Coaching Skills Training: Presenting the Coaching Arrow

Being an effective coach requires us to have certain knowledge and skills, and to maintain an optimistic view of the nature of people at work; their potential to grow, develop and become the best they can be.

The most effective coaches concern themselves with helping other people to raise their levels of awareness, encourage them to make positive choices and to take meaningful action. Effective coaches build trust by coaching with an open mind and with great sincerity.

To become an effective coach we need to develop and practise our skills in asking probing questions and actively listening. The core aim of coaching being to provide an environment conducive to high quality thinking for the people whom we coach. Everything we do as human beings is preceded by thought and it follows that the quality of our actions and decisions is totally tied to the quality of our thinking. This is where coaching can have its most profound effect.

Coaching of such quality provides direction for our thoughts and enables us to focus. Through focus we will become even more aware of the things that affect our performance and make lasting changes and improvements without the need for someone else to suggest that we do so.

What's needed though is a framework for putting this all in place and navigating through a coaching session.

In previous articles, I've explored the various qualities which good coaches develop and shown how coaching is a particularly powerful development tool because it works on state of mind as well as knowledge and skills.

How do we bring this all together in a framework that is easy to work with and to remember? There are numerous frameworks and questioning sequences out there and you might like to explore them after you've read this. However, we are going to use a framework I developed known as the coaching ARROW. Those of you familiar with the ubiquitous GROW model will recognize the origins of my approach, however I hope that the ARROW sequence provokes fresh thinking.

We know that we can develop individuals quite powerfully by raising awareness and generating responsibility in an environment of trust and that this is achieved by asking questions. But what sort of questions and in what order? How do such questions promote focus? And how can we guide people towards a positive outcome in a coaching session. See what you think of this conversation:

Wife:

Isn't it about time we thought about a holiday this year? I fancy some time in the sun.

Husband:

Yes, I agree, and preferably soon.

Wife:

Well, I could certainly take some time in September.

Husband:

I can get time off when I like, but I think we'll need to save up.

Wife:

We should be able to save enough by September.

Husband:

You're right. I'll find out how much we've got saved at the moment.

Wife:

I reckon we can have a week in Florida or a fortnight in Spain.

Husband:

Great, we'll go to Florida for a week in September. Let's both book the time off work tomorrow and I'll call into the travel agents on the way home.

You may not have recognized much coaching going on, but that was exactly what this couple was doing. To begin with they thought about what they were trying to achieve - they established their Aims. Then they thought about how the situation stood at the moment - they considered the Reality. This was followed by a little Reflection on the distance between the aims and the reality. Next they pondered on the Options they had and finally they committed to a course of action - the Way Forward.

Whether they realized it or not they were using the coaching ARROW

Aims - Reality - Reflection - Options - Way Forward

The coaching ARROW provides a simple framework around which to construct our coaching questions. Watch out for future articles where I'll examine each part of the model so you'll know exactly how use it to best effect.