Leadership Development and Talent Management – Coaching – The 8 Principles of Commitment

Reading time 3.5 minutes.

1st training principle – A high level of Emotional Intelligence is required for the coach so that people know him, love him, respect him, value him, take risks and trust him or her. Without a high level of Emotional Intelligence, the coach’s guidance attempt will fall on deaf ears and closed minds.

The models – John Wooden, former UCLA basketball coach. Oprah, Phil Jackson, NBA coach. Herb Kelleher, former CEO of Southwest Airlines. Renee Sarata, Owner, Reneevations Professional Development, Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director, Garage Technologies.

2º – The Prescription Without Diagnosis is Bad Practice of the Trainer. Find out what is going on with the person. Use the Socratic method to develop the details.

the socratic method — works best exploring complexities and uncertainties rather than obtaining facts.

1. Establish conversational patterns.
2. Learn to be comfortable with a long silence after asking a question; silence can be productive. Sooner or later, a coachee, increasingly uncomfortable with silence, will say something. That will lead to the next opening.
3. Try to create an atmosphere of “productive discomfort” in the dialogue. In the best of Socratic dialogues, there can be real tension in the dialogue.
4. Coaches must be open to learning something new, as well as willing to admit that they don’t know or that they are stuck.
5. Welcome “the totally crazy idea” and discourage ideas that are really just attempts to escape serious engagement.
6. Emphasize that short comments are preferable to readings. Tell the coachee if you are getting bored with their narcissistic monologue.
7. Discourage “indulgent deference” to your status as a coach. The fact that he has experience should not, in a Socratic discussion, give the coach any advantage.
8. Find a comfortable space. Vary it from time to time.
9. Always ask the coachee at the beginning of the next session, “What did you learn?”, “What happened to you?”, “Is there anything confusing you?”

3º – Connect with the platinum rule – do with others what they would like to be done to them and that is in their best interest. Ah, therein lies the problem. The skilled trainer helps the trainee to discover his self-destructive behaviors while taking advantage of new behaviors that will develop the person’s sense of identity.

4º – Tell short and concise stories – commit and make a point.

5th – Execute the Communication Cycle — listen using Covey’s principle – seek to understand first.

6º – Keep people as capable — not taking care of people. We are adults. Develop, yes. Enable, No. That means people are challenged to do what they say they will do, when they say they will, and let others know if they can’t.

7th – Coaching is about educating people. Animals are trained, people are educated. The role model here is Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan, who trains dogs while educating people on how to relate to his dogs.

• training Aim: Memorize and regurgitate a certain way of doing things without hesitation.
• of Education Aim: Guide, sometimes showing people how to find their own answers in a process of self-discovery and self-exploration.

8th – Training and being trained is a voluntary and participatory sport. The coach volunteers his time and wisdom with an attitude of non-attachment to the result.

The assumption is that, as Marshall Goldsmith says,

“There’s nothing wrong with you, that’s what’s right with you can’t fix.“Also, the coach follows the ethic of Nanny McPhee, “When you need me but don’t want me, I’ll be there. When you want me but don’t need me, I’ll be gone.”

The coachee is involved in the relationship with a view to improving himself. The smartest and most ambitious trainers will have a hard time staying in the process due to their impatient and results-oriented attitude. Sometimes a commitment contract is required to keep them in the conversation.