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| Judith Barton, Director of Coaching and Mentoring |
I attended the Coaching at Work Annual Conference “Onwards and
Upwards”. Hearing Liz Hall, Editor of Coaching at Work reflect on the
last ten years (of the publication) the challenges, the achievements,
the thrill of making it work has made me reflect on my year.
2015 is a big year for BSC and there is always tremendous energy in
the practice, which I think is key to generating ideas and progression.
When I reflect back on the last 12 months, I do this by “seeing and
feeling”; then the highlights and lowlights very quickly come back to
me. I wonder who else does this in such a visual way – or is it me?
When I say seeing and feeling, I am referring to the visual imagery
and emotional triggers. So I have begun to think about how this could be
used for supporting evidence based reviews such as: performance
development review, evaluation of team performance, performance of a
class over their school year and essential for us coaches; coaching
supervision.
To share my thinking on this I will return to my title, “selfie,
supervision and success”. Taking a selfie is now the done thing, and the
use of selfie sticks is the new annoyance, finding itself banned by
museums and Disney, personally I am not a fan.
Only once have I taken a selfie, that was to capture a ‘really can’t
believe it’ moment. I had lost all my hair as a result of chemotherapy
and I couldn’t believe the head on my shoulders was mine. It was a
moment when seeing was believing, particularly when I would wake up and
try to flick my long hair off my shoulders to be surprised it had gone.
My Grandmother would refer to taking a photograph as “having your
likeness taken” and this was a difficult likeness to comprehend the
selfie was a realisation of my current reality.
So I suppose the advantage of taking a selfie or photograph is it
clearly captures the likeness, no matter how we may say “I don’t look
like that”, I have come to realise that recognising how we truly look or
truly are is that from this position we can see the true potential.
A) Continual Professional Development (CPD)
As coaches and mentors we must develop further our knowledge,
understanding and skills. Effective CPD needs to have not just learning
but application, how do we apply or implement the learning. As a new
coach or mentor there is a lot to learn, everything from managing a
session, environment, questioning, silence, suspending judgement and so
on. As we become more experienced we need to become more critical of our
own practice. Unpicking each element of a session and exploring what
makes the difference. The more experienced we become the smaller but
possibly deeper the difference is likely to be. It is the minutiae, the
tiny difference I refer to as the “slither of difference”, which will
ensure growth making us all more effective coaches.
Sir David Brailsford, CBE British Cycling Coach, refers to a similar
philosophy of improvement as the “aggregation of marginal gains” the 1
percent margin in everything we do. If we add up these gains our slither
of difference I think of the potential, the impact for our clients.
According to a blog by James Clear no detail is too small when it comes
to improvement; “They searched for 1 percent improvements in tiny areas
that were overlooked by almost everyone else: discovering the pillow
that offered the best sleep and taking it with them to hotels, testing
for the most effective type of massage gel, and teaching riders the best
way to wash their hands to avoid infection. They searched for one
percent improvements everywhere”.
B) Identifying the “slither of difference”
Identification of the “slither of difference” can be tough, especially
immediately after a coaching/mentoring session. You may have another
session – you may be travelling or you may simply be too tired to review
the session effectively.
I recommend scheduling a review some 36/48 hours later, this for me
is the optimum time, personally rather in the morning rather than
afternoon or evening. Energy is more likely to be restored and the step
away brings clarity. However a word of warning, your review is dependent
on your recall, so with your clients permission it is a good idea to
voice record the session. Listening to this will provide greater insight
into what worked for the client and areas less effective and help
document the session and identify the slither of difference.
C) Capturing the selfie moment
Whether you choose to voice record or not I would suggest have a go at
capturing the image. What I mean by this is capturing the moment, the
image that recognises your slither of difference either as a strength or
an area for development. For example the time it took to ‘unlock’ the
client in a session by an image of the clock in the coaching room; an
image of stillness to remind you of doing nothing and the power of
silence in a session.
You may find it useful to write up the ‘unlock’ question and
photograph it. With phones and tablets this is extremely easy and makes
my next suggestion even easier.
D) Preparing for supervision
Supervision is essential. To fully benefit from supervision I believe we
need to invest in it, make time for it and take our reflections to the
session. Remember you only get out what you put in, and this is
especially true for supervision. Through the images we have generated we
have the when and possibly the how we did something through reflection
and supervision we can understand the why we did it, and the so what or
what next. Through supervision we can receive support and challenge to
work on our “slither of difference”.
E) Performance Timeline – Reflecting on previous 12 months
Using selfies or images we can build a timeline, say 12 months and
reflect back to understand our growth. If we wish to understand more we
can identify the data points of where our practice developed or didn’t
and where support may be needed.
If this sounds interesting try overlaying your coaching sessions data
with the rest of your life. Take your timeline and add to it:
A) Health
B) Energy – you may remember great highs and lows, a time when you may
have operated slightly below par – a selfie/image may be particularly
useful here.
C) Work
D) Home – family, personal events, life happenings
F) The whole person coach
Then stand back and see if this visual representation of your whole
self provides evidence as to your performance over your timeline. An
example of this will be presented in my next blog.
Working out your whole person timeline will provide immense data when
identifying the slither of difference. I believe we are only as good as
our whole self, so our coaching performance is more than likely to be
affected by what is happening in our world or whole self. Whilst we all
practice suppressing daily distractions, life events such as illness
(ourselves or our children), bereavement, work challenges etc can cause
interference and often a reduction in energy which is likely to have a
knock on effect with a reduction in mental agility. The Full Spectrum
Model, Edna Murdoch, focuses on the whole person.
So consider snapping your selfie for supervision and reflect on the
whole you to inform and develop your practice – to be the most effective
coach you can be.
Judith Barton, BA, MSc, Chartered FCIPD, FISQC, MInstLM, EMCC Member,
Director of Coaching and Mentoring
British School of Coaching
Judith is leading the ILM Certificate/Diploma in Coaching Supervision starting
8th December 2015.
Director for ILM 7 Coaching & Mentoring Courses
