Abintus Coaching Resources

The ideal coaching scenario where the coachee thinks about and can bring a topic or discussion area to their coaching session. Reality says that this isn’t always the case. Or, the coachee isn’t sure on where their focus should be. For a developing coach, this situation can be daunting. There is a simple technique you can use.

Coachees can arrive at their coaching session with no idea of a topic area or goal. This puts coache on the spot. It can also lead to the coachee ‘grabbing’ at something for the sake of finding a topic.

GROW can be used prior to the formal session to get the coachee to identify potential topic areas. I call it using ‘GROW B4 GROW’. The coach will set the goal and from there tease out potential areas. A simplified overview might be:

Goal

Coach – ‘So, I want to set a goal of identifying potential topics for this and future coaching sessions.’

Reality

The coach can now ask a wide range of questions to tease out areas, issues, challenges, opportunities and development areas, that might be useful topic and goal areas:

  • Share what’s been happening in your work since we last met?
  • What’s been working and not working for you?
  • Tell me about the progress of your project(s)
  • What feedback have you had on your performance recently?
  • Where are you at with delivering your work on time?
  • How are you feeling about work and performance at the moment?
  • What is outstanding in your development plan?
  • How are your relationships with the team at present?
  • What is causing you most pain at present?
  • Where does change need to be focused on in each of these?
  • What issues have you been facing recently?
  • Tell me what challenges you come across within your work and team?
  • What might your line manager suggest would be a valuable coaching area?

The coach or coachee can capture the outputs of this part of the discussion, either in their notes, on a flip chart or on post it notes.

Options

  • We have identified different situations arising at work at the moment. What areas stand out to you as ones which could be good to explore in your coaching?
  • From all of these where might you like to concentrate on?
  • Which of these do you feel would provide most value to your work? (Model T)
  • Which of these areas is most critical to your delivery at present? (Model T)
  • Which of these might be most personally beneficial? (Model T)

Wrap Up

  • So which area would you like to focus on first from these?
  • How happy are you with this?
  • Anything that might prevent us from exploring this area?

This process should be straight forward as the coachee will know what is happening in their own personal workspace. Once completed, the coach moves into the formal GROW process and looks to tease out a specific goal for the chosen topic area.

If you have found this resource useful, contact Abintus to see how we can support you or your organisation in its coaching and leadership activities.