Is there a place for coaching at home? You decide.

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It can be so easy to fall into ‘The Coaching Trap’.  Imagine that you are coaching someone, and you believe the conversation is going quite well...

(Repost)

Here’s a scenario that repeats itself regularly while participants in our coaching programs are practicing their coaching skills.

We’ve all experienced it – that pause that appears after we’ve asked our coachee a particularly challenging question.

Have you ever wondered whether your coaching is reaching its full “making a difference for the coachee” potential?

Occasionally, we experience an event that we instantly know is going to change everything.

Is there even a sneakin’ chance that you tend to slip in advice by posing a leading question?

You might find it strange to hear a coach encourage a coachee to “get the job first, do the homework second”.

I had to call on every ounce of my professional coach acumen to squash my very needy thoughts in real time.

I began to notice that his rapid speech and (apparent) annoyance with my request to repeat himself had triggered me to wonder whether he was rather junior.

How many times have you caught yourself in conversation, but not listening at all?

My client told me a story we have all heard, or even lived ourselves. His relationship was dysfunctional and unhappy...

In several workshops during the last year, I revealed the profound “Three Layers of Deep Listening Model’

So how honest and direct can a coach get? Well, I really pushed the limit a while back.

The thought process created by being asked to choose from a menu of options is very different than that created by a powerful open question.

I resisted the temptation to do something mean just to prove him wrong, and thanked him for his feedback.

“I have to exercise more.” “I’ve got to start networking.” “I need to stop planning back-to-back meetings.” “I have to get on top of my Inbox.” “I’ve got to start leaving the office by 18:00.” “I need to spend more time with my team.“ Etcetera etcetera etcetera.

But what about contracting up front, right at the beginning of the coaching journey?

Have you ever found yourself floundering or a bit lost in a coaching conversation when your coachee goes off on a tangent, or when you're not sure which topic to discuss next?

While many say that pure coaching consists of giving no advice at all, I’ve heard many coaches confess that they do give advice from time to time.

“Can we please turn the video off?”, she said. I immediately felt intense curiosity shooting...

I was caught completely off guard. I had no idea that this had been going on inside him.

A couple of years ago I was frustrated with a coaching session that I felt just hadn’t gone well.

I’ve heard this so many times. It resembles a sigh, yet it’s different.  When a person sighs, they breathe in deeply, and slowly.  And then...

Then I said, “So it sounds like you are a good communicator.”  He winced as if I had stepped on his toe, and I asked him why.  He wasn’t sure.

I believe that failure can be celebrated, as long as we learn from it. This is a new perspective for many coaches, and also a gift...

Then you ask what you think is a great open question, and the conversation comes to a dead halt.  Silence.  What happens next?

I am frequently asked: “What theme comes up most often in your coaching sessions?”...

Have you ever been annoyed by a person you were coaching?  I have.  So what’s really going on, and how can we manage ourselves in these situations?

I think coachees send out ‘invitations’ all the time.  Here’s what it looks like:  During a coaching conversation...

Coaching conversations (and most conversations, actually) are much like two people walking down a road together. When they come to a crossroad,

Boring?  At first glance, the topic of note taking may seem to be one of the more mundane items to cover in a blog post on coaching.  I beg to differ

Someone comes to you to discuss an issue they have.  You ask some questions, and at a certain point, you feel like you have a pretty good grip of the situation.  It is time to move to solutions, right?

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It can be so easy to fall into ‘The Coaching Trap’.  Imagine that you are coaching someone, and you believe the conversation is going quite well...

Recently I was listening to (what was in my opinion) a very chaotic story.  My coachee moved randomly from present, to past, to future, to past, to present, etc...

“It’s despicable!  I sent Marco an invitation a week beforehand, but never heard a...

Have you ever found yourself interrupting while coaching someone?

Many of the people I coach are quite ambitious.  They set significant goals for themselves that seem to fall into one of two categories.

Here’s a scenario that repeats itself regularly while participants in our coaching programs are practicing their coaching skills.