Rudy Vandamme Ph.D.
Coaching Handbook for Professionals Powerful conversations to structure meaningful progress
Coaching Handbook for Professionals Rudy Vandamme Ph.D.
Powerful conversations to structure meaningful progress project
identit y greater whole
CONTEXT
self-guidance
Rudy Vandamme Coaching Handbook for Professionals © Rudy Vandamme, 2015 First Edition, published by Coaching&co, 2015 ISBN: 9789490384081 NUR: 130 Author: Rudy Vandamme Book design: Prezns, Marco Bolsenbroek Illustrations: Prezns, Marco Bolsenbroek Copyright © 2015 Rudy Vandamme All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.
Publisher: Coaching&Co bvba Paul Fredericqstraat 65 B-9000 Gent Belgium (Europe) www.coachingforprofessionals.net email: info@coachingforprofessionals.net webshop: www.coachingbooks.net
‘ Making intentional choices about how you help others through conversations will significantly increase your role in making the world a better place.’ (C.J. Hayden, 50 ways coaches can change the world)
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Content
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Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Two characteristics of any coaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Upgrade to a development-oriented approach to coaching. . . . . . . . . 20 A case to illustrate the development-oriented approach . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Who am I? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 The underlying worldview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 A new definition of development through the life span. . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Who is this book for?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Study guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Chapter 1
Raise awareness through dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 1. Collaborative inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 2. A zone of proximal development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 3. An authentic encounter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Chapter 2
Overview of the Fork Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 1. The model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 2. Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 3. Self-guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 4. Identity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 5. Greater whole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 6. The recipe for development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 7. Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 8. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
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Content
Chapter 3
Achieving result through a project-based approach. . . . . . . 109 1. The project-based approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 2. Seven steps for structuring a goal-oriented plan. . . . . . 114 3. Project types and their contributions to development. . 133 4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Chapter 4
Improving self-guidance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 1. The concept of self-guidance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 2. A five level competency model of self-guidance. . . . . . 149 3. Six ways for assessing the skill of self-guidance during a conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 4. Methods to improve self-guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 5. The link between self-guidance and identity. . . . . . . . . 185 6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Chapter 5
Defining identity development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 1. The concept of identity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 2. Six methods for structuring identity development. . . . 197 3. Connecting identity construction to other tracks of development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Chapter 6
Participating in greater wholes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 1. The concept of the greater whole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 2. Eleven ways to define the greater whole . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 3. Two steps in activating ownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 4. Envision the development process of the greater whole. 269 5. Four ways to give form to participative identity. . . . . . . 274 6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
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Chapter 7
Putting into practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 1. Coaching agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 2. Intake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 3. Three types of coaching trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 4. Four guidelines for expert professionals . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Exit:
the Fork Model for the professional coaches . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 Appendices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Appendix 1: questions for each track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Appendix 2: Accelerated by the Fork Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324 Appendix 3: As a coach, are you working in a development-oriented way?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 Appendix 4: am I approaching life in a development-oriented way?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 Appendix 5: what is your mission as a coach? . . . . . . . . . . . . 330 Appendix 6: What is the historical significance of coaching?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
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Content
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results
problem
solution
development
development-oriented coaching
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Introduction
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A
fter more than twenty years of development, coaching has taken many forms1. It ranges from a friendly way of advising to a highly sophisticated guidance. In the latter case one has to be qualified, in the former anybody can call himself a coach. In between there are helping professionals who are adding some coaching skills and a coaching attitude into their work. There are also specialisations like sales coaching, executive coaching, life coaching, ADHD coaching, etc. Sometimes these specialisations are based on approaches like appreciative inquiry, solution focused, gestalt or NLP.
In this whole spectrum I was looking for a way of coaching that combines different elements I value. I was inspired by the American idea of being creative and goal-oriented. But, due to my European roots and my background in humanistic psychology, I am also drawn to looking to my clients’ search for meaning. Identity, personal values and life stories are important elements to make the work more rounded. Over the last ten years I have also wanted to add the importance of the bigger picture, the ecological and the religious dimension of being human. Individual clients are embedded in a context, a society and a world. We are all, consciously or subconsciously, part of a historical and cultural development. As a philosopher and anthropologist, I reflect on what kind of coaching is worth promoting. 1
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Brock, V. (2012). Sourcebook of Coaching History. Brock Publisher. Wildflower, L. (2013). The hidden history of coaching (Coaching in practice). Berkshire: The Open University Press.
Introduction
Over the years, I have joined all those jigsaw pieces together and turned them into an approach, which I call a development-oriented approach’ in guiding others. I call it short ‘development-oriented coaching’. Please remember when I write ‘development-oriented coaching’ that I indicate a development-oriented approach to a form of guiding others. The patterns and ambition of being development-oriented can be used by any professional, leader, teacher, heath care professional, and so on. You even don’t have to call yourself a coach. I am concerned about those development-oriented patterns we all can start using when we help others through conversations. Therefore being ‘development-oriented’ can be the adjective to characterise a professional activity, like ‘development-oriented outplacement’, ‘development-oriented healthcare’, etc. Applied to coaching, I don’t see ‘development-oriented coaching’ as a specialism, but rather as an upgrade of existing ways of how we conceive coaching. Coaching is still the umbrella under which I want to situate this approach because the idea behind coaching fits very well with the focus on development, namely its creative, formative quality. In the next section I will explain the two main characteristics of any coaching approach.
Two characteristics of any coaching Firstly, coaching is goal-oriented. It is based in the idea that humans are not only problem solvers. Humans have the capacity to dream and to formulate goals. That capacity is quite recent in evolutionary history. Many people are still conditioned to approach life issues as if these are problems. Only special types of persons are more inclined to work with a creative attitude: artists, entrepreneurs, designers, writers, athletes and students. They are not motivated to get rid of a problem; they are attracted to building new realities.
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The fact that coaching entered our society is a sign that many people want to be more goal-oriented, creative, and innovative. In the beginning of the twentieth century coaching was applied in the English tutoring system in order to succeed in exams, then it was applied in sport. In the last two decades it has been applied to all aspects of life. Embracing coaching is accepting that life is not a problem to be fixed, but an opportunity to create. Secondly, coaching works within a frame of self-responsibility. Coaching is all about sustaining the capacity of the client to think and guide himself. A coach stands at the sidelines. He is not taking over the responsibility to achieve something or to solve a problem. The coach has a conversation with the client in order to support him and help him to deal with his issue or to reach a goal. This idea implies that the client has a limited capacity to guide or manage himself. The coach provides the art of giving that extra support in order for the client to reach his goal. He is not taking it over, like many specialists and therapists do or have to do. When counsellors, therapists, or advisors add coaching, it is because they want the client to participate. Because of these two characteristics coaching belongs to the same family as its siblings: tutoring, mentoring, consulting and guiding rather than the family of counselling, psychotherapy or psychiatry. Coaching becomes more and more a general idea of support in a warm atmosphere, dealing with the client’s issues in a constructive goal-oriented educative way.
Upgrade to a development-oriented approach to coaching The professional working in a development-oriented framework shares the basic intention of coaching but takes it a step further.
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Introduction
First and foremost, the development-oriented coach uses a special kind of dialogue. In contrast to merely listening or boldly advising, this professional knows how to pace and lead in order to stimulate progress and development. He creates what Vygotsky2 calls a zone of proximal development. It is a safe space in which a leap of progress can occur. The coach not only helps the client, he also adds elements like co-creation, awarenessraising ideas about life, and reciprocity. By doing so, this kind of coach fulfils his own mission: his emancipatory role in how people view their challenges. In chapter 1 I will elaborate on this kind of dialogue. Secondly, a development-oriented coach will frame issues and goals within the bigger scope of a person’s identity, his life narrative, as well as in the greater wholes in which he participates. Issues are put in perspective. Happiness, a sense of purpose, self-development, and belonging are as important as achieving success or solving problems. Human activities have to be meaningful to contribute to lasting progress. The greatest satisfaction for a development-oriented coach is to see that results of goal-oriented behaviour contribute to inner peace and a deeper sense of harmony with oneself and one’s environment. That’s why I often call this approach ‘development-friendly’. It is kind to life. What the development-oriented approach adds to coaching is exactly the way progress is conceived. To make this approach tangible I designed a model, the Fork Model. This model helps to situate an issue or goal-oriented project in different layers of existence. Chapter 2 will give an overview of the Fork model and the next four chapters will be dealing with the four different tracks.
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Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind and Society. The development of higher psychological processes. London: Harvard University Press.
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after
polarised framework
reframing
before
developmental framework
Let’s resume the argument. Coaching is often understood as assisting a person to achieve a result. Coaching then is guiding somebody along the pathway towards a goal. Coaching tends to become a conversation about actions, brainstorming of actions, reflection on actions, and activating resources like the GROW3 model explains. Many coaches understand already that it is not possible to coach somebody if that person’s values, beliefs and identity are not involved. Moreover, more recently professionals started to see that a person has to be put into his context. A person’s desires and experiences are part of a greater whole to which that person belongs and by which he is influenced. I support the idea that any goal only finds its meaning if it is situated in identity development. The basic tenet of the development-oriented approach is that everything that happens to a client is part of a process of becoming a whole person aligned with greater wholes. If people want meaningful and lasting progress we need to place goal-oriented project and problem solving actions within the framework of this larger existential phenomenon of unfolding identity. Boldly said, the develop3
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Whitmore, J. (2009). Coaching for performance: GROWing human potential and purpose: the principles and practice of coaching and leadership. People skills for professionals. Boston: Nicholas Brealey.
Introduction
ment-oriented approach in guidance situates goal-oriented action and problem solving into the bigger frame of contextual situated identity development. I reject the interpretation that talking about your inner psychodynamics is counselling or therapy. The difference between coaching and these professions is the severity of the issue and the inability of the client to cope with it. From the moment a client demonstrates a sound level of self-guidance in his life, a professional can choose to coach that person. Coaching in this case means collaborating with the client, dialoguing, and treating him as a competent adult who can use your expert knowledge in order to deal with problems or to heal himself. We all have to learn to see life issues as a chance for development. Development through the lifespan and our contextual embeddedness is part of life, in the same way that we eat and drink every day. A big part of my passion for the development-oriented approach is to deproblematise life issues. Life is an opportunity and life events are nourishment for development. I also reject the interpretation that talking about the greater whole is only suitable for clients with existential crises, religious people, or social activists – those who want to put the world to rights. We all have our wholes in which we play a systemic role. Moreover, society urgently needs individuals who take responsibility for the well-being of the world. This approach is suited to professionals who agree that society is not something outside the practice, but an aspect of each individual life. The client is in fact seen as a cultural creative4, someone who has the potential to contribute to a change in society by changing his own life style.
4 Ray, P. & Anderson, S. (2001). Cultural Creatives. NY: Three River Press.
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Finally I reject the idea that if you are a healthcare professional, teacher, or consultant, you have to stick to your expertise. Expertise doesn’t have to be discarded though. On the contrary. The point is that applying expert knowledge becomes more efficient within the context of developing the whole person. Moreover, by integrating identity development, self-guidance, and participation into your framework, your work becomes more meaningful. Satisfying clients becomes part of a bigger endeavour to contribute with your professional work to the development of the wholes to which your clients belong. Ultimately my passion for the development-oriented approach is to see our clients as well as ourselves as cultural creatives who have the power to change the structure and culture in which we live. Issues and requests for help may initially prompt the encounter but then serve as a stepping stone to adventure into personal and societal change. During years of practice I navigated between all the pitfalls of helping patterns, be it the passive client-centred listening attitude, the teacher-like ‘this is how it should be done’, labelling clients, taking over responsibility, therapeutising the inner life, hoping to solve something, working in a too action-oriented way, or helping too much. At the intersection of all these patterns emerges a new kind of guidance. It is still helping somebody but it is enriched with an educative role, a reciprocal encounter, empowering, emancipation, and awareness-raising questions. They all lead to powerful conversations, which are transformative. The new paradigm for helping people by means of conversations, is a combination of many elements borrowed from different fields such as teaching, spiritual awakening, therapeutic methods and social change. This approach seems sophisticated, but so are our lives and so is our world. I followed Einstein’s adagio to make a problem ‘as simple as possible, but not simpler’.
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Introduction
I realise that it is nothing more than a paradigm shift in how we conceive helping other people. To conclude, I would define the development-oriented approach to coaching as follows: A development-oriented way of guiding people is using a safe but challenging dialogue to stimulate progression in all aspects of development, namely goal-oriented action, enhanced skills of self-guidance, identity development through the life span, and participation in greater wholes. Z self-guidance P ID
PROJECT
identit y
G
greater whole
This definition is translated throughout the book into two core competencies of the development-oriented coach: a stimulating dialogue and structuring progression with the Fork Model. The development-oriented approach can be the core competence of a coach, but it can also be added to any profession: teachers, healthcare professionals, consultants, advisors, leaders, and so on. In that case your expert knowledge and interventions are a contribution to the holistic and inclusive development of your client.
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