THE PROCESS AND TOOLS OF COACHING

Coaching processes and tools can be conceptually different: from a high level of definition like G.R.O.W., to a more simple three-phase model like Lewin’s 3-Stage Model of Change. Over time a number of variations have been developed, but basically the coaching process always aims at leading the coachee to the desired state, facilitating a change in the present situation.

During the coaching process, the opening session seeks to define both the macro objective of the whole process and the objective of the session itself. Conversely, the closing session serves to reinforce and summarize the chosen path and create the conditions for the coachee to become their own coach in the future.

The coaching process can take place in person, over the phone, or through other multimedia platforms like videocalls, all of which have their own peculiarities but ensure an effective process.

Fundamental coaching tools

The key tools in the coaching profession (the “toolbox”), which must be skillfully mastered regardless of the chosen process are:

• active listening;
• specific linguistic techniques for the coach;
• feedback.

Active listening in Coaching

Active listening is – apart from specific coaching tools – a technique that, in any familial or professional relationship, allows for clear understanding of an interlocutor’s message and at the same time lets them perceive the attention of the listener.

Harry Weger declares that active listening is made up of three fundamental elements:

• the non-verbal involvement of the listener, e.g. a signal of attention focused on the one who is speaking;
• the return of message on behalf of the listener, using the words of the one who is speaking;
• the support of the listener through answers that are useful to process further aspects of the speaker’s message.

Countless studies have reported the use of active listening in various fields such as conducting interviews (Louw, Watsson Todd, & Jimakorn, 2011,) negotiations (Fischer-Lokou, Lamy, Guéguen, & Dubarry, 2016), sales (Comer & Drollinger, 1999,) managerial activities (Knippen & Green, 1994) and business development (Rane, 2011; Rogers & Farson, 1987).

To a coach, active listening represents a valid and effective tool, both to manage a relationship and to develop awareness and therefore it requires a high degree of mastery to be used correctly.

During a coaching session, the coach’s attention is totally focused on the coachee’s expression, which entails a global observation including both verbal and non-verbal factors.

Active listening is therefore essential for decoding what is implicitly expressed in words, as in the case of beliefs and metaphors, to which a fitting question formulation must follow to provide a deeper level of analysis, through which it is possible to reveal the hidden meaning of which someone is least aware.

LINGUISTIC TECHNIQUES IN COACHING

Coaching dates back to ancient Greece, particularly to Socrates’ maieutics, the source of its implicit inspiration. Therefore, it is natural that spoken language represents a fundamental working took for a Coach. By this, we do not mean to trivialize the issue, considering that the majority of human interactions use verbal language. Rather, we are interested in underlining how not all linguistic interactions belong to the coaching methodology and how some can even be counterproductive, if not harmful, to reaching the goal. In other words: coaching is not simply encouraging good conversation with one’s interlocutor because there are many other complex aspects to be taken care of in order to make the most of each session.

Coaching and open questions

Among the coaching tools, a fundamental aspect concerns the absence (yes, you read that right!) of advice and the minimal use of indications or information (same), therefore a very limited use of affirmative sentences. Much more important and favoured are open questions, which support an exploration process at the basis of the coachee’s insight and awareness.

Open questions, in fact, together with feedback, form the majority of the expressions used in coaching conversations. The ability to formulate open questions, distinguish their functions from closed questions, and identify any possible implicit prerequisite contained in them, are the basic skills required of a coach.

RECOGNIZING IMPLICIT PREREQUISITES

Recognizing implicit prerequisites is also important in communication in general, and becomes a working tool and a model for the coachee’s communicative practice.

For the coach, this involves knowing how to direct the focus of the questions, while for the coachee it can become an effective approach for relating to others in both their professional and personal lives.

In fact, unlike closed questions, which elicit compulsory answers, open questions promote the search for new information and solutions!

It is no coincidence that language is now considered a powerful tool for the creation (therefore also for the reduction or destruction…) of trust. This is why it is considered a basic element in a coaching relationship, and can also be used on a metaphorical level and in this case has the advantage of conveying more meanings and information.

Clean Language in Coaching

Clean language originates from the work of psychotherapist David Grove. To let his patients overcome traumas, instead of providing depictions of details, Grove encouraged them to describe what they felt through metaphors. This method appears to be useful in coaching, as it offers a framework for questions to ask as well as a communicative style to adopt: using few, simple words directly borrowed from what is shared by the client.

This method combines well with the aim of coaching to avoid any direct influence on the coachee’s self-exploration process, and it offers the opportunity to work with symbolic contents, such as those created by metaphors, thus allowing for the activation of potential resources and increased awareness.

Here therefore is an important symmetry among coaching’s basic tools:

• clean listening, prejudice- and judgment-free, is as important as the thorough exploration of the coachee’s words during the session;
• equally fundamental is the use of clean, simple language, free from hidden meanings, with questions allowing the coachee to uncover the necessary resources to reach their objectives.

Coaching and Feedback

Feedback is undoubtedly one of the most important coaching tools for influencing learning abilities, as shown in multiple neuroscientific studies. Depending on how it is conveyed, feedback may have a positive or negative effect on a coachee’s final performance.

More than a single action, feedback should be considered as a range of approaches to provide support information, depending on the context and the type of information offered.

Feedback among people

Since Wiener’s work on the science of communication and control, which was central to the origins of cybernetics, the concept of feedback was expanded to human beings and to the social and communicative dimensions. As it often happens with scientific models and emerging technologies, these studies led to the employment of human resources “as control tools to provide feedback to machines,” arousing criticism of Wiener himself and leading to reflection on the element of complexity control, on its sustainability and on the moral constraints necessary for the effective application of feedback.

In the field of education, such as in schools, feedback has proved effective in teaching and as a support to learning.

Many are the factors that may influence the effectiveness of feedback, such as beliefs and sentimental elements, the source it comes from, its authority and its practical applicability. The elements that may impact on feedback reaction are just as numerous as the interactions between the types of feedback and the beliefs of the subject receiving them, the number of sources of information to integrate in order to allow for the reduction of the distance between the present and the desired state; the burdensomeness of the task and the use of incentives; the quantitative, qualitative and accessible ways in which the feedback is provided.

Although feedback is linked to performance outcomes, motivation appears to be independent from it, and its effectiveness decreases if the level of performance targeted by the intervention is high, or the way in which it is provided is too complex. In other words, the more experienced you are, the lower the impact of the feedback; the less simple and direct the feedback, the less effective it is. This is something that professional coaches know well and for this reason a specific part of their training aims to provide feedback on multiple levels, using verbal and non-verbal language in a clean and consistent way.