Some Fundamentals
Coaching & Insight
There can be a big gap between the need for insight and the insights that people actually have during the normal course of their lives.
The need for insight
Modern life is complex.
So, to navigate its challenges successfully, there is more need than ever for people to have insights into the possibilities ahead of them.
Actually having insight
There are more and more demands on people’s attention.
So it’s increasingly difficult to give life’s challenges the quality of attention needed to see them afresh and to have useful insights.
Coaching can bridge this gap.
Sparking Insight
Facilitating insight
Coaching systematically creates the conditions for useful insight.
It can focus on precisely the areas of a person’s professional or personal life where fresh insights would be most beneficial.
Supporting attention
The coach uses tools such as open questions and attentive listening to direct and support the coachee’s attention.
Making connections
The coachee considers one aspect of a situation after another.
This helps them make connections and see things that they hadn’t yet seen.
From Insight to Action
Insight alone is not enough to bring about a desirable future. For coaching to be fully effective, it must guide coachees:
- To see the most profitable course of action they could take.
- To commit wholeheartedly to taking the relevant next steps.
Thinking things through
The coachee thinks their insights till it becomes clear what the best course of action for them to take would be.
Action commitments
At the end of every good session, the coachee is able to commit to taking specific actions at specific times.
The coach then holds them accountable for taking those actions.
Coaching’s value
- The future that the coaching would help bring about.
- What would happen if the coaching never took place.
What Needs Seeing
Coaching can help people become fulfil their potential to live well.
- It does this by helping them investigate the specifics of their own lives.
- Coaches can guide these investigations more effectively when they have a clear sense of the general geometry of life.
Seeing life’s landscapes
At Coachwise, we have drawn on understanding from philosophy, science, and the arts to map out the general landscape of living well.
These maps help make it clear where the next phase of an investigation should focus.
Big picture alignment
One set of maps can be used to help coachees find a big picture harmony with life.
The coachee:
- Finds a new clarity of purpose.
- Develops effective strategies.
- Becomes more organised.
Using the moment
Another set of maps can be used to help coachees handle the immediacies of life well.
The coachee:
- Learns to become fully oriented from moment to moment.
- Becomes able to perform at their best when it most counts.
- Sees how they can enjoy life more fully.
Solid Foundations
This new way to think about coaching places it on top of solid foundations.
Fluff
There is a lot of fluffy thinking in the world of coaching.
So most people are quite rightly sceptical of the coaching industry and what it promises.
Arriving at clarity
At Coachwise, we decided to abandon all the fluff and develop a mechanism-level understanding of how coaching works.
Everything fell into place when we focused on the role of insight in coaching.
Coaching techniques
We have learnt to analyse coaching techniques in terms of what a coach must do to generate useful insights and of how the coachee can turn those insights into clear action commitments.
Better coaching
Understanding how exactly coaching works makes it possible to deliver more efficient and more impactful coaching.
Better coach training
Understanding what exactly a coach must do makes it possible to deliver more efficient and effective coach training.
