The Coaching Manual: The Definitive Guide to The Process, Principles and Skills of Personal

329 Pages·2016·2.21 MB·English

by  Julie Starr

Contents
About the author
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
2 Collaborative coaching
3 Coaching principles or beliefs
4 Fundamental skills of coaching
5 Barriers to coaching
6 Coaching conversations: the coaching path
7 Coaching assignment: structure and process
8 Emotional maturity and coaching
9 Become a coach
10 Consolidate your learning
Toolkit - Practise coaching behaviours and build assignments
Index
About the author
Julie Starr is an expert and thought-leader in the field of coaching. Since 2002,
her best-selling book The Coaching Manual has supported the evolution of the
coaching field through simple, powerful principles and practical approaches.
With over 20 years and thousands of hours of coaching experience, Julie
supports CEOs and executives from the world’s largest organisations. Her
approach is challenging, compassionate and empowers clear leadership.
Julie’s other titles, Brilliant Coaching and The Mentoring Manual support
managers and leaders to improve business performance by developing people.
Her books are translated into many languages and are required reading on coach
training programmes around the world. She lectures in universities and at
industry conferences to inspire understanding and engagement. Julie is MD of
Starr Consulting, a leading provider of coach training in organisations, check out
www.starrconsulting.co.uk
Julie also writes novels for young adults and donates proceeds to charities which
house, heal and educate street children and orphans; check out
www.ruffdogbooks.com
Acknowledgements
There are many people who have contributed to the development of the ideas
and thoughts in the book and I hope I’ve remembered to acknowledge most of
them. So I would like to express gratitude for the work of the following people:
Richard Bandler, Brandon Bays, Kevin Billett, Deepak Chopra, the late Stephen
R. Covey, Frank Daniels, Landmark Education, Milton H. Erickson, John
Grinder, Byron Katie, M. Scott Peck, Anthony Robbins, Eckhart Tolle and Brian
Tracey.
I’d also like to thank Rachel Raymond, Lisa Barton, Eloise Cook, Belinda
Noakes, Dr Xanthe Wells and Marcia Yudkin for their challenges, thoughts and
ideas in preparation of the text.
Chapter 1
Introduction
Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it.
Pema Chodron
Welcome to the fourth edition of The Coaching Manual. This new and revised
edition is informed by my ongoing quest to distinguish the core principles and
‘truths’ that underpin effective coaching practice. The core goal of this book
remains the same: to offer you simple principles, insights and guidance that
support whatever type of coaching you choose to do.
Since the book was first written in 2002, I have watched the profession develop
in very exciting ways. I’ve seen the interest in coaching accelerate as people
realise the impact, benefits and value of this type of support and development.
Anyone coaching, or interested in coaching, now has access to a vast wealth of
knowledge, training, support and guidance to help them navigate their
development path forward. In organisations, coaching is increasingly
acknowledged as something that makes a positive contribution to business goals.
So coaching engages people personally and professionally, for at the heart of
coaching is an awareness of our basic interdependency as people, and the need to
support each other. I see that much good is being created from this simple truth.
The Coaching Manual has been translated into many languages and supports the
practice and development of coaching far and wide. Since the publication of the
first edition I continue to work and study within the field of personal
development with a clear focus on coaching.
Embracing change, we’ve made the manual more versatile by offering the
Toolkit (towards the end of the book) as documents that are also free to
download online. My intention is to give you flexible access to practical
information, routines and processes to help develop your skills and support you
as you coach. Chapter 9, ‘Become a coach’, helps you consider how you will use
these principles and skills for yourself – for example as a style of behaviour or
indeed by becoming a coach yourself. So whatever your current interest is in
coaching, I hope you enjoy this book and find that it strengthens the work that
you do.
How this book works
This book explains the principles and approaches of coaching and shows you
how to apply them in any coaching situation, from business coaching in the
workplace to more holistic life coaching in a personalised setting. If you are new
to coaching, the manual is a practical guide to support your learning and
practice, often in everyday situations. For those already coaching, the manual
offers fresh insights and thought-provoking ideas. For the busy manager, the
manual provides techniques to use with your team.
I will often talk to you as though you are already a coach or are coaching in
some way. Please know that you do not have to be a coach to benefit from the
ideas which follow. If you are in any situation where you are helping others to
create change through learning, I’m confident that the manual has something to
offer.
This book encourages you to adopt a collaborative style of coaching. By
collaborative coaching I mean that the coach and the person being coached work
together to create change. As a coach, you bring your specific skills to work with
the situation, intention and need of the person being coached. In order to engage
and empower the person you are working with, I’ll encourage you to adopt a less
directive style of behaviour and language, while staying supportive of change.
To enable you to coach effectively, I’ll cover the ideas and beliefs that underpin
coaching and offer fresh views on the skills you need to strengthen. You’ll also
have simple examples of positive coaching behaviour and language to help
develop your self-awareness, such as ‘I need to spend more time getting clearer
up front’ or ‘Right now I talk too much in these situations’. I’ve included the
natural structure of a coaching conversation, to help you navigate from the first
‘hello’ to a typical ‘farewell’. I’ll also offer practical guidance on what to watch
out for, in the shape of unforeseen barriers or blocks that hinder great coaching.
To help you build an approach to coaching someone over a number of sessions,
you’ll find the common stages of a coaching assignment. When you’re ready to
leap into action, the Toolkit will help give you even more confidence to get
started.
A manual that works when you do
As you read, you’ll notice bite-sized inserts that support your practice and
learning. When you use them, these items will help you to increase both your
self-awareness and your ability to coach others. These inserts comprise:
Testing Questions
These are a series of questions to help you link ideas specifically to your own
situation and reflect on them to gain personal insight. You can write your answers
down, speak them out loud, try them on to see how they feel, or just pause and
think them through. The important thing to remember is that the questions are intended to
provoke thought and action. By pausing and attending to the questions, you’re letting the
book go to work for you.
Checklists
These are quick summaries of points to confirm your understanding and also serve
as memory joggers for future reference – for example, to help you consider how
much structure is appropriate in a coaching assignment, or how you can work with a
coachee to understand the impact of your coaching conversations.
Story Teller
These are mostly fictional examples to illustrate a principle or idea and use imaginary
situations and people. They are informed by my own work, and are often based on
real situations that I have adapted to make them appropriate to share with you.
Exercise
At intervals, you’ll be asked to try an idea or approach for yourself, often in an
everyday conversation. This is where you will begin to make progress on your
ability to coach more effectively. Some exercises will be straightforward and help you
confirm your understanding, while others will challenge you to do something a little further
from your comfort zone. Although the exercises are clearly optional, I do encourage you to
try more than you skip! Remember, only by coaching do we really learn to coach.
Hints and tips
Here I’ll offer practical examples, hints or advice to help you with key points – for
example, how to acknowledge or influence a coachee’s feelings, or how to handle it if your
feedback gets a negative response. They are intended to be bite-sized reminders of ideas that
you can return to at any time.
Coach’s Toolkit: also available online
To help you in the everyday activity of coaching, at the end of the book you’ll find
a Toolkit section. Here you will find material to support you as you develop your
coaching skills and also as you practise as a coach with clients. Content includes
an overview of coaching to give to a potential coachee, and an example of the kind of notes
you might keep to accelerate your learning. You are free to use this content as part of your
own personal practice and I request that you do not charge others for it.
All content, plus additional items, is also available to download (free of charge) from
the online Toolkit area of my website at www.starrconsulting.co.uk.
What is coaching?
Put simply, coaching is a conversation, or series of conversations, that one
person has with another. What makes the conversation different from others is
the impact the conversation has on the person being coached (the coachee). An
effective coaching conversation influences someone’s understanding, learning,
behaviour and progress. Coaching conversations can happen over different
timeframes and in different environments. For example, you might have a
coaching conversation during a face-to-face session that lasts two hours, or
alternatively you could have a ten-minute telephone call which might also
constitute coaching. This is because coaching is more defined by the impact of
your conversation than the duration of it.
Most often, the best person to judge if a conversation was a coaching