Coaching Case Study By Mui Seok Choo
(Career Coach, SINGAPORE)
My client, Miss Wong (not her real name) was a school teacher for more than a decade. She was unhappy with her job because that was not her preferred job. After a long period of serious thinking, she finally called it a day.
Currently, she is a part-time Sport Advisor with a Multi-National Company. She is also working her way to be an ICF Certified Career Coach.
The coaching model that I used was “GROW”. Goal – Reality – Options – Will
Goal – coaching starts with identifying the goal to be achieved by the end of the session.
Reality – become aware of client’s current reality. Where is the client now versus where client wants to be at the end of the session? Where do they start?
Options – upon exploration of their current reality, clients are able to explore various available options. The coach helps clients to explore and generate as many options as possible and discuss these.
Will – The clients’ will is vital in order to achieve their goal. The coach needs to motivate and enthuses the client to gain clarity and commit to specific action steps.
This is a four steps coaching process. What we want to achieve, know where we are now, know our destination. Explore opportunities and possibilities on how to achieve the goal. Lastly, the client needs will, intent and motivation to work towards achieving the set goal.
The coaching session started off with the introduction and clarification of what coaching is and is not, confidentiality space and I am an accountability partner of her in achieving her goals. The agenda is hers.
I gathered from her that she had made a career switch from a teacher to a part-time Product Adviser recently and with the intention to go full time.
I asked my client, “What would make this conversation powerful for you?”
Her goal is how to look at her strengths and experience, and maximize them in her new career as a Sport Adviser and in her Career Coaching profession.
The action plans that she wanted to take home after the session were two strengths that she could work and enhance on to excel in her careers.
Miss Wong’s top five strengths are learner, maximizer, harmony, deliberative and consistency.
In the reality state, I asked Miss Wong how she had use her top five strengths at her workplace. After a short pause, she shared how she had learned and performed independently on her new job. She learned from a few mistakes she made and she enjoyed and maximized the learning process.
In another incident, a senior colleague insisted of doing the task her way which was not efficient and effective. But, Miss Wong just performed as being instructed. Miss Wong unintentionally used her deliberative and harmony strength to avoid conflict.
Then, I led her to self-awareness that she had actually maximized her strengths of learner, maximizer, harmony, deliberative and consistency as her role as a Sport Adviser.
Next, we explored on how she had maximized her learner and maximizer strength in her Career Coaching Workshop. She did pre-reading and jotted down what she did not understand for clarification with the course facilitator. She participated actively in the workshop. Here, her strengths of learner, maximizer and consistency were utilized.
“How do you feel right now as you think about answering this question?” I asked her.
At this point, she realized that she had already maximized her five strengths and her experiences in her new career as a Sport Adviser and well as in her Career Coaching profession.
Based on what we had discussed, I asked her, “What are the two actions you will do and when?”
The two actions that Miss Wong will do immediately are to work further on her harmony and maximizer strengths to achieve good teamwork, work effectiveness and efficiency in her career as a Sport Adviser and her Career Coach Profession.
