Introduction

Reinventing ourselves as coaches is the most important step leaders can take to ensure success in the ever-evolving business landscape. (Location 61)

Perhaps the best definition of coaching is “unlocking the potential of another human being.” (Location 72)

When you coach others, you are helping them move forward on their journey to greatness. (Location 74)

PART ONE FOUR PRINCIPLES OF COACHING

1 TRUST

Your concern for the person you are coaching must be based on genuine good intent. Your integrity must be inviolable. Your determination to keep confidences must be unshakable. (Location 104)

Trust is hard to earn but easy to lose. It can take weeks and months of gentle and careful nurturing to gain trust—whereas one broken promise, one display of indifference, one instance of manipulation with bad intent, or one failed confidence can ruin everything. That’s why trust is the first principle of coaching. All effective coaching starts with an understanding of the great obligation to be trustworthy. (Location 166)

2 POTENTIAL

Good coaches find out what the individual wants and then take the individual’s measure. They do not try to fit someone into any preconceived notion. They start with the individual’s vision and then lead that person to prioritize those things that are most important in achieving that vision. (Location 174)

Coaching is based on the assumption that everyone has the potential to improve, regardless of where they start. (Location 178)

A good coach must set her own personal stories aside and invest fully in listening to, engaging with, and feeling the power and potential of the individual’s story. As the relationship matures, the coach can reflect the person’s story back from a more objective, detached perspective, unobscured by layers of pain, disappointment, frustration, and misguided efforts. (Location 188)

At the simplest level, coaching is a process of paying full attention to a person. When we pay attention to people, they light up. ... When people are truly listened to, when they can see that others are listening, they begin to open up, engage more, and expose potential that has sometimes been suppressed by years of self-defensiveness, self-betrayal, or self-denial. (Location 194)

Coaches know that adhering to fundamental coaching principles and practices and having a “coaching presence”—that is, being with the individual in the moment—matter more than technique and style. (Location 200)

A great coach gathers information by listening with the heart for feelings, listening with the ears for content, and listening with the eyes for visual indications of that which is not verbalized. Really effective coaches pick up even the smallest of cues. When an effective coach is at work, a spirit-to-spirit element of communication comes into play. (Location 202)

Point of View

a good coach must rely on senses other than sound—she must “look beyond the words” for information and insights from nonverbal cues. Watch for the following: (Location 209)

Physical Behaviors. These include yawning, looking down, avoiding eye contact, gesturing with hands and arms, and folding arms. Verbal Behaviors. Patterns of language, verbal tone, avoidance of key issues, repeated references, or common topics or themes continuing to arise in the conversation are all verbal behaviors. An individual who keeps returning to a particular person, event, or feeling is signaling that it may be a dominant feature of that individual’s story or perspective. Avoiding discussion of certain events, people, or feelings may be a signal as well. Emotional Behaviors. Elements of a story may provoke emotional reactions that are particularly strong or surprising. These are emotional clues that, if observed, go beyond simply placing a single experience in an overall life story. They can tell an observant coach how much power or influence the moment of that experience has had on the overall story. (Location 211)

You may need to probe carefully for greater understanding. You do this by listening with empathy. Empathy does not involve listening to someone in order to advise, counsel, reply, refute, fix, judge, solve, change, agree, disagree, or figure the person out. Empathy is the ability to accurately reflect what the person is feeling, experiencing, and saying. Great coaches create a safe environment where people simply feel understood. (Location 225)

Challenge Paradigms

Deeply held views that color every aspect of a person’s thinking are called paradigms. (Location 229)

Our paradigms can help or hurt us. Our paradigms can limit us in achieving our potential, thus becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. (Location 232)

A coach can help shift people’s paradigms by challenging them. (Location 235)

As a coach, your task is to help individuals change paradigms that are holding them back from achieving their potential. (Location 244)

Coaches can help people begin to see the fruits of their potential instead of the ashes of their limitations. (Location 275)

3 COMMITMENT

Along with asking questions, a coach should remember to talk less and listen more. Most of the coach’s talking should consist of asking powerful questions. (Location 289)

Leaders with good listening skills use empathic listening. They are listening to truly understand what another person is saying, from that person’s perspective. (Location 337)

Empathic listening does not require you to agree with what someone is thinking or feeling. The goal should be to understand why coachees are thinking or feeling the way that they are. Curiosity can be a helpful tool for listening. (Location 339)