She realised that her self-limiting belief that people would let her down and make her look bad was coming in the way of her being effective and she had internalised this. By letting go and taking on ownership and understanding that mistakes happen and by being more supportive she earned the loyalty of her team.
2. To help her with strategies that could help her calm and not sanp at her team?
Vinita discovered through conversations that her snapping and ability to influence her team was low on account of a few situations where she was let down. Additionally coupled with her doubts of fear of what if I let go, led her to be controlling.
The use of reframing perspectives and helping Vinita with the power tools of
- Responding versus reacting
- Possibilities over problems
Helped her calm things down. The response Anita had to various situations was different. Every time she wanted to react she calmed herself and the effect it had on the team was amazing.
The “possibilities” view opens up a new array of possible futures and engages us with the
Energy that comes from hope and anticipation. Often, in looking at these scenarios and the emotional energy created, the problems can lose their grip our thinking and we are invited into a new world and paradigm, which automatically solves the “problem” in its wake.
3. To become a fulfilled light positive person who was approachable.
Vinita was different person outside work, she was calmer and the life of a party. She would put on a persona at work and rarely was nice to her team.
Through the visualisation process, Vinita was able to let go of negative emotions and also visualise the kind of person she wanted to be at work. This helped be calmer and more approachable at work.
The coaching culminated in a 3 way feedback with the manager who also sought inputs from Vinita’s team and there was much more positivity and the team began responding to her differently and she was able to engage with them in a more collaborative manner.
By the end of the 4 month sessions the transformation was visible and acknowledged by both Vinita and her manager.
A Summary of the Approach based on ICF competencies, Model & Tools Used
The Coaching Model used during the process
I used the GROW Model during this process as detailed below –
The first step in this process was to:
1. Establish the Goal
Vinita and I with her manager discussed the behaviour that Vinita want to change, and then structure this change as a goal that she wants to achieve.
Questions that helped were?
2. Examine the Current Reality
This was a critical step to help Vinita solve the problem and help her with the starting point. The 360 feedback helped establish this and helped Vinita focus on how she wanted to work on reaching her goals.
3. Explore the Options
Once we established the current reality we focused on options. We brainstormed possibilities
We also through sessions focused on the advantages and disadvantages of options that Vinita came up with. We also discussed obstacles that would come in the way of implementing it
4. Establish the Will
By examining the current reality and exploring the options, Vinita had a good idea of how to accomplish the Goal.
It was also important to get Vinita to specific actions in order to move forward towards her goals and motivate her.
Useful questions to ask here included:
We agreed on timelines and plans to review progress and also sought feedback from her peers and manager.
The Coaching Approach
Establishing the Contract:
At the beginning of the session we established a contract with the client and agreed on areas that they would like to focus on. Confidentiality was established and once this was agreed after the initial chemistry meeting, the first session established the goal, and it was facilitative, open-ended questions to support the executive to deliver against that contract.
The result was an articulated goal with clarity around how you will know that you’ve achieved it.
Solution-focus – Determining the best way to achieve the goal
Here my role was to pay close attention to what the client is saying and not saying. While the executive retained full control the goal was to maintain the position of an objective, non-judgmental sounding board.
Based on the insights and answers the role was to ask questions listen, acknowledge and reframe perspectives, support the individual to challenge themselves and uncover and explore additional possibilities. Additionally, I also used power tools and visualisation that enabled the individual to access their more subconscious, intuitive knowledge that could otherwise be difficult to articulate and process.
Commitment- Building and sustaining motivation:
The most important part of the process was to support an individual to maintain perspective and constantly link the overall importance of what it is they are trying to achieve to the actual actions required to do it. Confidence and determination and effective prioritisation were some of the frequently addressed areas.
Establishing milestones and tracking it:
We created smart goals and tracked it; this tracking was is critical for both sustaining commitment and acknowledging progress.
Celebrating Success:
We shared the success with the manager and reviewed this which helped in creating a win win situation.