Coaching Model: AVAAIL

A Coaching Model Created by Katherine Rutkevich
(Transformational Coach, CANADA)

As a coach, who wants to transform other people’s performance and “help them to create the change, so that they can realize their potential”, I was looking for the model that would avail this change in any given coaching interaction.

Development of the Coaching Model

To develop A-V-A-A-I-L coaching model, I first got comfortable with my natural way of coaching. I reflected on each coaching sessions, trying to see which patterns come up for me, what is the best structure of the session that enable to move the client forward. Until I came up with a few steps, reflected in my model.

To my surprise, I finally came across the coaching model that has a very similar structure. It was a CIGAR Model. It game me some kind of validity to the structure I used, and a list of powerful questions which I adapted in my model.

Coaching Skills:

There are a few essential skills I rely on, during any of my coaching session. They are:

1. Listening for Potential: noticing, expecting and looking for any signs of progress
2. Asking Powerful Question: questions that are focused on helping the client to think through their own issue, the ones that are focused on solution, and the ones that are focused on the positive, on what clients are doing well to grow their strengths
3. Acknowledging: providing continuous positive feedback by validating, confirming, encouraging, supporting, and believing in client’s potential, so their reality can change once they see themselves in a new light.

Insight on a Transformation Process

“Changing people’s perspectives, challenging their belief system, I think, is one of the toughest challenges of coaching, as people tend to fight hard to hold on to their views of the world”: says David Rock and I can’t agree more. In his work, Quite Leadership, David Rock provides brain-based approach to improving someone’s performance.

Here are some insights on a transformation, that he shares in his book:

• Recent findings from neuroscience are showing that when we learn, the universe changes too. The connections between our neurons reconfigure, and the world is a tiny bit different as a result.
• The way we talk, walk, interact, read emails, and manage our staff is, for most part, deeply hardwired and therefore habitual
• Given how deeply hardwired we all are, if we want to help others change any type of habit, its going to take more effort that we are currently applying, and possibly a whole new approach.
• Science is showing that we can change the way we think. Changing a habit is hard, but leaving it where it is and creating a whole new habit - that turns out to be far more achievable.
• If we want to hardwire a new behavior we just need to give our new mental map enough attention over enough time, to ensure it becomes embedded in our brain. We do this by making links to different parts of the brain so that the web of links thickens and spreads out.

So, in order to improve our clients performance, we, as coaches, can help them find new ways to approach situations, find new solution, help them develop a new habit.

Here is how to avail change and transform the performance it in six-steps:

A–V–A–A–I–L

A– AWARENESS
V– VISION
A – ALTERNATIVES
A – ACTION
I – INSPIRATION
L– LEARNING

Six- Step Model To Transforming Performance

A– AWARENESS

How can you Inspire Awareness of the situation the client is in and let the client think thorough their own issue?

Here are some Questions coach can ask:

• What would you like to get out of this discussion?
• What is going on? Where, who, what, how much, how often
• What is the challenge? What is the opportunity?
• Is it positive/attainable/challenging?
• How much control do you have?
• What have you done so far?
• What effect does this have on others?
• What factors needed to be considered?
• What is getting in the way?

These questions help the client to start thing about the current situation, helping them to stay focused on a solutions.

V– VISION

The next step is to find the energy, the motivation to succeed. Without clear vision of the success to which the client could relate to is hard to find energy to “want” to move forward. Here are the questions that can help to set the intention:

• What do you want to achieve long term?
• What does success look like?
• What would success feel like?
• Why is this important to you?
• When do you want to achieve it by?
• What is the value of achieving your goal?
• Is this the right goal?
• If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?
• How will you measure success?
• What is the most you could do?

Helping the client to arrive to his/her own vision of success, will activate their energy, increase his/her confidence, so they are prepared to design the rout to their success.

A – ALTERNATIVES

During this stage, clients analyze the gap between the vision the’ve created for themselves and the resources available to them to achieve that vision. Questions that can help to see whats available to the client are as follows:

• What options do you have?
• What resources do you need? Time, money, support?
• What critical information do you need?
• Who needs to be involved? Who or what will help?
• What would be a milestone or short-term goals along the way?
• What is holding you back?
• What are the pros and cons?
• What are you missing?
• On a scale of 1-10 how committed are you? What is needed to get to a 10?
• What are the risks?

Once the client identified potential options as well as resources available to him/her, its time to design some concrete action steps, to set the platform for the action.

A – ACTION

Client’s commitment to take action is critical during this stage. To have a clear plan with the steps that needs to be taken is a desired outcome of this stage. Questions that can guid through designing the action steps are as follows:

• What is your plan?
• Will this achieve your entire goal?
• What resources do you need and how will you get them?
• What has to be done, 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
• What is the timeline for each step?
• Who has to be convinced?
• How will you do it?
• How are you going to get support?
• Who needs to be informed?
• Would you like another suggestion? (last option) What’s the bail-out plan?
• S.M.A.R.T.

When client is designing the action steps to achieve the desired goal, the coach is checking whether the action steps are challenging yet ‘doable’ for a client. To find that midpoint will increase the commitment and probability of success.

I – INSPIRATION

Taking a moment to ask the client to acknowledge themselves for something, giving them a moment to review the steps they have designed for themselves and have that moment of gratitude. There are no questions except the one:

• What would you life to acknowledge yourself for

L– LEARNING

(Long Term and Short Term):

Short Term Learning:

The final stage is to review the learning occurred in the discussion and the takeaways, as well as recalling the action steps and commitment level?

What did you discover about yourself as a result of today’s session?

• Would you recap? What are you going to do?
• What decision can you make now to move forward?
• When will you get it done?
• What else do we need to discuss?

Strategies and goals turn into success when they are measured. These measures may be outcomes (what results) or behaviors (how things happen), but what they are should be specified. Coaches help determine measures of success that managers can track on their own. Questions to help determine successful measures include the following:

• How will you know you have succeeded in your overall strategy and in your goals?
• How will you monitor your progress?
• How will you track your progress?
• When and how will you give me an update?
• How can I help you to succeed?

Long Term Learning:

Learning also accrues at the middle and the end of the whole coaching project. Questions that help the client to review the progress and learning that occurred might be as following:

• What did you do well, and what did you discover about yourself as a result?
• What were the highlights of this project and what did you learn?
• What went well and would you like to talk about how to do more of this?
• What did you do well and would impact do you think this had on everyone else?

And some final notes form the Inspirational Figures:

When external realities change, people’s internal realities often don’t change as quickly and they have to make their own connections, according to their own wiring. We can make the space for this to happen, and encourage it, but we then need to take a step back and allow the process to unfold ~ David Rock, form the book Quite Leadership
Coaching goals are furthering the action and deepening the learning. ~Carol Kauffman
Coaches are not measured by what they know, but how what they know changes what others know and do.  ~Dave Ulrich