Coaching Skills
The ©AIPC Coaching Skills Model details the various skills that coaches use to bring about successful change outcomes in clients. These skills have been derived from the strategies that psychologists and therapists use to build rapid rapport and trusting relationships with clients. Coaching skills include active and reflective listening, asking powerful questions and summarising for understanding and clarity. In a coaching session, coaches also observe clients’ non-verbal behaviours to establish more effective ways of supporting and communicating with them. As the coaching sessions proceed, clients’ interpersonal effectiveness is improved as well as their ability to solve their own problems.
Coaching skills have been developed from various psychological approaches but principally based on the work of three major contributors: Milton Erickson (1973), Carl Rogers (1951, 1956) and Virginia Satir (1978). Milton Erickson’s contribution to coaching was his powerful observation skills which allowed him to ‘read’ people - listening to the spoken words but also paying attention to the ‘unspoken’ thoughts and feelings that lay beneath the surface as expressed by the client’s non-verbal behaviour. Carl Rogers’ concept of unconditional positive regard is the basis for working with the client non-judgmentally, totally accepting the person as doing the best they know how at the time, but not necessarily accepting their behaviour, which is often related to, or the cause of, why the client is seeking coaching. Virginia Satir’s contribution to coaching is to the language of coaching – the words that clients use which gives the coach insight into their preferred learning and communication styles.
The discipline of counselling psychology has contributed the skills of active and reflective listening, open-ended and closed questioning and summarising. Coaches who actively and reflectively listen to clients are better able to understand their situation and summarise their needs. More recently the concept of powerful questioning has been introduced into coaching, which enables a conversation to go even deeper to identify what’s holding clients back, and uncover the desire which will propel them forward. Summarising captures the essential features of the client’s story.
The four coaching skills
Active listening is one of the most important skills that a coach can possess, since few on us listen well or accurately. What generally happens is that the moment someone speaks to us, we relate that to something in our lives, and start to mentally form a reply. The way to become a better listener is to practise active listening, whereby you make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that the speaker is saying but also, what is left unsaid. To do this, the coach pays particular attention to the speaker’s verbals and also notices their non-verbals. They cannot allow themself to become distracted by whatever else may be going on around them or by starting to form comments or questions to follow once the client stops talking. Nor can the coach allow themself to become bored and lose focus on what the client is saying. All of these activities contribute to a lack of listening and understanding.
Reflective listening involves repeating back to the client what they have said to confirm that you have been listening to them. It’s like holding a mirror up to the other person’s story. The coach reflects four things: the content using the client’s exact words; the context in which the event occurs; the impact of the event on them and others; and their feelings in relation to the event. The aim of reflection is to demonstrate understanding, ask questions for clarification, or seek further information. In doing so, the coach must be careful not to let their personal filters, assumptions, judgments and beliefs distort what is heard.
Powerful questions are those that cause the client to pause, reflect and think about other ways of being or doing. They are different from open and closed questions in that they do not seek details, but possibilities. Powerful questions come from a space of genuine curiosity. They are open-ended, evoke discovery, and stimulate commitment to action. They challenge the client's assumptions, leading to greater clarity and new learning, and move the client toward what they really desire in life and work. Neither the coach nor the client knows the answer to a powerful question until it emerges from the client’s subconscious. By asking powerful questions, the coach encourages the client to go deeper into their subconscious to surface answers and solutions that they had never thought of before. As a result, the conversation shifts significantly as the client gains new self-awareness and insights that lead them to discover their own solutions.
Summarising succinctly captures what the client has been saying in terms of its content, context, impact and feelings. As a specialised form of reflective listening, summaries are an effective way to build greater rapport, call attention to salient elements of the coaching conversation, and shift the focus back on track if necessary. Summarising aims to confirm and clarify the coach’s understanding of the client’s story. By listening to the summary, the client becomes more aware of their situation and their response to it. This may lead to self-revelations that were not previously available to them, and ideas for how they can best proceed. At times, the client may offer additional information to facilitate the coach’s better understanding.
This modified excerpt is taken from the book “Positive Psychology Coaching” by Dr Susanne Knowles which is available from www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com.
Book Reviews and a Book Trainer are available on www.susanne.knowles.com.
