SYZERGY - Executive & business coaching, personal evolution

Extraordinary Leader #6 The Coaching Formula

The Coaching Formula.
Holding a bigger vision and listening until you no longer exist are the corner stones of coaching. Truth telling and trusting your intuition evolves from having focused and enhanced listening skills combined with putting aside your own agenda, to really hear what is going on for the other person.

The Elite Group.com Pty Ltd
Extraordinary Leadership, Innovative Thought, and Excellence
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The Extraordinary Leader September 2000
Issue #6

http://www.christinemcdougall.com is currently available
for information.

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Christine McDougall Margaret Krause
Christine@the-elite-group.com margaret@the-elite-group.com
Telephone: +61 7 55275155 Telephone: +61 7 5575 1200
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Welcome to the sixth edition of The Extraordinary Leader Newsletter.

Table Of Contents.

1. An Executive Summary Of The Feature Article
2. Welcome Notes
3. Special Announcements
4. Feature Article. "The Coaching Formula"
5. Monthly Point Of Focus
6. Resources
7. Subscription And Contact Information

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1. An Executive Summary Of The Feature Article.

2. Welcome Notes

This month has zipped by so quickly or so it seems! In Australia we are buzzing with Olympic fever. Australians are sports mad. Our business during those two weeks in September will be morning based, while the afternoons and evenings will become TV time-Olympic time. We have 24-hour live coverage of both our Australian team and the world teams to look forward to.

This month we continue with our articles on Coaching---moving into the ~~How to~~ part of coaching. This information is adapted from our program, ~The Coach Approach, a three month program we offer to organisations wishing to support their managers and leaders in become manager coaches, or leader coaches. The program has a two day live component, followed by three months of teleforum group coaching to cement and support the integration of the learning. For more information on ~~The Coach Approach, send an email to: mail to: admin@the-elite-group.com with Coach Approach in the subject line.

Thank you to everyone who has passed on our newsletter to your friends and colleagues. This is how we grow and our growing number of subscribers is a delight!

Have a great month!

Warmly, Christine and Marg.

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3. Special Announcements

For the next few months, we are continuing to hold FREE monthly TeleForums in Australia (for Australasian readers) and the USA (for Northern Hemisphere readers).We are limited to twenty participants for each TeleForum, so register early to avoid disappointment. Each TeleForum will be for one hour, and your only investment will be your time, and the cost of your call into our teleconference system.

Our September TeleForums will be held on;
USA - Monday September 18th at 8:00 p.m. New York time, and
Australia - Tuesday September 19th at 12:00 noon Sydney time.

During these September TeleForums, we will talk about The Coaching Formula. Both TeleForums will go into more detail about what the coaching formula is, how to apply it, when coaching is appropriate, and when it is not. We will also do some role-plays based on situations within your work and life, using this Coaching Formula.

If you would like to participate in our Coaching Formula Elite Group TeleForums:
1. Please zip an E-mail to admin@the-elite-group.com with "Coaching Formula TeleForum" in the subject line. In the body of your E-mail, please list your:

Company Name:
Your Name:
E-mail Address:
Telephone Number:
City/State/Country:
Profession or Position:
Website:

Upon receipt of your registration form, we will E-mail you a confirmation notice that will include the specific telephone number to join us for this TeleForum.

2. Please reserve the appropriate time within your calendar to attend the TeleForum of your choice

3. Questions? Send an E-mail to admin@the-elite-group.com

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4. Feature Article - The Coaching Formula.

All of us can learn to be better coaches, regardless of what skill level we already have. The skills of coaching are transferable to most areas of our lives - including leadership, management, sales, cultural evolution within organizations, and includes being a better parent, friend and partner. Coaching is an advanced form of communicating, whether you are being a coach to your children, or a coach to your staff. Let's face it, we can all be better communicators - even master coaches!

There are several pre-requisites to enable you to "be" a coach within a conversation.
1. You must put aside your own personal agenda.
2. You must listen to the person (or people), to gain complete understanding and clarity of what is going on for them. This will allow you to demonstrate you are clear about what it is they are communicating to you, and is a distinction of being clear about your interpretation of what they are communicating.
3. You need to have a genuine desire to "be" a coach as a catalyst, in distinction to trying to fix something, solve something, or take control of something.

In order to support the understanding of the environment of coaching, we have created the Coaching Formula.

The first part of the coaching formula is to understand the context for coaching. For coaching to occur, there must be a gap between where the person or company is today, right now, and where they would like to be. The context for coaching is for the coach to hold a bigger and clearer vision of and for the client, than the client holds of themselves. Have you been in a relationship with someone, a friend, mentor, staff member or manager, for whom you could see something within them that had wonderful potential, and was as yet unexpressed? Or, have you ever had someone in your life whom could see as yet unexpressed talent, way before you could see it, or believe in it? Both of these situations are the context of coaching. As coaches we must see with eyes that go beyond the evidence as presented in time and space now - today. As coaches, we seek to see hidden talent, possibility and dormant strengths within others.

Think back to the conversations and encounters you have had with people today. How would those conversations and encounters have been different, if you had participated in them from the perspective of seeking to see the hidden unexpressed possibility behind the public mask of the person you were communicating with? Simply shifting your perspective on the way you show up to a conversation, will enable a shift within the conversation, and make it more powerful.

Within this context for coaching is the Coaching Formula.

The Coaching Formula = Listen until you no longer exist + tell the truth about what you hear + trust your intuition.

~~Listen until you no longer exist~~
What does this mean? Listening is a skill that may take a lifetime to fully develop. Start by listening so you no longer hear the chatterer inside your head. I think you know the one that I am talking about ... that little voice that says, "What Chatterer?" or "What is she talking about - I don't have any chattering going on in my head!" You see, if you are listening to yourself, to your chatterer, you cannot be listening to me! According to the laws of physics, no two things can occupy the same space at the same time. We cannot think two things at the same time. We can think two things in rapid succession to each other, but not simultaneously. Therefore, if you a really listening to someone else, you cannot be listening to yourself. You and your thoughts no longer exist. Easy to say, much harder to do. In future editions of this newsletter, we will talk about techniques to focus your listening skills. For now, start practicing listening at a level where your chatterer is silent. This means you do not hear that voice inside your head when someone else is talking.

~~Tell the truth about what you hear~~
Again, simple to say and harder to do. We have become skilled at not speaking out aloud about what we are hearing and feeling. Here is an example of telling the truth, "I am hearing that you are confused." Or, "I am sensing that you are not happy with the current situation?" Or, "My feeling is that you have a lot at stake here?"

You may also be speaking the truth about what you are hearing within a conversation. For example, "I am hearing that there is still much to be done to get to the bottom of this, that if you proceed at this time without doing the further research, this could become a costly exercise for you? Is that something that you would want to have happen?"

In a sales situation, telling the truth can be "I would love to do this deal with you. When would you like to get started?" These words would only apply if they were the truth. If the truth was you really need this sale because you have a large bill to pay, then telling the truth would be to state "I really need to make this sale." The customer will sense your underlying urgency anyway, no matter how good a salesperson you are. It is far better to put the cards on the table, to state the truth, and have the space between you and the customer clean. Anything less than this is, in one form or another, manipulative and covert.

~~ Trust your intuition ~~
Many of us do not know what intuition is. Intuition is the voice inside you that says. "Don't do that!" It is also the part of you that lets you know you are happy or sad. Intuition is not unique to a special few - people are not blessed with intuitive powers. We all have intuition available to us at all times. The question is whether we listen to it, firstly, and secondly, whether we follow it. Trusting your intuition as a coach, means speaking aloud your intuition without judgement of rightness and wrongness. Simply stating what your intuition is, and allowing the person being coached to choose whether it is appropriate for them or not, is all that the coach needs to do.

~~ Putting it all together ~~
Holding a bigger vision and listening until you no longer exist are the corner stones of coaching. Truth telling and trusting your intuition evolves from having focused and enhanced listening skills combined with putting aside your own agenda, to really hear what is going on for the other person.

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5. Monthly Point Of Focus

Each month we have a single point of focus for you to apply in your
business and in your life.

There are four components in the Coaching Formula which are, holding a bigger vision, listening until you no longer exist, trusting your intuition and telling the truth.
Pick one component that you feel needs the most work, and focus on applying this to all of your conversations. Please write an E-mail to admin@the-elite-group.com and tell us how you progress with your point of focus.

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6. Resources

Co-Active Coaching - New Skills for Coaching People Toward Success in Work and Life, by Laura Whitworth, Henry Kimsey-House, Phil Sandahl (1998). This book provides some wonderful insights around listening, intuition and associated coaching skills. A worthwhile read for anyone looking to develop and enhance their coaching skills.

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7. Subscription And Contact Information

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You may copy or distribute The Extraordinary Leader newsletter so long as this copyright notice and full information about contacting The Elite Group.com are attached. Contact us on + 61 7 5527 5155, or E-mail us at admin@the-elite-group.com

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