Coaching Skills for Educators Marjorie Shore M.S.W.

1. Coaching Skills for Educators Marjorie Shore M.S.W.

2. Coaching Skills for Educators Prepared for the The Coaching Institute for Literacy and Numeracy Leaders August 23, 2006 Marjorie Shore M.S.W. The Coaching Clinic margie@coachingclinic.com 416-787-5555 www.coachingclinic.com/tcc

3. Learning Objectives • Enhance Leadership Ability • Review Coaching Skills • Key skills • Coaching Relationship • Process • Communication, building trust and rapport, listening skills, approach and technique, influencing and directing

4. Leading Aim is positive change Setting direction Aligning people to vision Motivating Coaching Managing Aim is predictable, orderly results Organizing Staffing Planning Budgeting Solving problems Leading vs. Managing Managers are responsible for implementing a plan. Leaders grow the dream and enroll people to help achieve it.

5. Focus on your Goals • If we were meeting here three years from today and all was going very well in your coaching role, how would you describe your vision of you as a coach. • Describe what you see as if through the lens of a camera.

6. Definitions: Coaching, Counseling, Mentoring, & Training • Coaching focuses on improving skills. • can address issues of know how, know when, know why, motivation, time, distraction, priorities, support. • Counseling is coaching that focuses on peace of mind. • Mentoring is coaching about career and relationships with people and the organization. • Training is skill building from the ground up. "Coaching is cultivation, like gardening" Peter Senge

7. Coaching is Cultivation • Peter Senge asks organizations to operate like gardens rather than like machines. • “We need to move to a “gardening” model: cultivate and grow people rather than fix them.” • Coaching is the gardening tool to cultivate skills. "A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life." James Allen

8. Group Exercise A • Break into groups. • Work in your groups to define • Seven features of a good coaching relationship. • Think about coaches you have admired. "Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of." Unknown

9. Group Exercise B • Break into groups. • Work in your groups to define • Seven habits, qualities, attributes or traits of a good coach. • Think about coaches you have admired. "Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of." Unknown

10. Group Exercise C • Break into groups. • Work in your groups to define the process of coaching • The five step process of how a coaching relationship unfolds over time; what happens first, then the rest of the sequence "I don' like that man. I'm going to have to get to know him better." Abraham Lincoln

11. Beacon Radar Alarm Clock Patient Flexible Honest Self-Perception Confront Sell Help Push Envelope Motivate Cheerlead Optimistic Subject Expert Director Helping Hand Hear Venting Gardener Notice Success Honest Confident Consistent Mindful Guide Mirror Evolutionary Elder 25 of the Things Coaches Do

12. Current Strengths Opportunities The Coach in You

13. The Story of Rose • List the five characters in order of most favorite to least favorite and be prepared to defend your choice. • Rose • Jon • Peter • Dan • George

14. Review of Listening Skills 1. Be physically attentive 2. Participate to acknowledge you’ve heard 3. Acknowledge feelings or transition opportunities 4. Ask thoughtful questions

15. Five Ways to Communicate Better • Consider compromise. • Another person's view of reality may be as real as your own. • Never assume that you know what the other person is thinking, or what they have done. • Check out your assumptions. • Ask questions. • Do not correct another's statement of his/her feelings. • Be specific when you introduce a comment.

16. Five More Ways to Communicate Better • Ask for a reasonable change. • Try substituting "and" for "but". • "But" tends to negate anything that went before. • "And" includes both sides of the statement. • Ensure that your body language is congruent with your message. • When receiving constructive feedback consider it carefully and with a balanced approach. • Remember that others’ opinions of you are not always true

17. 1. Prepare in advance: requirements, opportunities, motivations, history 2. Agree on goals 3. Be a map-maker; Get commitments discuss motivations and opportunities, define process set time guidelines create a contract 4. Coach Pick time & space carefully Build rapport & trust Provide challenge Use action based language; who, what, when Build positive expectations Encourage generously Celebrate success 5. Review & Decide Next Steps Coaching Process – One Model

18. Coaching Process – One Model 1. Prepare in advance • requirements, • opportunities, • motivations, • history • gather information • separately and together

19. Coaching Process – One Model 2. Agree on goals • SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant & timely. • Conditions brought about by action. • Small & large outcomes. • Gaps to be filled. • Know what success will look like.

20. Coaching Process – One Model 3. Be a map-maker • Plan the route in advance; determining the milestones; • To help steer towards the goals • To park tangents • Get commitments • Discuss motivations and opportunities, • Define process • Set timelines • Create a contract, if required

21. Coaching Process – One Model 4. Coach • Pick your time and space. • Coach privately away from distractions and interruptions. • Build rapport • Get conversation going with small or soft talk • Build trust • Clarify roles • Promise an absence of vulnerability • Listen; ask questions, paraphrase, acknowledge

22. Coaching Process – One Model • Provide challenge • Ask the coachee to reach. • Create levels of success, between perfection and failure, that can be rewarded. • Use action based language. • Who is to act? What will they do? • Be precise. • Describe what a camera would see. • With what frequency & duration? • At what intervals?

23. Coaching Process – One Model • Build positive expectations. • Jointly determine barriers and how to overcome each. • Continually focus on potential positive results. • Cultivate • Offer ideas, know how, wisdom, experience, stories, direction • Motivate with encouragement

24. Coaching Process – One Model 5. Review and Decide Next Steps • Measure progress toward goals at scheduled intervals • Adjust the plan/map as necessary • Celebrate • Dissolve the relationship when appropriate. • Mutually • With loose ends tied • With a method to re-start

25. Communicating: Six Things You Can Do to Build Trusting Relationships • Create an absence of vulnerability, a cone of safety. • Show confidence. • Appreciate individual skills and success. • Show up on time. • Do what you say you will. • Don’t use don’t. Do use do.

26. Generational Differences in Motivators • Motivators tend to be generation based. • What do we know about motivating the different generations?

27. Where the Generations Clash:Motivation WhoWant Veterans Satisfaction of job well done Boomers Money, title, corner office Generation X Freedom, security Nexus Work that has meaning for them Source: When Generations Collide, Lancaster and Stillman

28. Tools for coaching • What to do when you don’t know what to do!

29. Taking Control Control the things you can control so you can effectively manage the things you can’t control

30. Control Can’t control Act Situation mastery Ceaseless striving Don’t Act Giving up Letting go Personal Power Grid

31. What Can You Control? • Your Attitude • Your Vision • Your Energy Level • Your Response to Stress • Your Space

32. Letting Go Possibilities • Mental beliefs; opinions, expectations, obsessions • Physically; active process of relaxation • Emotionally; anger, fear, guilt • Behaviorally; change habits that don’t help

33. need to be perfect owning responsibility vs. taking responsibility need to be liked by everyone can’t say no do everything yourself doing what doesn’t work never ending thinking anger guilt physical tightness wanting so much Letting Go Examples

34. Personal Power Grid: Case Studies • You have made arrangements with a friend. You had to rearrange your schedule in order to meet your commitment to the friend. Fifteen minutes before the time you were to meet, the friend calls to say that they can’t make it, something came up at work. This is the 3rd time in 3 months this has happened. What do you do? • Your supervisor is demanding and has high expectations. They never provide feedback or praise. They always find what’s missing. You also have high standards but never seem to meet their expectations. What do you do?

35. The Personal Power Grid Exercise 1. Write about a situation that you are struggling with that fits into the grid. 2. What part of the struggle is in your control? 3. What action can you take to move into Situation Mastery: Action orientation? 4. What action can you take to move into Situation Mastery: Letting Go? 5. What action can you take to leave this in Ceaseless Striving or Giving Up.

36. “It is not the strongest species that will survivebut that which has thegreatest capacityto adapt.” Charles Darwin Closing Thought

37. Marjorie Shore The Coaching Clinic 416-787-5555 margie@coachingclinic.com www.coachingclinic.com/tcc Thank You!

38. Appendices • Eight Don’ts of Coaching • Features of Coaching Relationships • The Habits, Qualities, Attributes and Traits of a Good Coach

39. Don’t use taxi talk Don’t be ambiguous Don’t try for giant steps Don’t allow transference Don’t be a devil’s advocate Don’t do the work for the person being coached Don’t stick to original goals when better goals emerge Don’t focus only on performance, focus on the person as well Eight Don’ts of Coaching

40. Eight Don’ts of Coaching • Don’t use taxi talk. • Taxi talk is aimless assessments, observations, judgments and opinions. • Stick with action talk; e.g. who does what, by when. • Don’t be ambiguous • Avoid vague, non-specific wording and phrases that are easily misunderstood.

41. Eight Don’ts of Coaching • Don’t try for giant steps. • You’ll get there faster with a series of baby steps. • Each successful step will produce motivating energy • Don’t allow transference. • Recognize the individuality of the person being coached. They are not you. • Consider what actions they can take. Don’t project your abilities on them.

42. Eight Don’ts of Coaching • Don’t be a devil’s advocate. • Look for and emphasize the positive. • Recognize failure as learning and create new action ideas • Don’t do the work for the person being coached. • The coach imparts wisdom. • Together the coach and person being coached think, shape, invent, decide . . . • The person being coached takes the action steps.

43. Specific Opportunistic Time sensitive Supportive Motivating Objective Apolitical Performance oriented Supports corporate competencies A leveraging strategy Features of Coaching Relationships

44. Features of Coaching Relationships • Specific • Coaching can focus on what is needed most. • Opportunistic • Coaching can produce beneficial effects right now. • Time sensitive • Coaching can be delivered just in time. When it is needed, not too soon or too late. • Motivating • Coaches motivate via stimulation, inspiration and persistence.

45. Features of Coaching Relationships • Supportive • Coaches help the person they are coaching use existing skills better. • Objective • Coaching ought to be an objective outside point of view. • The coach’s experience helps them to see the opportunity with more clarity. • A leveraging strategy • Coaching focuses on specifics i.e. just enough learning to help the right people people make precise changes.

46. Features of Coaching Relationships • Apolitical • Coaching can occur outside the normal office atmosphere. • Oriented to performance • Coaching focuses on finding or prescribing just the right actions the person being coached can take to change conditions. • Supportive of corporate competencies • Coaching is a tactic to cultivate specified competencies.

47. Evolutionary elder Partner Champion Guide Reality checker Visionary Director Radar Beacon The Habits, Qualities, Attributes and Traits of a Good Coach

48. The Habits, Qualities, Attributes and Traits of a Good Coach • Evolutionary elder • The coach has more experience and know how than the person being coached. • Coach can be a sounding board for ideas. • Partner • Coach benefits when the person being coached achieves. • Champion • Coach leads the supporting cheers.

49. The Habits, Qualities, Attributes and Traits of a Good Coach • Guide • Coach shows the person being coached the right steps to take, which pitfalls to avoid. • Reality checker • Coach helps person being coached evaluate progress towards goals. • Visionary • Coach (and person being coached) envision what success would look like.

50. The Habits, Qualities, Attributes and Traits of a Good Coach • Director • Coach directs person being coached as to what actions to take. Uses phrases like “try this . . .”. • Radar • Coach often can see & understand what the person being coached cannot. • Beacon • Coach can sometimes sound an early warning.