If you want to empower others, use a coaching approach.

“This coaching series has been life changing,” says Trudi, a secretary at an international Christian school in Singapore. It’s her final coaching session. She adds, “I’ve gotten a better understanding of God’s calling for me. My personal mission statement gives me something to focus on. And the 5 goals I’ve developed for carrying out my mission help me take action on my mission. I want to keep at it.”
 
Question: What can you ask Trudi?
 
Answer: How can you continue to make progress?”
 
Get Trudi to create an environment that empowers her to consistently take action on her goals. To help Trudi create an empowering environment, ask her questions like:

• What helps/hinders you in focusing on your goals?
• What helps/hinders you in designing action steps each week?
• What helps/hinders you in accomplishing your action steps?

Empower your client to pursue God’s calling. Today.

Thinking about getting coaching? If so, you might be wondering what you could work on with a coach.

A coach will come along side you and empower you to:

1. Live your values
2. Build relationships
3. Communicate effectively
4. Balance home and work
5. Think big
6. Think outside the box
7. Think clearly
8. Get focused and stay focused
9. Get organized
10. Get resources
11. Get support, encouragement, and accountability
12. Get and give feedback
13. Lead organizational change
14. Lead by asking questions
15. Develop systems, processes, and policies
16. Define goals
17. Use calendar software to map out how to get your goals done
18. Use purpose, collaboration, and data to achieve your goals
19. Manage email
20. Facilitate effective meetings

Question: What are 3 things you could work on with a coach? 

Considering getting coaching? If so, be sure you know what coaching is.

Question: What is coaching?

To get an answer to this question, do 3 things:

(1) Clarify what coaching is and is not:

• It’s your coach drawing from you, not you drawing from an expert. So, it’s not mentoring.
• It’s focusing on improving the present, not focusing on healing the past. So, it’s not counseling.
• It’s you being in charge, not someone else being in charge.
• It’s you identifying your goals, not someone else identifying your goals.
• It’s you setting the agenda of your coaching sessions, not someone else setting the agenda.
• It’s a focused conversation with the purpose of you taking action, not a conversation with the purpose of you getting listened to.

(2) Experience a coaching session. You can do this by watching a 5-minute video of me getting coached. A coaching session usually takes 30-60 minutes and includes identifying a goal for the coaching session, exploring the current reality of the goal, brainstorming options for addressing the goal, and determining action steps. In this video, you’ll see me identify my goal and then begin exploring the current reality of my goal.



As you saw in the video, my coach asked questions (instead of giving advice).

(3) Familiarize yourself with 1 or more definitions of coaching:

• Coaching is a relationship in which you receive the support, encouragement, and accountability you need to achieve the mission God has given you.
• Coaching is the ministry of strategic encouragement (Romans 12:8).

Question: What would you say if someone asked you, “What is coaching?”

(1) Want to celebrate progress?
(2) Feel like reflecting on a current challenge?
(3) Going crazy due to a job change?
(4) Or need to talk through something unexpected?

If so, get a coach!

What's a good way to cultivate a coaching culture? Having staff members ask each other a prescribed set of questions. Doing this results in staff members coaching and receiving coaching—without being trained in coaching.

Here's a sample set of questions for a coaching session:

1. What’s going on in your work?
   
2. What people/projects are you spending your time/energy on?
   
3. What are your goals for this next week/month?
   
4. Whom do you talk to about your work? What do you talk about?
   
5. What progress on your goals have you experienced? What’s been satisfying?
   
6. What roadblocks have you experienced? What’s been frustrating?
   
7. What are the reasons for your feelings of satisfaction and frustration?
   
8. What can you do to build on your progress/minimize your roadblocks? Who can help you?
   
9. You talked about ___ today. What do you think you’ll do?
   
10. How can I pray for you?

If you want to achieve your goals, get a coach. Your coach will listen, ask questions, and provide the support, encouragement, and accountability you need to achieve your goals.

I like daily conversation. It flows freely, covers a range of topics, is not too focused, and is relaxing. How about you?

But when I want to achieve a goal, I need a focused conversation. I need a conversation focuses me on:

1. Talking about a goal, instead of a topic.
   
2. Talking only about my goal, instead of talking about a range of topics.
   
3. Brainstorming options for taking action on my goal, instead of shooting the breeze.
   
4. Developing SMART actions I’ll take to achieve my goal, instead of tossing around ideas.

Coaching conversations help me do these 4 things. In a coaching conversation:

1. A coach asks, “What’s your goal?” He listens to my response and asks additional questions to help me clarify my goal, to bring it into focus.
   
2. A coach asks, “What’s going on?” to help focus on the current status of my goal. And if I start to get off topic, he helps me get back on track.
   
3. A coach asks, “What are your options?” He encourages me to brainstorm 5 or more options. As a result of focusing on developing a range of options, I can see more clearly how I can move forward on my goal.
   
4. A coach asks, “What 2-3 SMART actions will you take?” This helps me focus on achieving my goal. After all, to achieve a goal, I have to do something.

To what extent would a coaching conversation help you focus on achieving your goal?

Want to clarify something? Make a list of what is is and what it's not. Here's an example what coaching is and is not:

• Goals, not topics
  
• Specific reality, not general reality
  
• Options, not option
  
• Will do, not want to do
  
• Listening, not talking
  
• Inquiring, not advising
  
• Focusing, not suggesting
  
• Encouraging, not critiquing

Coaching is GROWLIFE.

What’s the goal of a coaching culture?
Empowering staff to close the rhetoric/reality gap by using coaching to lead, manage, influence, collaborate, and communicate.

What will you see in a coaching culture?
In addition to staff participating in formal coaching, you will see:

• More listening, less talking
  
• More inquiring, less advising
  
• More focusing others on taking SMART actions, less letting others pursue undefined actions
  
• More encouraging, less criticizing
  
• More empowering others to solve their problems, less solving others’ problems

What benefits does a coaching culture provide for you?

• More collaboration, less conflict
  
• More results, less activity
  
• More staff being supported, encouraged, and held accountable to achieve goals; less staff just being assigned goals
  
• More focus on the mission, less focus on other good things
  
• More smart work, less hard work
  
• More pursuit of defined excellence, less pursuit of undefined excellence

What problems can a coaching culture help you address?

• Low morale
  
• Miscommunication
  
• Fear of change
  
• Underperformance
  
• Staff attrition

What factors encourage a coaching culture to start growing?
Leaders and managers supporting a coaching culture by:

• Getting formal coaching
  
• Getting basic coach training
  
• Coaching staff members
  
• Using coaching throughout each day
  
• Talking about how coaching has helped them and the organization

Staff:

• Getting trained on how to benefit from coaching
  
• Getting formal coaching

To begin establishing a coaching culture, take this self-assessment.

You want to help a colleague achieve her goal. You need a process and a list of key skills. You need GROW LIFE.

GROW is a time-tested, user-friendly process you can use to help your colleague achieve her goal. Your role in using the process is to ask questions, move your colleague through the process, and get your colleague to commit to taking 1-2 doable action steps.

So, what does GROW stand for and what should you ask?

• Goal: What’s your goal?
  
• Reality: What’s going on?
  
• Options: What can you do?
  
• Will do: What will you do?

Take 2 minutes (yes, a full 120 seconds) and memorize what GROW stands for and 1-4 of the questions you should ask. (Did you take a full 120 seconds?) Now, please recite out loud the GROW process and 1-4 of the questions. Thanks. Please keep reading.

In addition to a process (GROW), you need a list of skills. You need LIFE:

• Listening
  
• Inquiring
  
• Focusing
  
• Encouraging

What’s involved in each of these 4 skills?

• Listen fully to your colleague, not to the thoughts in your head. Listen to really understand. And listen at least 80% of the time. Remember, “listen” respelled is “silent.”
  
• Inquire through questions and inviting statements. If you listen a minimum of 80% of the time, you have a maximum of 20% of the time for asking questions (“What’s your goal?”) and for making inviting statements like, “Please talk more about that.” Don’t use the 20% for telling your story or giving advice.
  
• Focus your colleague on achieving her goal through SMART action steps. Move your colleague through the GROW process so that she ends the conversation with 1-2 action steps that she is committed to taking. Don’t let your colleague wander.
  
• Encourage your colleague. How? By paraphrasing, clarifying, and acknowledging progress.

Take action:

1. Memorize what GROW LIFE stands for. Recite out loud what GROW LIFE stands for.
   
2. Explain GROW LIFE to a colleague. Print out and use this article as necessary.
   
3. Use GROW LIFE to help your colleague achieve her goal.

Be a coach. GROW LIFE. Today.

You want to achieve your goal. But it’s just not happening. So many things are going on that you’re having trouble focusing on your goal. You think that if you could get some help, you could get to work on your goal. And with regular doses of support, encouragement, and accountability, you could even achieve your goal.

You don’t need counseling or mentoring. What do you need? Someone to listen to you, ask you good questions, and focus you on your goal. If someone would do this, you could:

• Get organized.
  
• Finish that key project.
  
• Manage your e-mail more effectively.
  
• Reduce your busyness by saying “no” to some requests.
  
• Spend time reflecting on what God is calling you to do.

To achieve your goal, get a coach. Coaching is a relationship in which you receive the support, encouragement, and accountability you need to achieve the goals God has given you. Coaching is different from counseling and mentoring:

• In counseling you focus on healing the past; in coaching you focus on improving the present.
  
• In mentoring, you draw from your mentor; in coaching your coach draws from you.

Does coaching work? Yes!

• Martie Tarter (director of choral music): “Coaching has helped me focus on the most important of the many things that I do.”
  
• John Houlette (mission field director): “Coaching helped me realize that I am not alone in ministry—that someone cares about me and is willing to ask me questions and hold me accountable.”
  
• Ruth Spalink (Student Support Team coordinator): “Coaching helped me lead meetings more effectively.”
  
• Stephen Willson (facilities manager): “Coaching helped me to manage my calendar better.”
  
• Scott Ponzani (communication coordinator): “Coaching has helped me define my goals (like getting a publication done) and keep focused on them.”

To achieve your goal, get a coach. Today.

Good question. Particularly since coaching is different from counseling and mentoring.

• In counseling you focus on healing the past; in coaching you focus on improving the present.
  
• In mentoring, you draw from your mentor; in coaching your coach draws from you.

So, who does what in coaching?

Both the client and the coach:

• Pray.
  
• Attend each coaching session.
  
• Come prepared to each coaching session.
  
• Focus on the client achieving the client’s goals during the coaching session.

The client:

• Takes care of logistics (makes the phone call, arranges a meeting place).
  
• Defines, commits to, and achieves goals.
  
• Shares what s/he is thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
  
• Lets the coach know if something isn’t working.

The coach:

• Provides support, encouragement, and accountability.
  
• Uses effective coaching models like GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, Will do).
  
• Uses effective coaching skills, including listening and inquiry.
  
• Maintains confidentiality.

Now that you know who does what in coaching, what are you going to do?

• If you are interested in getting a coach, what can and will you do to get a coach?
  
• If you are interested in coaching someone, what can and will you do to start coaching?

Get a coach, be a coach, or both. Today.

Do you believe in the mission God has called you to? If so, then I believe that you aspire to a great task and that you are willing to do the hard work it takes to accomplish that mission. A coach can help you.

A coach will come along side you and empower you to:

1. Live your values
   
2. Think big
   
3. Think outside the box
   
4. Think clearly
   
5. Improve job performance
   
6. Eliminate frustrations
   
7. Get focused and stay focused
   
8. Get organized
   
9. Get resources
   
10. Get support, encouragement, and accountability
    
11. Define the achievement of your mission in measurable terms
    
12. Measure your current level of mission achievement
    
13. Define goals and specific steps necessary to close the gap between your targeted and current levels of mission achievement
    
14. Use calendar software to map out how to get your goals done
    
15. Use purpose, collaboration, and data to achieve your goals
    
16. Develop scoreboards that measure your progress and increase motivation to achieve your goals
    
17. Achieve your mission
    
18. Develop systems, processes, and policies
    
19. Lead effective meetings
    
20. Increase your students’ understanding and application of a biblical perspective of course content

What are some other ways a coach can empower you?

Interested in getting a coach? If so, answer the following 4 questions:

1. What are 3 key ways you want to be empowered?
   
2. How could coaching help you get empowered?
   
3. What can you do to get a coach?
   
4. What will you do to get a coach?

Interested in coaching others? If so, answer the following 4 questions:

1. What’s your goal for coaching others?
   
2. What are 20 ways you can empower your clients?
   
3. What can you do to start coaching?
   
4. What will you do to start coaching?

Get a coach, be a coach, or both. Today.