A Coaching Model Created by Simone Noussitou de Rham
(Life & Career Coach, SWITZERLAND)
Bee Yourself to be in Action with the Enlightening Support of a Coach
Through coaching, reconnect to your inner self to pursue a more purpose-driven life & career. You have all the resources you need. The coach is simply here to shine the light to facilitate your self-(re)discovery and support you into action.
My coaching model covers three aspects
This coaching model was written to improve my own self-understanding about coaching: what kind of coaching I want to offer.
This is where I stand right now in my own journey: a light framework to be able to coach with a solid backbone without losing any flexibility to be fully present to best support the client in his/her journey.
BEE yourself & in action– my vision of coaching
I see coaching as an exploration of our inner-self to achieve our goals and this can be pictured as a bee collecting pollen to produce honey1.
The client’s objective is represented by the bee’s goal to bring back pollen and the search of the pollen can be seen as the coaching journey. Like in coaching this quest is rooted in two major pillars: Self-awareness and action. You need to have both in order to move forward and achieve results.
Self-awareness
The first aspect of coaching is this free exploration. The bee will fly through its surroundings to discover different aspects of its internal resources as well as its environment. What are its strengths, what are its internal and external current limits, where can it find the best pollen, how far can it fly with its available energy and how can it fly further to discover even better pollen, etc.
The bee will not be alone; it will be supported by a bee-coach that will enlighten its journey. This bee-coach will offer the right structure with tools where appropriate to shine the light for this self exploration and keep the objective always visible.
There is something light about being oneself, as it feels right inside. What are your values, your strengths, what makes you happy or feel satisfied, how do your function, what drains your energy?
Finding or re-fining inner knowledge also builds your trust and allows you to move to wherever and how you want because you navigate from a solid safe home. This inner self will then continue to grow beyond the coaching throughout your life journey.
Be yourself is very empowering, rich, fulfilling and light.
Action
Based on the additional knowledge the bee has developed, it has to move into action to bring back pollen to ensure honey can be produced and the whole colony can survive. Like in coaching, the intend is not just to gain this inner knowledge but above all to be able to move into action to achieve the desired change. As without action, there is no change.
By having a fellow bee as a coach, the client will have someone that is giving its utmost presence to the client. Someone that the client can trust, that will listen in a generous, compassionate and benevolent way. But it is also someone that will challenge him/her and hold him/her accountable for the change (s)he is looking for. This trusting space will be the compost for powerful change.
The bee-coach will not tell which flower to go to or which pollen to pick. Instead it will support to explore other alternatives or perspectives to facilitate decision making. The client, with the support of the coach’s listening & questioning as well as the observations & feedback’s, will at his/her pace, set actions and progress towards the set goals. (S)he will also be able to count on an enthusiastic cheerleader that will acknowledge with him/her the different steps. This will fuel the client with energy & confidence to continue.
The purpose and the path to get there belongs to the bee as it is the one knowing best what needs to be done, to go where it wants to go. The bee-coach is there to shine some light to make it happen in a meaningful, light and efficient way through:
SHINE – the 5 pillars of the coaching journey
1.) Set targets
Knowing what we want to achieve is the first and most important step towards success. This is true for the overall coaching journey but also for the individual sessions. Once we know the destination, the exploratory process on how to get there can take place in whole creativity, freedom, openness & curiosity.
Because it is so important, we will spend enough time at the beginning and explore with the client the real purpose of the coaching. What does the client most want to get out of this process? (S)he will then verbalize this purpose in one or several objectives. The more specific and thought-through they are, the better the result. The coach has an important listening and mirroring back role in this step.
The following next 3 pillars happen often in a cyclical way where curiosity for additional self-awareness enables shift to happen which together empowers the client to initiate action. Which then trigger new curiosity …
2.) SearcH
In my perspective, the true heart of coaching is about powerful listening, questioning and mirroring. More than any tools, being able to explore with someone our thoughts in a trusting and benevolent space is where the true magic of coaching is happening.
Coaching sessions will take the form of free exploring discussions as the bee in search of the pollen. In this step, the client, with the light of the coach, will explore his/her inner-self for increased awareness of his/her values, strengths, believes, motivation factors, etc. This inquiry based process can be supported by tools where appropriate.
3.) ShIft
Additional awareness also brings up perspectives we are carrying with us from past experiences, education, culture, etc. These perspectives and believes considered as certainties may have supported us in the past but may now hinder our ability to see our true and full potential.
The client with the help of the coach, as an objective observer, will be able to identify such unhelpful believes and perspectives and re-frame them. In this decisive moment when a shift occurs, the client will move from a dis-empowering to an empowering mindset which will liberate him/her to see completely new possibilities and move into action.
4.) INitiate
This leads to the 4th pillar of the coaching process. To set oneself in movement.
Coaching would not be complete unless through the exploration, the increase self-awareness and the different shifts that will happen, the client initiate actions. At each end of a coaching session, the client will have defined some actions for him/herself and feels confident to move oneself in action until next session. In order to support the client in this action piece, the coach will work with him/her to define the accountability element. What support structure will the client put in place and towards whom the client wants to be accountable for these actions? Each client has different needs and ways of functioning, hence understanding together the winning strategy for the client is also part of the coaching journey.
5.) Empower
Who wouldn’t like to have a life-long coach that you trust and is giving you a judgement free space where you can explore, brainstorm, speak aloud, get challenged just what you want, etc. However, I believe that a true coaching is one that set the client free and empowered to be able to fly by his own. Like the bee who after being supported for a while by the bee-coach, will fly off alone to collect its pollen.
The term Empower is also used here to illustrate the action to apply learned technics and increased self-awareness to new challenges through efficient self-coaching.
It is important throughout the process to keep in mind this ultimate pillar and to “fly” towards it in a continuous way.
LIGHT – who I am as a coach – A passionate, energetic, authentic, intuitive listener
LIGHT because I believe in a coaching that is bright and weightless (to pick only two…) in terms of atmosphere even with serious topics. My aim is to co-create a trusting relationship to be able to discuss openly and deeply of important subjects for the client in a relaxed and vibrant atmosphere.
Listener
As beautifully present in the Chinese character for the verb Listen, listening is not only done with our ears it is also happening with our eyes, our heart and requires our undivided attention. My ability to concentrate and focus will ensure full attention is given to what is being said, not only the what but also the how and the unsaid (tone of voice, emotions, etc.). Be able to hear the complete content of a message, connect the dots between the different subjects, sessions, etc. and then mirror it back to the client is at the base of powerful coaching.
PassIonate & EnerGetic
I am a passionate person and I naturally get excited about what is happening around me. I love to understand & explore the unknown, be it persons, cultures, situations. In a coaching relationship, I use this passion and energy at the service of the client to encourage him/her to be in a state of motion and enthuse him/herself.
AutHentic
Authenticity is one of my core values and is at the center of my relationships. Building trust is a co-creation which implies that coach and client need to connect hence share part of their true self. I consider it is difficult to ask our clients to reveal their inner world and move towards “BE yourself”, without as a coach act true to our own self.
InTuitive
I believe in a coaching process that relies on a solid structure (e.g tools, continuous improvement through learning, supporting documents for the coach, etc.) to be free enough to leave space to the unknown. Having the right structure allows me during the coaching itself to rely on my intuition to remain fully open and flexible for my client. As the bee supported by a bee-coach exploring possibilities to reach a set objective. There is an intention, there is structure and a trusting space but the two bees need to be ready to play with external conditions like wind, rain, danger and be able to continuously intuitively readjust in a flexible and agile way to reach the desired outcome.