An Introduction to 8 Coaching Models

A DAUNTLESS AMBITION GROUP PUBLICATION

DAUNTLESS AMBITION

Dauntless

A DAUNTLESS AMBITION PRIMER TO COACHING

Introduction

At Dauntless we love coaching, spending much of our time coaching individuals who are stuck or are just looking to move their world forward.

Coaching is a widely used term with various meanings, depending on the situation. The term coaching typically refers to methods of helping others to improve, develop, learn new skills, find personal success, achieve aims and to manage life change and personal challenges. It commonly addresses attitudes, behaviors, and knowledge, as well as skills, and can also focus on physical and spiritual development too. This coaching booklet focuses on coaching and the coaching role for work, business and personal developments.

We explore and explain 8 great coaching models or frameworks, although we recognize that there are many others. If you have any questions, comments or are interested in the work we do, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@dauntlessambition.group

WHAT IS COACHING?

The derivation of the word coach in the teaching/training/developing context is fascinating. To coach, meaning personal private tuition, was originally university slang. It was based on the metaphor that to move from one point to another swiftly you would ride on a coach, (a horse-drawn coach), which would require the help of a coachman. (Chambers dictionary says) A coach was first recorded in the sense of a private tutor in 1848, and in the sense of an athletics coach in 1861.

Brewer's 1870 dictionary says "... Coach - A private tutor - the term is a pun on getting on fast. To get on fast you take a coach - you cannot get on fast without a private tutor, ergo, a private tutor is the coach you take in order that you get on quickly (University slang)..."

Today we do not think of a coach as a particularly speedy vehicle, so the metaphor (Brewer says pun) seems strange, but in the 1800s a horse-drawn coach was the fastest means of transport available.

The Oxford English Dictionary (2005 revised) definition of a coach is: "An instructor or trainer in a sport. [or] A private tutor who gives extra teaching.”

The verb to coach is defined more helpfully and fully as:

WHAT IS COACHING?

Some Definitions"Train or instruct (a team or player). [or] Give someone extra teaching. [or] Teach a subject or sport as a coach. [or] Give someone instructions as to what to do or say in a particular situation. [or] Give someone professional advice on how to attain their goals.”

The last point is curiously wonderful. In the older sense, the word coach was also used as the word to learn, for example, "I am coaching (accelerating my learning) with my teacher...", a meaning which has not survived into modern use. The modern meaning of coaching is strictly tied to the sense of delivering or receiving coaching. The older meaning still contained the sense of coach and student both traveling together - in a horse-drawn carriage - driven by the coachman. There is a certain resonance between this old meaning, and what we might today regard coaching in its purest sense to be.

FEATURES OF COACHING

Usually coaching contains some or all of these features:

• One-to-one - involving a coach (teacher, trainer, mentor, coach) and learner (student, trainee, sometimes called the 'coachee')

• Personalized - by the coach for the individual learner

• Enabling - rather than prescriptive or imposed

• Adapted and adaptable - to the changing needs of the learner

• Planned - the coach normally works to a plan or structure

• Model-based - coaching tends to be based on a structured 'proven' tested concept or methodology

• Focused on aims - coaching normally works towards achieving agreed, measurable, outcomes or targets

• Measured and recorded - by the coach, and/or the learner

• Time-based - coaching sessions, schedules, and outcomes are normally time-bound

• Coaching contains many aspects of effective delegation, especially the concept of SMART aims, but coaching tends to be a lot more driven according to individual (learner) needs, rather than the needs of an organization that usually determine delegation.

FEATURES OF COACHING

Coaching CharacteristicsFEATURES OF COACHING

Coaching Characteristics

THE BASICS

Coaching in a Nutshell

COACHING THE BASICS

At Dauntless we believe there are three key elements to undertaking coaching effectively, these are:

1. Attending

2. Listening

3. Questioning

Attending means to give the person you are with your full attention. This means paying attention to what they are saying, doing and how they are responding. It means being there 100%.

Listening means more than just hearing what the person is saying, instead it means to listening to how they are talking and what is the emotion behind the words. It also means stopping the internal dialogue in your head or at least slowing it down enough so that the words your are listening too have resonance and can be properly thought about.

Questioning is not just about asking the right question to get the individual thinking and re-thinking about their situation, it is about enabling the conversation to flow and ebb, to create a dynamic that is positive and thoughtful. Questioning is at the heart of coaching, it takes skill and practice.

MODEL 1

The GROW Model

GROW

This is probably one of the most common coaching models used by new and experienced coaches.

The great thing about using the GROW coaching model is that there is no need to be an expert in your coachee’s situation to be able to coach effectively. The GROW coaching model is built upon a simple formula for asking the right questions in sequence that moves the conversation forward and uncovers new truths and ways forward for the coachee.

The GROW model consists of four steps:

1. G - Goal

2. R - Reality

3. O - Options

4. W - What

At each step the role of the coach is to ask questions to clarify and understand the situation. For example at the G step a coach will ask and probe the coachee about what they are looking to achieve? Once this step has been explored the coach then moves on to the second step - Reality. Here the objective is to understand what the actual reality of the situation is. This can take some probing and challenge as often the reality is not fully appreciated or understood by the coachee.

When the reality is understood and accepted then the coach can move onto the third step - Options. At this step the coach explores with the coachee the various options available for them to move forward with their issues. Again, probing and challenge is the nature of this step, where the coach tries to open up new avenues and options for the coachee, without simply suggesting their ideas. The objective is to help the coachee find the right option for them and not necessarily the one they may initially thought about.

The last step is the What stage, which is where the coach s the coachee to decide on what they will do after the coaching session. This is step is about getting commitment to exactly what the coachee will do and when.

MODEL 2

The SWOT Model

2) Once the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats facing the person/situation have been identified, results are examined and evaluated. What potential ideas, actions or goals are there?

• Strengths - how can these be boosted or capitalised on to be even more successful?

• Weaknesses - how can these be reduced, minimised or removed altogether?

• Opportunities - what opportunities could be exploited and developed?

• Threats - how can these be minimised or eliminated altogether?

3) Additionally, what opportunities are there to:

• Match: MAXIMISE the impact of the ideas or goals by looking for a match between the identified Strengths - and the Opportunities.

• Convert: CREATE new opportunities by taking the Weaknesses and Threats identified and converting them into Strengths or Opportunities. (An example could be a weakness of too much reliance on one customer-type. This weakness is converted to an opportunity to diversify or explore new markets).

SWOT

What is a SWOT analysis?

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, and the something being evaluated could be a business, a person, place, product, process or even an industry. Also known as a SWOT Matrix, it's a tool that helps evaluate how people are doing. What is great? What needs work? What could be developed? And what needs to be watched out for?

Using the SWOT Analysis Tool

The SWOT Analysis was originally designed as an input to corporate planning and to DRIVE OUT Goals. But it's also an excellent tool to help with personal career planning.

 

1) The SWOT Analysis is performed. Ask questions in each section to identify:

• Strengths and Weaknesses (internal or 'actual' qualities). These are the advantages or disadvantages the project, department, business or person has over others.

• Opportunities and Threats (external or 'potential' factors). These are the items relating to a project, department, business or person that can be exploited and taken advantage of - or to avoid.

OSCAR

What is an O.S.C.A.R.?

The OSCAR coaching model (©Worthlearning 2002) builds on the highly effective GROW model and is quite simply a framework on which to hang coaching questions.  

Outcome (the destination)

This is where the outcomes around any given situation are clarified. People with well-formed outcomes achieve much more than those without clear outcomes. Successful coaching sessions typically involve helping the coachee to develop a deeper understanding of the outcome they want. Our experience has shown that people are not used to thinking in terms of outcomes, so the initial outcome presented at the session has not got the clarity needed to become desirable and motivational. It is the skilful questioning of the coach that enables the coachee to develop a “well-formed outcome”. 

Situation (the starting point)

This is where clarity is achieved around the here and now. Once the coachee has clarified and tightly defined their outcome, the next step in the process is to clarify the current situation. In our experience most coaches, and managers as coaches in particular, spend too much time focusing on the current situation, thus allowing the coachee to get bogged down in the problem rather than focus on the outcome. 

MODEL 3

OSCARChoices and Consequences (the route options)

This is where awareness is increased about the consequences of each choice. The aim is to get the coachee to generate at least three choices. Having multiple choices raises awareness in the coachee that they have control of their own decision making, i.e. the coachee is no longer able to say “I don’t have a choice” - using OSCAR enables the coach to put the control firmly back into the hands of the coachee.

 

Action (the detailed plan)

This is where responsibility is taken by the coachee for their own action plan. Here the coach helps the coachee to formulate the:

• Specific actions they will take

• When they will take those actions

• On a scale of one to ten how willing they are to take them?

• On-going process of review

It is vital that the coachee takes full responsibility for the actions to be taken. All the actions must be time framed, measurable and review-able. 

 

Review (staying on track)

This is where both participants (coach and coachee) continually check that they are on course. When the coach and coachee agree to review the plan of action, a subt It is vital that the manager as coach ensures these reviews are held – otherwise a strong message is given out that the actions agreed are optional.

CHALLENGES AND CHOICES

Challenges and choices is a simple model that looks at coaching from two perspectives. The first is the challenges the individual faces and how he or she responds to them. This can done quite gently or can be much deeper and really explore the deeper personal or business challenges the individual faces. Once the challenges are clearly mapped and understood then the other side of the equation can be looked at, the choices available to the other person. Here a deep discussion is needed to open up and find all the choices that are available to the participant, to review and understand them together and then to provide a clear path for what choices could be taken.

Challenge

Example questions:

• What are the main challenges you are facing in your life?

• What are the main challenges you are facing in your career?

• What have been some of the biggest challenges you have overcome?

• What have you learnt from the challenges you have faced?

• Tell me more about your … challenge.

MODEL 4

Challenge and ChangeChoices

Example questions:

• What choices do you have about your life at present?

• What choices do you have in your career at present?

• What were some of the best choices in you made in your career?

• What choices do you regret in your career?

• Tell me more about your … choices.

EXISTENTIAL COACHING

Existential Coaching is based upon the assumption that life is an uncertain enterprise and that the only predictable thing we can say about it is that we will be confronted with the things we don’t expect.

As human beings, we all share the experience of facing and confronting any number of uncertainties of living. These may be personal (such as issues surrounding health, employment, or romance) or work-related (such as the eruption of unforeseen conflict within one's company, or between competing organisations or nations) or, often, contain elements of both. Whatever the uncertainty may be, however, our experience of it provokes a felt sense of unease, or anxiety.

Existential Coaching recognises that anxiety is not necessarily "a bad thing" or a problematic presence that must be reduced or removed. The feeling of anxiety can be stimulating, can put us in touch with our sense of being alive, and is the source of all creative and original insight and decision-making. On reflection, a life that was anxiety-free would be empty of meaning, enthusiasm, curiosity and the urge to advance itself.

However, when the anxiety regarding the experience of life's uncertainties becomes confounding, unmanageable or intolerable, we attempt to initiate ways designed to reduce or remove that anxiety. Unfortunately, the most common ways adopted can be problematic in themselves.

MODEL 5

Existential Coaching

Typically, we rely upon strategies that refuse to face up to the existence of felt anxiety. Or we try to transform our felt anxiety into other sorts of anxieties with which we might be better able to deal. Or we are likely to "crumble" at our felt anxiety either by acting impulsively and irresponsibly or by continuing to "plod along" through life in the hope that the anxiety will eventually fade away sooner than we will.

While it is a "given" of being human that we all experience anxiety, just what specific occurrences will provoke the highest degree of intolerable anxiety in each of us and how we will respond to it is determined by our unique "way of being in the world" - our worldview.

Existential Coaching argues that it is not terribly useful to apply general techniques to specific and uniquely experienced life-issues. Instead, the creation of a secure and trustworthy "life-space" encourages clients to get to know more accurately and to experience more honestly just what their worldview is, what it is like to experience themselves and others through that worldview, and how the current dilemmas, concerns and uncertainties that are presenting themselves may be challenges to, or outcomes of, that very same worldview.

There are four key ideas lie at the heart of Existential Coaching:

First, Existential Coaching promotes the view that long-term, meaningful and worthwhile outcomes from focused coaching interventions only emerge when the whole of the person's worldview, or general stance to life, is properly examined.

For each of us, our worldview includes a wide range of beliefs, needs, values and aspirations. However, our worldview is rarely sufficiently explored and identified. In many cases, our worldview contains competing and contradictory attitudes and stances that provoke conflict between our wider life-oriented needs and goals and our work-focused objectives, responsibilities and development plans.

Second, Existential Coaching rejects the common view that conflict is itself the source of our problems and should be eradicated from our lives.

Existential Coaching believes that in the great majority of cases an inadequately examined worldview is the source of that form of conflict which acts negatively upon personal and professional satisfaction, as well as sense of purpose and self-esteem. Conflict often expresses issues surrounding dividedness - either in relations to business or to others. Existential Coaching's approach also recognises and gives equal emphasis to the divided stances, aims and aspirations that may well exist as competing values and beliefs held by each client.

Third, Existential Coaching argues that worldviews do not develop from within individuals. Rather, ones worldview emerges from, and is an expression of, relations between persons. Success today, at every level, calls for an awareness of and sensitivity to individual and cultural diversity so that we can better respond to the distinctive responsibilities and demands that arise from a global perspective and economy.

Existential Coaching adopts the view that every step taken in life has its impact not just upon the self, but upon others - be they family, friends, work colleagues, organisation, society and, ultimately, the whole world. Its commitment is to assist clients in arriving at personal decisions and life changes that are grounded in a relationally attuned awareness and responsibility.

Fourth, Existential Coaching stresses that the value and expertise of coaches is not that of supplying the solutions to clients' problems. Instead, the best coaches offer the necessary mental "space" that will assist their clients in finding their own means to live a good and responsible life. Sometimes, clients discover that creative and liberating results will occur through self-directed changes in behaviour and lifestyle.

 

Existential Coaching is not about imposing self-directed change just for the sake of short-term benefits that may, in the long run, become the basis for far greater discord and disturbance. Instead, Existential Coaching recognises that the less we feel required (whether by others or ourselves) to alter something, the more we may be able to progress.

APPRECIATIVE ENQUIRY

This approach focuses on strengths, wins, and positives, rather than on problems and losses. It is not difficult to find many approaches that focus on correcting problems and “weaknesses,” many evaluations, performance appraisals, and even personality tests have traditionally focused on finding what a person’s weaknesses are with the intention of working on them to bring them up to a better performance.

 

The concept of self development, tends to zero-in on what’s “wrong” with a person and attempts to correct that, and not centre as much on developing people’s natural strengths and talents. Typically people look for a problem, craft a solution and apply this to fix the problem. Often, feedback is given on what was wrong, rather than what is good. In Appreciative Inquiry, problems are solved rather differently as can be seen from the formula below

 

Problem Solving Appreciative Inquiry

• Identify the problem, Appreciate ‘What is’

• Conduct root cause analysis, Imagine ‘What might be’

• Brainstorm solutions and analyse, Determine ‘What should be’

• Develop plans of action, Create ‘What will be’.

The process of AI consists of 4-Steps: Discover, Dream, Design, and Deliver.

MODEL 6

Appreciative Enquiry1. Discovery:

The primary task in this step is to find the best of "what is," by recognizing moments of peak performance. Moments or behaviours, when people experienced things in the most alive and effective state, or a state of “Flow” using Mihály Csikszentmihalyi’s description of a peak performance state. Seek to understand the unique conditions that brought about the high points. Deliberately forego analysing deficits, and rather systematically seek to isolate and learn from even the smallest victories.

 

2. Dream:

In this step, envision a better future. This step is both practical and creative, in that it is grounded in the client’s history, and that it looks towards expanding potential. It is different from other planning methods because the future vision is built from grounded examples of a positive past. Motivation is driven from extraordinary moments from the client’s positive history. Positive stories are crafted and framed in the context of possibility. The process entails imagining great possibilities then turning whatever comes up into provocative propositions.

3. Design:

This step entails creating a strategy through which the provocative possibilities that came up in the last step are accomplished. For example, this could be accomplished by building a new stronger social support system that could help in accomplishing a goal.

4. Deliver:

The last step involves the delivery of the new vision of the future and is sustained by encouraging a sense of destiny. It involves a continuous learning process, taking advantage of the momentum that is generated.

FUEL

The FueL model is based on the following 4 areas:

Frame (the conversation) - where the context for the conversation is set by agreeing the purpose, process, and desired outcomes of the coaching relationship.

Understand (the current state) - where the current state from the client’s point of view is explored, and his or her awareness of the situation is expanded to determine what the real coaching issue is.

Explore (the desired state) - where the vision of success is established and the different alternative paths are considered for later prioritizing.

Lay (out a success plan) - where the specific, time-bound action steps to be taken to achieve the goals are laid down and the milestones for follow-up and accountability are set.

Step 1. Framing the conversation.

When a conversation is framed, what is done is to establish the common context upon which the coaching relationship will take place. In other words: making sure that everyone is on the same page. Keep in mind, that on the surface the client might be hesitant at first to share many details that might be important, and that are frequently the real reason why they’re looking for a coach. The coach’s job is to search deeper and “see” through the words that

MODEL 7

FUELmight be obscuring the real reasons why someone is looking for a coach.

Step 2. Understanding the current state.

Maintain a curious mind-set as an understanding of the client’s current state begins to be understood. As a coach, two roles need to be taken during this stage of the conversation:

- Acting as a mirror and

- Being a guide to exploration.

As in many times during coaching, ask open-ended, non-leading questions that allow for greater insight and clarity. Remember that because most people will not change until there’s a deep urge or need towards change, the main task will be to uncover the deep motives which can only surface by having powerful conversations.

Step 3. Exploring the desired state.

Always keep in mind that in coaching, there’s a benefit in slowing down. Many coaches frequently rush things and this does not lend itself to having powerful conversations.

What does the client really want? What is their great reason WHY? Allow the client to explore and imagine their ideal vision and all of the alternatives for achieving that vision.

Step 4. Laying out a success plan.

In this last step, work towards establishing the specific actions that the client will take and gain clarity as to what needs to happen next. This will provide a clear vision towards the goal to be achieved. Time-lines for follow-up and accountability are established, as well as the exploration of ways to support the client in achieving these goals.

MODEL 8

CLEAR

CLEAR

This coaching model was created by Peter Hawkins in the early 1980’s, and is an acronym for Contracting; Listening; Exploring; Action; Review.

It is similar to the GROW model however it includes a few other elements for use in the coaching relationship which are not covered in GROW.

Here are the details:

1. CONTRACTING

This step includes establishing the outcomes the client wants to achieve as a result of being coached and it also opens up the discussion for establishing the ground rules for working together.

2. LISTENING

This step is about actively listening to the client to help them gain an understanding of their current situation and then discover insights towards possible solutions.

3. EXPLORING

This stage consists of two elements:

Exploring 1: Helping the client understand the impact or effect that a situation or behaviour is having in their lives.

Exploring 2: Challenging the client to think through options for taking action in resolving a situation or changing a behaviour.

4. ACTION

This step includes supporting the client to choose a way ahead and decide what the next step is.

5. REVIEW

The last step reinforces what has been accomplished , the decisions made and the wins, or losses, that have taken place. As a coach also encourage conversations about what has been helpful in the coaching process.

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