"Claire thinks clearly and was very encouraging as she helped me to do the same. She knows the kind of questions to ask, is a good listener and checks that she’s really hearing what you say (by reflecting back) She didn’t do my thinking for me! She also wasn’t patronising when I was all over the place." RT Professional Musician Home
Coaching skills are used in management, supervision, mentoring, counselling and every day conversations. It's important to notice that management, supervision, mentoring, counselling and chat are not included in the coaching conversation.
Two factors allow for an effective foundation to a coaching conversation.
"The powerfulness of a conversation comes when you think I'm doing what I think I'm doing. " Claire Pedrick
Reflect back on conversations you have had at work. If you think you were being non-directive and your colleague thinks you were performance managing them it's probably not going to be very effective. Meeting ethical guidelines means that as well as being ethical and confidential, the coaching conversation needs to be coaching and not anything else.
Here are some stories which illustrate the importance of being clear what's happenning in a conversation:
Juggling in 3D 353: Parler Francais Claire writes: 'We spent a great weekend in Le Touquet in September...When people keep rescuing us, we don't learn. When we keep rescuing people, they don't learn.
