Coaching

When can a coaching dialogue generate ideas, resolve conflicts, and enhance teamwork?
How is it different from supervision? What are the specific leadership skills involved in
coaching?
Topics: Coaching, conflict resolution, teamwork
Summary: Participants in this session will learn about circumstances in which coaching
can bring about benefits and will have an opportunity to practice specific coaching skills.
During the practice session, participants will learn their strengths and growth
opportunities.

Outcomes:
Participants gain an understanding and self-confidence in the basics of coaching
and motivating others to perform their best;
Participants take home a strategic process for guiding a coaching session
Duration: Two hours

Materials:
Coaching handouts
Chart paper

Procedure:
Warm up:
1. Introduce the principles of coaching through a personal anecdote. Be sure
to cover the principles included in Handout 1. The definition of coaching
included on this handout is ever-evolving and can be tailored to specific
perspectives and environments.
a. Ask participants about their past experiences in giving and
receiving coaching. Ask participants in their examples how the
success was shared.
b. The most important question to open any coaching conversation is,
“What do you want to get out of this conversation?”
2. Next, cover content from Handouts 2-3. These handouts focus on the Four
Tools of Coaching: Framing, Paraphrasing, Reality Check and Open
Questions. You may wish to lead the group through a brainstorm (captured
on chart paper) including participants’ definitions of and thoughts on the
terms.

Resource contributed by Education Northwest and written by Nicole Trimble.

The activity:
1. Ask the participants to select a professional challenge from their service
that they’d like coaching on. Ideally, this would involve a challenge that is
moderate in complexity and urgency, but not overwhelming and long-
term.
2. Divide the group into pairs. Each participant will get a chance to play the
roles of coach and coachee.
3. The coach should begin the conversation by asking, “What would you like
to get out of this conversation?”
4. After 10 minutes of coaching, give 5 minutes for feedback. When giving
feedback, the coachee goes first, then the coach. Here are some sample
feedback questions that you may wish to write on chart paper so that
participants can use them during the feedback part of the exercise:
● What was it like to be the coachee/coach?
● As a coach, what was it like to use the questioning tools?
The suggestion tools? How did they help you as a coach?
● As a coachee, what was it like to be listened to in this way?
What did it do for your own thinking?
● How was it as a coach to wait until the end to suggest and
give feedback?
5. Switch roles.
Wrap-Up
1. Bring the large group back together and ask for volunteers to share what
they learned from the activity.
2. Address some of the danger zones that coaches can experience. These can
include, among others:
● Jumping to solutions
● Advocating too early
● Assuming you know what the coachee wants to get out of the
conversation or coaching relationship
● Reloading rather than listening.
3. Let participants know that they their coaching handouts include additional
information on giving feedback and other topics. With self-study,
participants can gain further knowledge and applications

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Other references:
Benton, Debra. Secrets of a CEO Coach. McGraw-Hill, 1999.
Blanchard, Ken. and Don Shula. Everyone’s A Coach: You Can Inspire Anyone to be a
Coach. New York: Harper Business, 1995
Covey, Stephen. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Fireside, New York, 1989
Covey, Stephen. The 8th Habit, 2005
Hammond, Sue Annis. The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry. Kodiak Consulting,
Plano, TX, 1996
Hargrove, Robert. Masterful Coaching: Extraordinary Results by Impacting People and
the Way They Think and Work Together. Pfeiffer & Company, San Diego, 1995.
Huang, Chungliang, Al and Jerry Lynch. Mentoring: The Tao of Giving and Receiving
Wisdom. Harper, San Francisco, 1995.
Landsberg, Max. The Tao of Coaching: Boost Your Effectiveness by Inspiring Those
Around You. Knowledge Exchange, Santa Monica, 1997.
Peterson, David and Hicks, Mary Dee. Leader As Coach: Strategies for Coaching and
Developing Others. Personnel Decisions International Corporation, 1996.

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Handout 1: Principles of coaching

1 Coaching is a collaborative relationship in which the coach provides the support to

empower the coachee to succeed.
2. The coaching relationship is centered on the coachee, their needs and goals, not the
coach’s. The coach’s job is not to be an expert, but rather to be of service.
3. We are all capable of being coaches and coachees; ideally we are both.
4. Coaching is dependent on a partnership of mutual responsibility and respect.
5. Coaching is not therapy, a “quick fix,” or supervision. It is the process of “Expanding the
Box” or worldview of the coachee.
6. Fundamental to successful coaching are an attentive presence and deep listening.
7. An effective coach assists the coachee in thinking well for themselves (as opposed to
cultivating dependency on others).

Questions to Ask Self and Coachee:

• Am I motivated to change? (The greatest self-defeating behavior is FEAR—False

Evidence Appearing Real.)
• Am I willing to have BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals)? (Coopers & Lybrand).
• Am I willing to ask tough questions about myself and others?
• Will I honestly assess my problem areas?
• Am I committed to helping others in their development?

Coaching Questions
Coaching questions are used to gain an understanding of the other person’s structure of
interpretation (e.g. what they are paying attention to, how they see their world). Below are some
examples of good coaching questions:
● How do you know?
● How can you tell?
● Based upon what do you decide “x”?
● Based upon what have you decided “x” in the past?
● What did you intend to accomplish?
● How well did it work?
● What can happen next?
● What’s missing?

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Handout 2: Coaching

What is it?

When to use it?

Four Tools of Coaching:

Framing

Paraphrasing

Reality Check

Open Questions

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Handout 3: More on the Four Tools of Coaching

Framing
The key with framing is to put aside your own reactions, opinions, or feelings long
enough to get more information.
Q. What might you need to do in order not to react defensively?

Q. How might framing serve the coaching conversation?

Paraphrasing
In paraphrasing, you take the words and main ideas of your coachee and repeat them
back, often in more clear and less emotionally charged terms. Paraphrasing also helps
make sure that you understand what the coachee is saying.
Q. What do you need to do to paraphrase effectively?

Q. How might paraphrasing serve the coaching conversation?

Reality Check
It is important for the coach to maintain a view of the realistic outcomes from the
conversation. A reality check can take the form of a question beginning with “How …?”
Q. What do you need to do to do a reality check effectively?

Q. How might reality checking serve the coaching conversation?

Open questions
An open question points to a matter that is undecided or a question on which differences
of opinion are allowable.
Q. What do you need to use open questions effectively?

Q. How might open questions serve the coaching conversation?

Tip: Avoid questions that begin with WHY, instead using HOW and WHAT questions.
WHY questions can trigger defenses, where HOW and WHAT questions seek for more
information.

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Handout 4: Feedback

Sometimes as a coach you have information or a suggested course of action that you
believe can help the coachee—you have a suggestion or an opinion. The motivation of
suggestion and feedback is to reinforce or change a pattern of behavior, to assist the
coachee in solving a problem, or to support a coachee’s development.
We often offer our suggestions and feedback early in the conversation, before we have
fully explored a situation with a coachee. The guidelines that follow assume that you
have been in enough questioning to significantly understand the situation being presented
to you.
Advocacy or suggestion is used only after sufficient questioning.

Key Concepts:
● To truly achieve peak performance, people must see the relationship
between their behaviors, thoughts, feelings, underlying beliefs, and the
result of ALL of these (intended or unintended) in their lives.
● The spirit of coaching is to offer and let go.
● For optimal success, the coach maintains an open and curious state about
the coachee’s situation. If for some reason, this is not possible (ex: coach
is highly invested in one alternative or action), another coach may be
helpful.
● Coaching assumes that each of us knows our own needs, situation, and
goals best.

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Handout 5: Issues and Aspects of Feedback

Definition: Feedback is the term used for giving people information about their
performance.

Issues with Feedback

Although supervisors may know about feedback, they do not always have skills to give
effective feedback. It takes practice as well as knowledge. Staff and volunteers often are
not receptive when feedback is offered. They may get defensive, trying to justify what
they did rather than listening and considering the help they are receiving. Both
supervisors and their staff or volunteers should prepare for feedback sessions, and know
some ground rules. Feedback should be a regular occurrence, a part of the overall strategy
to improve performance. As opportunities arise for the supervisor to observe, read, or
discuss work, positive and corrective feedback should be a part of the interaction.

Guidelines for Giving Feedback

1. Be specific and support general statements with specific examples. The receiver of
feedback for both positive and negative behavior will be better able to act on statements
that are precise and concise. Example: “During this month you have improved a lot.”
This may be satisfying for both parties but it’s not as effective as saying, “Your reports
were on time and better proofread.”
2. Describe the facts and do not judge. Describing the facts helps the receiver to
understand the meaning and the importance of the feedback. It tends to focus the
discussion on behavior and not on personal characteristics. Example: “Did you prepare
for your meeting with the grantee? For me it looked like you did not. It was not
organized.” This type of statement can bring anger, return accusations, or passive–
aggressive behavior in the listener. A better sequence of statements would be: “I got
confused in your presentation to the grantee. I was not clear what the presentation was
meant to accomplish. A statement about that at the beginning would have helped us all
focus on the information you presented.”
3. Be direct, clear, and to the point. In many cultures, it is considered more polite and
educated to not be direct. But in the case of feedback, since the objective is to
communicate clearly and specifically, and not leave someone guessing, we encourage
people to be direct but in polite way.
4. Direct feedback toward controllable behavior. Inquire before critiquing. If an
employee is continually late to work, perhaps s/he has a childcare situation that causes
this. Discussing the cause and the alternatives to meet everyone’s expectations and needs
would be a more constructive approach than simply criticizing the employee’s behavior.
Avoid criticizing a participant’s physical characteristics. To say, “You are too short to be

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seen in the back of the room,” without giving or exploring with him/her some suggestions
(about room arrangement, for example), is not very helpful.
5. Feedback should be solicited, rather than imposed. If a collaborative work
environment is present with employees or volunteers, feedback should be expected and
welcomed. It should include positive feedback on good performance to reinforce what is
being done correctly or better. Feedback that helps improve performance is critical to the
learning environment and be desired by employees and volunteers.
6. Consider the timing of feedback. Do not wait too long to discuss observations with
staff or volunteers. Given in useable amounts and in a timely manner, it is much more
effective than allowing things to build up. A person may even feel you that you were
holding things over him/her, if you withhold information about behavior that you feel
needs to be changed.
7. Make sure feedback takes into account the needs of both the receiver and the
giver. Feedback can be destructive when it serves only one’s own needs and fails to
consider the needs of the person on the receiving end. If an employee or volunteer is
struggling, and there are many points that could be discussed, select some positive points
and one or two behaviors to work on first. Then, as performance improves, give
feedback on other areas to improve.
8. Plan your feedback. Plan what to say, and in what order. Think before you talk.
As you give feedback on a regular basis it will become easier to balance your comments,
and provide feedback that can be acted upon.
9. Own your feedback. Use “I” statements, so that the receiver understands that it is
your opinion. Example: “Your posture of standing with your hands on your hips was very
authoritarian as you talked with the group” is different than saying, “I found your hands
on your hips distracting. That posture is sometimes seen as aggressive and authoritarian.
Were you aware you were standing like that? What were you thinking as you stood that
way?”

Guidelines for Receiving Feedback

1. Solicit feedback in clear and specific areas. It’s always easier to give feedback if one
is asked. It’s even easier when a specific question is asked. Example: “I often find it
difficult to conclude a presentation. Will you pay particular attention to the conclusion
today?”
2. Ask for clarification and make a point to understand the feedback. Listen carefully
and ask for clarification, if the feedback is not clear. Example: “Are you saying that if I
had given an introduction stating what I was going to talk about, that the rest of the
presentation was clear?”
3. Help the giver use the criteria for giving useful feedback. Example: If the feedback
is too general, ask: “Could you give me specific examples of what you mean?”

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Avoid making it more difficult for the giver of the feedback than it already is. Strive
to avoid being defensive, angry or argumentative.
5. Don’t ask for explanations. Clarification and examples are different than asking why
someone did not like something. Requesting explanations beyond the facts can seem
defensive and often end up in an argument. As a result the giver backs off and is
discouraged from giving feedback in the future. However, the giver is not discouraged
from seeing negative behavior or assessing your performance; the person simply becomes
unwilling to provide the feedback. Focus on understanding the behavior and its impact.
6. Assume the sender wants to help. Related to the point above, assume that the person
giving the feedback is helping you improve. It should not be seen as a way to be more
powerful than you or to make you feel bad. Everyone can improve; it is a benefit to have
someone reflect how your behavior appears to him/her.
7. Be appreciative and thank the observer. Express your gratitude in a sincere way,
such as “Thanks. I am sure I will be clearer if I pay attention to your points.”
8. Share your improvement plan. Tell the giver what you intend to do in the future.
Example: “I think I will try your idea of putting talking points on the flip chart in pencil.
That should help me get rid of the notes that are distracting to me.”

Remember that feedback is based on one person’s perception of another person’s

behavior, not universal truth. You are receiving one person’s perceptions. Having this
in mind should make you less defensive. If you do not agree with the feedback, you
might check out the perceptions with others. For example, you might ask someone else
to watch you for the specific behaviors you received feedback on.

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