environment. Create a mood board of images that suggest that environment. Start jotting down words that describe your ideal environment.

Repeat the process for the other areas in your life – Jack Canfield’s 7 areas for goals is a great place to start and you can get a free PDF and narrated video by emailing us at shawna@shawnacorden.com OR IF YOU PREFER I can facilitate a LIVE webinar for your team to create their goals for 2022 in these 7 areas.