Do you need a ladder or a plant pot?

If you’ve come across coaching before, it may be in the guise of sports coaching, or personal coaching, either for professional reasons, where it’s usually entitled executive, or leadership coaching, or for thinking about life and/or career goals.

Outside of sports coaching, which includes some elements with more of a teaching focus e.g. technique development, game rules, etc., coaching is essentially a structured conversation, where someone trained in a process (the coach), supports their coachee (client, employee, colleague, someone they manage, friend, etc.) through a series of steps designed to achieve a goal. Various coaching frameworks and models exist, common ones being:

• The GROW model:
  • Goal – the coach supports the coachee to determine their SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timebound) goals.
  • Reality – the coach asks questions to identify the coachee’s weaknesses and challenges.
  • Options – coach and coachee brainstorm different options and strategies to bring reality closer to the goal.
  • Will – the coach supports development of an action plan for the coachee to achieve their goals. This will include specific steps, responsibilities, and deadlines.
  • This model was developed by Sir John Whitmore during the late 80s and early 90s and still one of the most widely taught and used coaching models today.
• The OSKAR model:
  • Outcome: the desired result is defined by setting SMART goals to give clear direction.
  • Scaling: the scale of the goal is evaluated, feasibility and potential impact checked to ensure it is realistic and aligned with the coachee’s wider vision/plans.
  • Know-how and resources: skills and resources needed to reach the goal are determined, these will include mentoring, training, or access to specific equipment, etc.
  • Affirm and action: the coach affirms the coachee’s strengths and beliefs. Together they create an action plan, outlining the steps and the deadlines.
  • Review: progress is regularly reviewed, other obstacles identified, and adjustments are made to the action plan guaranteeing that the coachee makes progresses toward the goal.
• The FUEL model:
  • Frame the Conversation:  the purpose of the coaching relationship, the process, and the result are explored and agreed.
  • Understand the Current State: Next, open-ended questions are used to discover the coachee’s present situation, values, strengths, and resources. During this discovery phase, the coach also tries to identify any weaknesses and obstacles that are getting in the way of the coachee achieving their goals.
  • Explore the Desired Goal:  the coach helps the coachee set SMART goals to enunciate the desired goal/s. Together, options and methods for achieving the targeted outcome are explored.
  • Lay Out the Plan: Once the coachee decides on options and goals, an action plan is created listing specific steps and timelines. KPIs are developed to track progress. The coach regularly checks with the coachee for feedback and support.

All of these models have in common the idea that the coachee knows exactly what the desired outcome is and can enunciate that in terms of SMART goals. When that is the case, the process moves successfully in a sequential manner, a little like moving up rungs on a ladder. Coaching like this can be an extremely powerful tool for helping shift behaviours that have prevented the coachee, on their own, from achieving their goals. This is because the presence of the coach, and the process of the coaching, helps to break down the goal into a clear set of steps needed to get there, and provides an accountability process to support the coachee in undertaking those steps.  Think of conventional coaching processes as ladder like, it is perfect for supporting goals that lend themselves to clear, logical, stepwise paths, goals such as improving performance at work, or meeting sales targets.

However, the work of the Institute for Women-Centred Coaching (IWCC), which grew out of Claire Zammit’s PhD research, showed that for many women (and others!) these linear processes of coaching weren’t effective at creating long term, transformational change.  Change that has to do with creating new things in the world, being all that one can be, and shifting deep core identities, such as not feeling good enough, that when experienced often people back from their full potential. The women-centred coaching (WCC) model uses deeper initial, iterative steps to enable the coachee to:

• Delve into deeper visions, outcomes and intentions.
• Explore the inner barriers and mindsets that might be invisibly holding them back (these are created within the coachee by their societal and cultural experiences; they are not character flaws).
• Breakthrough those inner barriers in a transformative way i.e. once they are seen and unlocked, they cannot be unseen!
• Create and move through a growth pathway.

This work builds on the great coaching models that take a more linear approach, but rather than driving for immediate change, the approach taught to WCC qualified coaches is to really explore what these inner barriers are and how they are holding the client back. Once how these barriers are playing out in daily life is seen, extraordinary performance tends to automatically unlock. The WCC method is more akin to a plant pot. The coach and coachee together set the conditions for the coachee’s potential to fully emerge. They ensure that the right amount of water is available, the right nutrients, the right amount of sun light. These things are iterated, gradually supporting the seed to start to germinate and then all of a sudden, a plethora of goals, ideas, etc. tend to burst forth into life!

What model would best support your current goals/aspirations? A ladder, or a plant pot? How can you use these ideas to create that style of support for yourself?

For more on how Research in Focus is supporting clients using WCC, please see here, or for more about our grant applications support work, please see here.