Visualization is also useful to break negative patterns in situations where the client has difficulty to react in a constructive way.
Role-play is an exercise where the coach and client act out roles to explore a particular scenario. It’s most useful to prepare the client for unfamiliar or difficult situations, as for instance: interviews, presentations, emotionally difficult conversations.
By acting scenarios like these out, it is possible to explore how other people are likely to respond to different approaches; identify approaches that are likely to work, and those that might be counter-productive. This exercise also encourages the client to practice empathy, getting a sense of what other people are likely to think and feel in the situation.
The client builds up experience and self-confidence with handling the situation in real life, and this supports them to react effectively as situations evolve, rather than making mistakes or becoming overwhelmed by events.
Acknowledgement is the capability to recognize something positive about a person and let them know about it. It is relevant in the Coaching process to reinforce positive actions.
Sometimes the client is not aware of how far they have already come. Acknowledging actions and steps that before seemed so difficult to take is a powerful tool to help the client hold their vision.
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The Coaching Process
Figure 2 illustrates the steps involved in model
Figure 2: Iterative Coaching Steps
A good coaching outcome requires a good coaching relationship. A good atmosphere created in the beginning sets the tone for a strong coaching partnership. When the process starts, the first meeting promotes the space to begin to build rapport and trust.
It is time to align expectations on both sides. The coach presents his/her approach, and clarifies that the client’s job is to take an active role in the process and to be receptive to new ways of understanding themselves, to new perspectives and to new ways of acting.
This is also a good opportunity for the client to talk about his/her original motivators – what to expect from this coaching engagement, what is the purpose, what kind of commitment he/she is willing to give. Often the client does not have total clarity on these questions, and this by itself is a fertile ground to begin the next phase.
At this starting point of the process the practical aspects are also discussed (session duration, contractual conditions, etc.).
This is maybe the most exciting component of the coaching process. It is an exploratory step where the client enters a space of self-awareness and self-development.
In the Discovery phase of Iterative Coaching, the coach supports the client in this journey. In our model, to define and achieve goals that are aligned with the client’s values is a premise, so the exploration of values permeate through all the process.
Being self-aware results from having inward focus, knowing the patterns that we have, understanding what moves us, knowing our values and beliefs.
At this point the client also explores and gets clarification on the issues they want to overcome, or goals they want to achieve.
Once the client has clarity on his/her values, and has defined goals aligned with these values, he/she has built their future vision.
The exploratory process of the discovery step also brings to evidence the current client’s perspective about what they want and the obstacles they see, as well as limiting beliefs.
Your perspective determines your experiences, not your circumstances. Disempowering perspectives prevent us from seeing the full range of possible solutions or opportunities. The identification of disempowering perspectives opens up the opportunity to reframe them, overcoming and then envisioning new solutions.
It is possible to reframe perspectives ourselves, but as an objective observer the coach has a unique position to help the client to identify unhelpful perspectives and reframe them. The result of this step is to have the client feeling empowered to do the needed actions to overcome obstacles and build the outcome he/she wants.
Coaching is about being in action. The coach cannot take actions for the client, but can enthuse them into wanting to take action, and support them to track the progress.
Having a clear vision for the future is the first step, but effective action is what really moves the client towards it. It is not rare to feel stuck, or uncomfortable because you don’t have complete visibility of the actions you should take. This is normal, and the coach is there to remind the client that just because they do not know the whole route does not mean that they cannot start the journey. Moreover, starting the journey gives additional empowerment to proceed.
You don’t need to define an action plan for each matter being worked in the coaching process. Maybe just one action, or even one small step at a time can be enough to start a successful journey.
The client commitment is key to make things happen. By making a commitment, the client is holding himself/herself responsible and accountable to take actions to produce specific results. It is the coach role to assists the client to help keep the commitment alive during the process, through empowering structures.
Each action taken is success at a certain level. Even when the result is not as expected, in a certain way it keeps the client moving, gives reasons for acknowledgement and learning, and empowers the client to take next step.
Achievements, acknowledge and celebrations are also part of our coaching process. We believe that each progress in the self-development journey gets the client closer to fulfillment and happiness in life.
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The Iterative Dynamic
It is important to notice that these steps not necessarily occur in this sequence, linearly. This is why we call our model Iterative Coaching: the steps are iterative (or cyclic).
When reframing perspectives, new underlying beliefs or goals not identified in the first discovery step may raise up. In this case, the process might move from the Discovery to the Reframing phase, and back to Discovery many times.
The same is valid to the other phases. When taking an action, the client may get aware of some new obstacle that needs to be explored – and here we move to the Discovery phase again.
We can also move from the Action phase to the Result phase when some partial achievement is done, to celebrate that small win, and go back to Action to take next step.
Iterative coaching is thus a dynamic process that grows together with the client, having unlimited potential to embrace all aspects of the client’s life!