Coaching for Performance - Assignment Example

Surname: Presented to Institution Name, Location Date Experiential Learning Report (Using Kolb’s cycle as your structure) Executive summary When defining the process of getting coached by a professional coach, is the teaching or training or a process of development in which an individual gets advice and support from professional on learning on how to achieve good results or goals in life. The person who is receiving coaching is known as the client or coachee Kolb, D. And Fry, R. 1975).Occasionally the term coaching may be used in an informal relationship between an individual who has good experience and expertise than the coachee who is being given advice and guidance on how to handle a situation. Coaching can also have the same meaning as mentoring. There are many methods models and methodologies that are used in mentoring or coaching, they are designed in such a way that they provide thinking and new learning skills and behaviours meant to uplift personal augmentation or professional progression. There are also coaching that provide the coachee an improvement in a physical challenge for example in a sport (Williams, P. 2007). Table of contents Title page....................................................................................................................1 Executive summary...................................................................................................2 Table of contents........................................................................................................3 Introduction................................................................................................................4 Personal development plan........................................................................................5 Experiential learning cycle........................................................................................9 Write ups of the conversations..................................................................................6 7 as the coach..........................................................................................................6 3 as the coachee...................................................................................................8 Experience............................................................................................................9 Reflection............................................................................................................10 .. Conceptualise/rule form...........................................................................................10 Action plan...................................................................................................11 Conclusion...............................................................................................................11 Reference list...........................................................................................................12 INTRODUCTION In the first week of the coaching, I had managed to gain relatively good skills including high competence in listening, empathising, influencing others, getting the right feedback and in time, summarising, reviewing, reflection or self learning and the use of silence. There was a dire need to work on my skills development in others areas including rapport, ways of challenging, preparation and planning of activities the most needed skills is the questioning and setting of objectives. I did learned as a coach there are some things I needed to understand more deeply, since the first week while trying to developed my competence and enhance deeply in the areas that I needed more development. Continuing to increase competencies in areas that I had already poses was very important, this prevent from losing the competence that I already have (Kolb, D. And Fry, R.1975). The preparation and planning were optimized with a better time management; this enabled me to do more research that is enough before every coaching session. Questioning, challenging, rapport, and objective setting are competencies that are highly integrated in with one another. Thus, I found as I worked at developing these skills they were mutually supportive. I had to increase my ability in these areas by working hard on the skills that I had already mastered and using my already high level of competence at listening and empathising, using as an example helped me a lot in developing a more beneficial rapport with my interlocutors (Williams, P. 2007). In order to make sure that I developed as much as possible in the role of a coach as well as making the most beneficial difference to other people (Turman, 2001). EXPERIENTAL LEARNING CYCLE Experience (The role of the coach) The role of the coach in the process of guiding the coaching the client cannot be underestimated, the coach has to help in developing the life of the coachee. In order to ensure that I developed as far as possible in the role of coach as well as making the most beneficial difference to other people’s coaching sessions in the role of observer, I subjected my learning journal to constant review. Reflecting at regular intervals on my progress, this enabled me to ensure that I identified areas of weakness in my approach to coaching as soon as possible. As a coach i made sure that i performed my responsibilities as a coach with a lot of zeal and enthusiasm (Williams, P. 2007). As the coach I taught her how to handle various issues of life that are always very challenging these include time management. I played my role as a role model by giving her an example of how I managed my own time. As coach I taught her widely on the importance of having a well structured time management plan in place in order to enable her to achieve her long and short term goals in life (Williams, P. 2007). I went ahead to advise her on finding out how other people having the same problem handle their problems as her advisor, hence giving her hope on dealing with them. I also advised her on finding out what were her 5 most devastating time wasters; this would make know how to handle them. Advising is very important in that most coachee find themselves in situations that they do not understand how to deal with; hence since the client believes in the experience of coach, they always need highly the advice from their coach (Kolb, D. And Fry, R. 1975). Another important role of the coach is motivating the client is I made sure I motivated the coachee by giving her the go ahead to join one of the gyms in order to reduce her anxiety and stress that accumulated from the work that is too much. By giving her my experience and my desire to achieve my goals she also was motivated to achieve her goals (Williams, P. 2007). As a coach I also played a role of management by fixing of her ways of solving her stress and anxiety. The coachee confesses that she is stressed because time seems to pass by faster and she is way far from achieving her gaols. I also gave her insight on how to tackle the issue. I gave her an example on how she personally handles the stress and anxiety by having a good plan on how to work in good time frames and hence relax or goes gym hence helping reduce the anxiety (Turman, 2001). As a coach I also acted as a friend, my role as a friend to the coachee comes out when I decided to over my part of handling life challenges that I faced. I told her about my problem of handling smoking and time management. Conversation.1 (coach) classroom Reflection Weather As I was coaching a client I asked her about the way the weather affected or had an impact on her, he said negative things like annoying since she could not go out due to the bad weather, she showed negative attitude toward the weather (Kolb, D. And Fry, R. 1975). Finding a job While dealing with the issue of the same she was worried about finding a job. She expressed this desire in three different coaching conversations. In response to her expressing her desire to find a job, I asked her each time if giving her more time to achieve her goal would help. At the time, my intuitions told me that this was an overly negative response on my part. The coachee did not want more time to find a job, because her priority was to find a job as soon as possible. Therefore, I asked what she could do to help her solve the situation and she proposed working over the night and I concluded that she was right. What are your short and long term goals? I also wanted to know what her long term and short term goals were, and in reply she said that she wanted to get 2;1 in her dissertations, and for the long term she wanted to get a job in London. She said that she felt worried about her studies but was very confident with her long term goals of finding a job in London because she had three options. Her motivation towards achieving her long term goal was very positive and this made me realise that she can also solve her attitude towards her short term goals, hence I asked her what she was willing to do in order to solve her short term gaols issue and responded that she was going to work harder and make sure that she sees the supervisor often. Her motivation to achieving her goal was 4 in a scale of 1-10 but wanted to be an 8 which was very encouraging (Kolb, D. And Fry, R. 1975). Overcoming stress and anxiety The coachee confessed that she was under stress and anxiety; this was due to the panicking because there were just a few months that were left for the university to finish. This puts a lot of pressure on her. I was very encouraged that she knew that she needed to remain focused in what she was doing. I asked her whether doing work under a lot of pressure was good since that waxy people do a good job. She accepted that it was true that people good work when they work under pressure since in the last few months she had good results. She confesses that it was not a matter of confidence since she always was confident when submitting her work and that it might have been because of a lot of assignments (Kolb, D. And Fry, R. 1975). Time management The issue of time passing by very past was making her feel unhappy. This made realise that most devastating issue for her was time management; therefore, I advised to do a research on some of the most time wasting things and come up with the solution. This was very easy to her since she had a diary on which she wrote everything hence she knew what was wasting most of her time. Managing her time would make her save time and use it to relax. Her motivation on achieving her goals was good since she said she was going to start implementing her decision before Easter and this was going to make her happy and healthier since she will have less stress. She agreed that her success was greatly by her good results, this showed how her success in getting good result was a great motivation towards achieving her goals. She put herself as a 4 in a scale of 1-10 concerning her achievements but she said she would be worse if she had done nothing. What she did during the Christmas break Time management In the process of guiding her, I asked her why time management was an issue to her. In response she said that she was feeling a lot of pressure when she does nothing, but she never wasted time clubbing and drinking which was a good thing to her (Kolb, D. And Fry, R. 1975). I realised that she was motivated and new where her time was being mismanaged. She goes ahead to give me her plan on how to save her time by doing some extra job at night and reducing the work of being a referee from doing 3 matches to doing 2 matches in one week. I finally asked her what else she was going to do and she said she would visit the gym to lighten her stress and anxiety, although this question was quite rude it gave her a chance to think deeper. Finding a job During the break she confessed the work that she submitted over the holiday was good and it gave her motivation to achieving her goals of getting 2; 1 in her dissertations. She did not bother looking for the job at that time and her only target was passing in her dissertations. Though she was scared of time passing too fast and she not attaining her desired goals and feeling that she was behind schedule in her studies. I realised her concerns but I was motivated by her courage to solve the whole issue by working at night and finding time to rest and relax. Conversation.2 (coachee) classroom Giving up smoking. I gave the coachee an opportunity to share with me the challenges that I faced and she asked me why smoking was an issue to me. I explored all the negative effects of smoking to her and this made her see the importance of quitting smoking, the effects include causing death of about 120000 people in a year and the fact that it denies one to live a healthier life. She goes ahead to ask what I was planning to do about it and that I would remind myself of negative effect by writing then down to give me motivation on quitting it. In order to find fulfilment she asked the setbacks that I face while trying to solve my problem this made her feel that there are always setbacks and we should be ready to face them (Williams, P. 2007). Time management The coachee asked me about smoking and if I achieved my goal, in reply I told her that I had achieved my goal. She wanted to find out about my short term goals and she asked me what I was in about 20 minutes. I explored my time management plan and she asked me why I was doing that and I told her that in the last two weeks I gave up smoking and therefore I did not sleep well and therefore did not manage my time well and did not work effective(Williams, P. 2007). I created to do list and gave myself time lines on when to finish my assignments. I told her that I was very happy that I had achieved my goals though if only I could fix my time management would be happy since this make me feel like I am in control of my life. Seeing that I had achieved my goal and I was determined to achieve more encouraged her. In made her realise how important it was for me to achieve my time management when she asked what else I was planning. It was important for to avoid sliding back (Kolb, D. And Fry, R. 1975). Social skills I needed to make her understand that social life was important so I opened up to her about my social life and how it was an issue, I told her that I did not relate well with my step sister and that I needed to find a middle party who will bring us together as a solution, she asked what I was planning to do with it and I told her that I was trying to make it work by being kind and understanding. This made her realise even though some goals are heard to achieve we should be committed (Kolb, D. And Fry, R. 1975). Conceptualising /rule form Conceptualising this particular abstract, as the next stage of Kolb cycle dictates, I concluded that a strong rapport is needed for a beneficial use of silence in a coaching situation I also concluded that a strong rapport is needed for beneficial use of silence in a coaching situation, I also concluded that coaches need to attend to attend carefully to the situation, to the particular personality of the coachee, and to their own intuition in order to judge in order to see whether to use silence is appropriate or whether a period of questions would be more helpful. I then engaged in a period of active experimentation in which I tested my intuitions regarding silence and questioning so that I could generate some more definite rules about when it might be appropriate to probe an unforthcoming coachee with more questions if I felt that he or she had something that they wished to talk about (Williams, P. 2007). I also learnt a lot from my roles as an observer, observing other coaches’ coaching sessions. For instance, in one such observation, I noticed that the coach was often asking rather closed questions which needed nothing more than a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ in answer. It struck me that this was not a good way to encourage a coachee to talk more descriptively and informatively about their subjective experience: something very important in a coaching situation. This was my reflective observation. My abstract conceptualisation was that questioning needs to be performed in such a way that, though they do not feel under unwelcome pressure to speak, a coachee is able to give as full an answer as they would like to a coach’s question(Turman, 2001). Action plan I realised that my personal development plan sheet had two major areas that I had to work so hard on most were objective setting and questioning. Accordingly, I requested that my observer focused on these areas when observing my coaching sessions and providing me with feedback about my style. This experience was very useful as the observer was able to notice things about my objective setting and questioning skills that I had not noticed myself (Kolb, D. And Fry, R 1975). This occurred in three coaching conversations for me as a coachee. For instance, my observer noticed that in three coaching conversations I did not set objectives that completely coalesced with the coach’s own objectives. This was a very important turning point for me, as it enabled me to reassess my coaching style. Reflecting on what the observer had said, I resolved to work on objective setting strategies that were based on an empathetic understanding of the coach’s own objectives. I also ensured that the coach had listened to, ratified, and, where necessary, altered or contested, the objectives that I had set for the coaching session. The ability to respond positively to such level of criticism is also a sign of emotional maturity, which is very important for coaching (Kolb, D. And Fry, R. 1975). Conclusion The importance of coaching to both the coach and the coachee cannot be underestimated, the skill that the expertise who is the trainee or the coach is having can be conveyed effectively if the coach have the required skills to in training the client. From the report the development plan that has been developed by the coach is very important in training the coachee it helps in maintaining the skills that have been acquired and also help in developing other very important skills The recorded conversations between the client and the coach were also important in developing the skills of the coachee, the continuous assessment of the conversation help in understanding the skills that the coach required to handle the client in such situations. Reference list Kolb, D. And Fry, R. (1975). Towards an applied theory of experiential learning. In C. Cooper (ed.), Theories of Group Process, London: John Wiley. Starr, J. 2008. The Coaching Manual Harlow: Pearson. Whitmore, J. 2007. Coaching for Performance. Coultas, C., Bedwell, W., Burke, S., & Salas, E. (2012). "Values sensitive coaching: The DELTA approach to coaching culturally diverse executives". Consulting Psychology Journal , 149–61. Gregory, J., Beck, J., & Carr, A. (2012). "Goals, feedback, and self-regulation: Control theory as a natural framework for executive coaching". Consulting Psychology Journal , 26–38. Greif, S. (22-23). Advances in Research on Coaching Outcomes. International Coaching Psychology Review , 2007. Lorber, L. (2008). "Executive Coaching – Worth the Money? The Wall Street Journal. , 03-28. RESPINI, B. (. (2005). Helping athletes define goals. Successful Coaching , 8–9. Turman, P. (2001). Situational Coaching Styles. Iowa: University of Northern Iowa. Williams, P. (2007). "The history and evolution of life coaching. New York: The New York Times. Read More