The COACH’S MIND should develop the ability to understand and grasp process. Process is the essence of a coach’s approach to understanding life.
To apply our thinking into understanding something, anything, we first need to DEFINE it for ourselves as clearly and as true to the phenomena as possible. Understanding something comes from clarifying it for ourselves - clarifying what I know and how I think about it. As coaches you and I need to make up our minds about how we see things. As coaches we need to discover, make explicit and bring to the surface our paradigms. This is part of our journey of self-awareness.
We need to constantly cultivate and hone a posture of thinking that thinks about our own thinking. We need to look at what we see. Instead of looking through our glasses we need to take them off and look at our glasses. Before we can look ‘out there’, we need to look ‘in here’. We need to think about the way we think and how we think and why we think the way we do. It is important to hear how others think, how they see, but it might be more important to discover what, how and why you think!
Secondly, since we now understand the phenomena better (because we have a definition of it), we can decide on what instruments (questionnaires, surveys, experiential learning exercises, etc.) we will use (or develop ourselves) in order to ASSESS the phenomena. To assess something is to measure it, evaluate it, make it explicit, and observe it through 'controlled means'.
We assess in order to make the phenomena visible to ourselves, but primarily to make it visible to our client. I do a personality questionnaire to SEE what my personality is. I do a passion assessment to SEE where my true passions in life are. I do a character signature strengths test to SEE what my character signature strengths are. ASSESSMENTS help us SEE. With assessments we help our clients look at 'old' things and SEE them (maybe even) for the first time? Assessments make that which lies below the surface visible. It opens our eyes.
Thirdly, at the INTERVENTION phase of what we do, we primarily decide on what process, journey, path we will take to change the phenomena. Most phenomena we work with as coaches are phenomena our clients want changed. That is the reason they come to see us - they want some things in their lives changed (bettered, stopped, adapted).
Our clients trust us to know more about their journey ahead than what they themselves know. They place their lives in our hands and they implicitly and deeply trust that we know how to journey ahead into this unknown world. Without a tried and tested process-in-mind, you as coach will not be able to journey with your client into a sensible future. We sometimes journey with our clients and sometimes we carry them into a future, maybe even a better future.
You and I better be strong to carry those precious people. We are stronger when we know process, when we can think with a 'process-mind'. The content is not really yours and mine to determine. Our clients come already geared with their content, we supply the process. They know themselves better than anyone on earth and when that self-knowledge is combined with your knowledge of process, magic happens. Never, ever think you and I have the ability to unwrap the content of another person's life, but never, ever underestimate the power caused by the synergy between your client's content and your ability to facilitate the process. Your client has the CONTENT, you have the PROCESS. Put together and beautiful, poetic change is possible.
The whole process of DEFINITION ASSESSMENT INTERVENTION is to bring about change for our client. Change that will somehow make a difference to their lives, maybe even enrich their lives, maybe even mean that they start loving their children because we journeyed with them through the path of change.
by Abrian P. Stemmet | January 15, 2015 | Tags : Coaching Process Thinking
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