Below you will find the video of my online coaching session with Noah Wilssens who is a first-year IBM student at Artevelde University of Applied Sciences.
Prior to this one – on – one coaching session you will see below, I asked Noah to prepare a problem situation related to his studies during a prior conversation I had with him for the purpose of scheduling a suitable date and time for the coaching session. During this initial meeting, I also asked him to send me the problem situation in advance and he did so as well.
On the coaching day, I started the session by following up on our initial discussion and foreknowledge of what the problem he was currently facing was at that time. As Noah was also already a first-year student whom I have partially been mentoring since we got to know each other at one of the open days before he even started schooling at Artevelde, it was also not a problem to conduct the coaching session with a personal approach. Having opted for the Community Service Learning instead of the mentorship program, I thought it was handy that I had quite a number of first-year student networks amongst whom I could contact one to do this assignment with without actually being one of their "mentors".
I used the GRROW model in my coaching conversation and practised my open questions and listening skills while the conversation took place. Before I began asking Noah the questions I asked him in accordance with the GRROW model, I first described the GRROW model to him primarily so that he understands the exact form the conversation would take.
GRROW model
G - Goal: At the Goal stage of our conversation, which is where Noah had to determine what do he wants, i.e what his main aim was, I asked him a few questions from the set of questions I had prepared (below) to help him to concretely ascertain his goal.
- What is your goal for the Portfolium assignment?
- What are the things you would like to attain for this assignment?
- What is your main objective for this assignment?
- What is your aim on this project?
- What do you hope to achieve by the Portfolium deadline?
R - Reality: While watching the video you would see that in this stage of the conversation helped Noah to find exact descriptions of what was wrong and where he was currently stuck. I did this by asking him questions (from the list below which I had priorly made during my preparation) and making certain to ask him follow-up questions that led him to identify his present reality with regards to achieving his goal.
- What is happening with the goal?
- Where do you need help?
- What can be done to help you?
- Can you describe to me what the problem is?
- What are some of the challenges you are currently facing?
R - Resources: When we got to this stage of the conversation, by means of questions from the list I made below during preparation, I channelled the conversation in such a way that Noah could easily identify who or what else is or could help him in achieving his goal.
- Have you been able to identify some of the resources that can help you?
- What do you think the Artevelde can help you with?
- How do you think you will be able to get the help you need?
- Do you think that there are enough resources out there to help you or would you be innovating a new model on this?
O - Options, Opportunities: At this stage of the GRROW conversation, I induced and challenged Noah to find more possible solutions while supporting the ideas he already had as well. I persuaded him, through questions (some from my prior preparation below) and on-the-spot follow-up questions to explore more and different ideas in order to be well equipped to decide on his "Will" (concrete actions) which was the next stage of the conversation.
- How are you going to evaluate your progress?
- What are the various options or opportunities that you can get involved in this area?
- How will you get helped?
- What are the steps you will take towards making progress?
W - Will: In discussing the "Will" stage, I used some of the questions below and some follow-up questions to help Noah map out action plans for himself on what he will commit to doing from now till the moment his goal is achieved.
- How do you intend to achieve this right now?
- What are the basic steps you will take?
- What are the concrete actions you will take from now till the Portfolium deadline?
My personal growth in coaching skills
While reflecting on this coaching session with Noah, I realised that my coaching skills had actually improved a lot. In terms of exploration - showing curiosity and given the coachee enough time to talk and talk less myself, I would say that I performed really well. I portrayed a relaxed demeanour and actively listened to him. I ensured that all the questions I asked him where open questions and also that I reformulated questions and summarized some points he had made where and when necessary. More so, I gave some emotional responses while actively listening to him.
When it came to showing appreciation and giving confirmation during the conversation, I paid attention to always do this by means of non-verbal communication like nodding, smiling, laughing with him, changing my voice tone to be in sync what he had just said or the next question I had to ask him. I also made use of short verbal confirmations here and there as well in an original manner - as prompted at each point.
Additionally, I sought out for the challenge by prying with a lot of questions, especially if his initial answer wasn't very detailed or did not quite add any value to what we had at hand. I tried to motivate him to focus on what was most important in order for him to come up with multiple options/opportunities without giving him any immediate advice. I let him innovate all the possible solutions by himself using the series of questions I asked him.
What went well during the coaching conversation?
The fact that I didn't get distracted during the process of this conversation was one of the major things that went well during the coaching session. Another success factor was the fact that I also paid attention to avoid pitfalls like own-preoccupations, correcting the coachee because I feel he's not saying something aright, and offering advice instead of coaching to help the coachee advice himself by himself. This was a very good improvement from the last time I had a coaching session with a fellow student during the class workshop. More so, after I was done explaining the GRROW model to Noah, the coachee, he did most of the talking from then onwards and that was as it should be.
Spending enough time on the exploration of Goal and Reality
While exploring the goal and reality of the problem situation, I was very conscious of not being in a hurry with it as I took cognizance that it was a very important step or stage in the gro model. The coachee, Noah, had to get his goal set straight and clearly define what his present reality is if any progress was ever going to be made in achieving his goal. Thus, in order to obtain the desired results, I probed deeper, question after question, to ensure that I got him to pinpoint his reality and be ready to face it.
Not prompting advice
Like I earlier mentioned in the things that went well during the coaching conversation, I paid apt attention to not prompting or giving advice. As this is a major coaching skill, I think I am indeed getting better at coaching.
Coachee's feedback
When I asked the coachee for some feedback on the session, his feedback was chiefly that he was pleased with the coaching conversation. He expressed his gratitude as he thought it was an absolutely helpful session because, by the end of it, he had solutions to his problem and, added to that, a plan mapped out for the rest of the days he had before his Portfolium assignment was due to be submitted. When I asked if he thought the coaching session was helpful to him, his first words were: "Yes, to actually get my ducks in a roll... To really see myself because I don't ask those questions to myself (normally). I'm just like 'okay, that's it'. Thus, I normally don't have everything in a roll". Basically, this means that the coaching session helped him have more structure to his problem solving the problem situation he had.
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