A Coaching Model Created by Nicole Eifler
(Executive and Business Coach, PORTUGAL)
Clients usually seek coaching when they want to change something in their life. This need for change can refer to a general desire for growth, personal development in a specific area, a problem they want to solve or a difficult situation they want to overcome. Coaching can help them create awareness for the gab between current and desired state and the structures that hold the current state in place. Awareness is the basis for overcoming the current state and working towards a higher level of satisfaction.
In this sense the coaching process is a function of two factors: Satisfaction and Awareness.
Satisfaction:
The state of being satisfied; contentment. (Dictionary.com). The fulfilment or gratification of a desire, need, or appetite. (Thefreedictionary)
Awareness:
Awareness is the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects, or sensory patterns. (Wikipedia)
Both factors can vary in their degree: High or low level of satisfaction and high or low level of awareness. The combination of the different degrees of these two factors results in a four-box-matrix.
The model
The model suggests a linear process through the four boxes starting in box 1 with low level of satisfaction and low level of awareness, going through box 2 and 3 with raising awareness and finally heading towards box 4 gaining a higher level of satisfaction paired with low level of awareness. And then starting the circle all over again. Not all coaching cases follow this linear development. Some clients may enter the coaching process in stage 2. Some may drop out after stage 3. And other will go from stage 4 to stage 2 instead of stage 1.
The purpose of this coaching model is not to reproduce reality in its complexity but to simplify the coaching process the client is going through so as to provide the coach with some clear directions for each stage. The model can either be used to structure each coaching session or it can provide a framework for the full coaching process. In the latter case the recommended number of sessions spent in each stage depends on the needs of each client and has to be evaluated from case to case.
The coaching process in four steps
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Insight:
When the client starts the coaching process he is usually not as satisfied with a certain situation as he would like to be. This can mean that he is quite satisfied with a certain aspect of his life but wishes to enhance it further. Or it can mean that he is not very satisfied and wants to change his situation.
At the same time he lacks awareness of the full picture: what causes the current state; what is his role in it; which factors can be influenced and which not; what are external and internal factors? The coach accelerates the process of creating awareness by asking exploratory questions. These help the client reflect about the current state, the perspective he has on the situation and the structures that hold the current state in place.
The goal of the first step is to gain awareness and therewith create insight.
Questions for the Coach to ask:
- How do you feel / think about the current situation?
- How would another person describe your situation?
- What are your two best qualities? (What are two things that you can do better than most people?)
- How do you best use your qualities to your benefit?
- What is most important to you in your life and why?
- What is currently consuming most of your emotional energy?
- What is maintaining the problem?
- What was your inner dialogue in that situation?
- What assumptions have you made to support your interpretation of this situation?
- How do you think the other person feels / thinks about it?
Tools the Coach may use:
Powerful Questions, Power Listening, Reframing Perspectives, Uncovering Underlying Beliefs, Creating Awareness, Releasing Judgment
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Decision:
Gaining awareness can be an overwhelming experience for the client as he comes to understand his own part in the current situation. He may be surprised by what he learned about the situation and especially himself. It may take him some time to integrate the insight. The coach can support the client in this step by providing a safe space where he can live out his emotional reaction freely. Gaining awareness can also be a liberating experience for the client as he discovers that there are more things in his control than initially thought. The coach can use this effect to help the client move on.
Gaining awareness has two effects: First, the higher awareness for the full picture allows the client to explore more options to make change happen. Second, knowing the internal and external factors involved, understanding himself and his own reactions better, it becomes easier for the client to choose one option.
The goal for the second step is to make a decision about the desired future.
Questions for the Coach to ask:
- Without evaluating, what are your possibilities / the options?
- What resonates with you?
- What (other) information do you need to make a decision?
- Where can you get the information that you need to make a decision?
- How would the perfect future look for you?
- What would be a satisfying end state?
- What other scenario can you draw?
- What else can you think of?
- How realistic is each of the future scenarios?
- Do you want to change?
- What is holding you back?
- What is attractive about the current state?
- Which way do you want to go?
Tools the Coach may use:
Powerful Questions, Power Listening, Discover Values and Life Purpose, Visualization, Building Confidence, Managing Expectations
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Action:
Having made a decision will enhance the client’s satisfaction. He feels that things are starting to move. The client is aware that the change depends on him. He is aware of the factors that he can and cannot control and he is aware of his needs and his desired end state. This vision about a desirable future that is possible to reach causes the shift to a higher level of satisfaction.
The risk is that this vision remains a dream if no concrete actions are implemented. In order to maintain and enhance the higher level of satisfaction the coach helps the client break down the envisioned future into deliverables.
The goal of this stage is to foster action to maintain the higher satisfaction.
Questions for the Coach to ask:
- What steps could you take immediately that could make a difference to your future?
- Which obstacles may occur? How will you resolve them?
- What do you have to learn and how will you learn it?
- What resources can you rely on?
- Who can be of support to you?
- What will you do first?
- What will you do next?
- Until when can you do it?
- How motivated are you?
- Which commitment will you make to me? I’ll hold you accountable.
- How will you feel if you reach your goal?
Tools the Coach may use:
Fostering Self-Directed Learning, Support Self-Development Plan, Creating Action
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Habit:
Habits allow the client to be more efficient in his life, to do the important things without investing too much effort. The client has already very effective routines established in his life. With the action plan developed in stage three he is challenging these established routines. To effectively substituting old habits by new ones it takes more than a well-defined action plan. The client has to put the action plan into practice—consciously, every day.
Putting the action plan into practice is conscious work that will only be successful if it turns one day into unconscious routine. To maintain the new habits the new actions have to be repeated innumerable times until the client is unaware of them.
The goal of step four is to make the implementation of the action plan permanent by creating new habits.
Questions for the Coach to ask:
- How are you doing?
- Which steps are already put into place?
- How do you feel with this new “you” / situation?
- What is your daily routine now?
- What is different now from before we started our coaching journey?
- How will you maintain your actions / the changed situation?
- What structures did you change / will you change to hold things in place?
- What do you need me for?
Tools the Coach may use:
Creating new Structures, Holding Accountable, Establish Self-Management