A detailed discussion and careful probing around the identified goals to understand the motivational factors behind them is the process of sterilization. Enunciating all of the possible goals for the individual and further sterilizing these to identify one most critical goal such that the coaches is able to visualize and imagine himself going for the goal irrespective of many challenges that he is likely to face is the intent of the sterilization process. A sterilized goal is an opportunity window for internal transformation. A sterilized goal is a suitable window for initiating transformation because the coachee is likely to have given a considerable thought, mind space, mental energy to the goal and therefore is also adequately motivated to achieve the goal irrespective of it requiring many behavioral changes and commitments from his end.
2. Envision:
Once a sterilized goal is obtained, the second process is to enable the coachee to visualize the end outcome of the goal. This visualization needs to be as descriptive as it could be. The visualization technique is adopted to bring to life the end goal and also imprint in the coachee’s mind the picture of success. The visualization exercise could be focused on adding the following dimensions.
Sensory Dimension – The coachee visualizes the end goal with visual, auditory and kinesthetic (touch and feeling) perceptions. This helps in creating a visual imagery of the end outcome in a 3 dimensional format which is the closest to the everyday reality perceived by the human mind and body.
Dimension of time – The coachee can also add the attribute of time towards achieving the end goal. This would help to create an arrow of direction and visualize possible milestone events that need to be crossed to reach the end goal. There is an element of sequencing and prioritizing that occurs while the Time dimension is added to the exercise.
Dimension of Space – The coachee considers achieving the end goal in a particular desired ‘space’- for e.g. visualizing the happening of the end outcome in a foreign country or in the boss’s cabin.
The envisioning exercise and the resultant adding of dimensions is said to be powerful in helping the coachee gain clarity on where and how far away he sees the end outcome. As he adds dimensions of space and time, the coachee gets further clarity on his current reality and also about how much of the journey remains to be undertaken.
3. Explore:
Once a sterilized goal is obtained and its end outcome is envisioned, the journey inwards begins. This stage could be the longest one in the entire coaching model for it is one that initiates unraveling of the awareness of the various traits or qualities and the underlying values for each of the qualities of the coachee. During this stage, there is an attempt to list down all the descriptions that the individual has about himself- both positive and negative.
The Descriptor Map tool which is described under the Power tools section would be used extensively in this exploration stage to arrive at an understanding of the below
The end of the exploration exercise also brings in a visualization exercise wherein, the coachee vividly paints two pictures of himself- one that describes him with ‘desired’ characteristics as to reach his end goal- the picture is as vividly painted with as many colors and associative environmental descriptors – friends, trophy, office colleagues, family and so forth.
The picture of the current state of the coachee is also painted with as much self descriptions and environment descriptions. These two pictures are then placed adjacently in the mind of the coachee to further highlight the differences and cement the level of commitment required to move towards the end goal.