April 2012 Newsletter

Coaching Out of the Box®                                  Newsletter

April 2012 Edition

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Out of the Box: Coaching Topic of the Month

"You Rock! No, Really!"

"You can do it! I believe in you!" 

"Hey Jim, job well done on that project!" 

"Wow! What an awesome insight!" 

Aaahhh, words of encouragement. One of the many highlights of being a coach is genuinely encouraging our teams and individual coachees. In doing so, we get to be their cheerleaders or champions for their cause (minus the pom-poms and short, shorts), witness their faces light up, or hear the lift in their voices when told that what they are doing or who they are is really awesome!! What could be better? Seriously. 

Sincere encouragement (not platitudes for the sake of platitudes) serves a multitude of purposes...

1. It can empower the person to stretch farther than they ever felt they could.
2. It can raise their awareness regarding their abilities, skills, qualities, and talents.
3. It can demonstrate their value.
4. It can support them in taking action.

We encourage you to ask yourself the following questions:

• Think of the last time someone shared some encouraging words with you, what were they?
• What impact did they have?

Stretch those encouragement muscles. It won't just make someone's day it will make yours as well! 

To engage in our conversation around encouragement, please join in here.

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Team Talk 

The Power of Encouragement
by Dave Veale, CEC, PCC  Partner:
Coaching Out of the Box® 

'Watch a child learn to crawl, walk and play ball after surgery for a brain tumor and you'll see how important encouragement is.' -Bernie Seigel, MD

One of the 5 Core Coaching Skills we teach participants in the 5/5/5 Coaching Skills Training Program™ is the skill of Encouragement. As Bernie Seigel points out in his fabulous book 'Prescriptions for Living', we can all appreciate how valuable encouragement is for a child overcoming surgery but we are likely to undervalue its relevance when it comes to our adult friends and colleagues. What stops us from using the skill of Encouragement?

As I explore the skill of Encouragement with various groups participating in our training, I have found that the most common answers to why people do not develop and leverage this critical leadership/coaching skill are:

1. They do not recognize how important their Encouragement is to those around them. People tend to devalue their ability to have a big impact on others.
2. They miss opportunities and are not sure how to encourage others in an authentic way (i.e. they don't want to sound condescending or too 'rah, rah').

Recognizing the importance of Encouragement

The best way to break down the importance of encouragement is to ask people to reflect on, and share a story about, a time in their life when someone's encouraging words and support made all the difference in the outcome of a challenging period. The stories that people share are remarkable! It is not uncommon for a person to get quite emotional (reinforcing the 'power' of encouragement) recounting how, for example, a mentor reminded them of their potential and this gave them the strength to transition their career, start a business or go back to school.

A couple of ways to, sincerely, use Encouragement

Notice - and encourage - strengths: Research from Gallup proves that a leader who focuses on the strengths of their employees creates the strongest levels of engagement: These leaders can achieve a 60:1 ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees. Reminder, an engaged employee equals a productivity - and happy - employee!

Encourage effort not just success: Seigel wisely suggests that 'the key element in encouragement is to stop being judgmental. The important thing isn't the grade your son got; it's the effort he put out.' Too often we hold back encouragement as we look for successful completion of a goal or task. It can be incredibly important to find opportunities to encourage the effort people are putting into fulfilling challenging goals, especially if we can be very specific about the effort we are seeing , 'what a fabulous job you did in preparing for the presentation you will be giving tomorrow - I can see how important it is to you - well done'.

I'd like to sign off with a 'Request '(another Core Coaching Skill). My request is that you answer the following two questions right now. . .

• Who could benefit from your encouragement?
• When will you take a moment to encourage this person (or people)?

My sincere hope is that someone close to you will benefit from you using the Power of Encouragement! 

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CALENDAR OF EVENTS
 

FOR COACHES WHO ARE RESPONDING TO THE NEED OF LEADERS TO QUICKLY & EASILY ACQUIRE COACHING SKILLS!

Next program starts Tuesdays, May 1, 2012, 2:00pm - 3:30pm Pacific/5:00pm to 6:30pm Eastern for eight (8) consecutive Tuesdays  

Payment Options Now Available

 

REFINE YOUR COACHING SKILLS BY COACHING OTHERS AND HEARING OTHERS COACH IN A VIRTUAL CLASSROOM.

Next program starts Tuesday, September 25, 2012, 10am - 11:30am Pacific/ 1pm to 2:30pm Eastern for eight (8) consecutive Tuesdays

 Click here for more details on Coaching Skills Practicum

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LEARN HIGHLY EFFECTIVE COACHING SKILLS THAT MAKE AN IMMEDIATE IMPACT IN YOUR WORK.

To bring this training to your group or organization and to obtain more information please click here (must have a minimum of ten people).

Questions? Contact us at Info@CoachingOutoftheBox.com or call us at: 1.888.422.6224.

Click here for more details on 5/5/5 Coaching Skills Training Program™    

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Coaching Fundamentals™

LEARN THE CORE COACHING COMPETENCIES TAUGHT TO PROFESSIONAL CERTIFIED COACHES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

Next program starts Wednesday, September 26, 2012, 8:00am - 9:30am Pacific/11am to 12:30pm Eastern for ten (10) consecutive Wednesdays

Click here for more details on Coaching Fundamentals™     

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It's All the Buzz 

This coaching practicum with Amy Ruppert provided excellent value for money. In only 8 weeks of this webinar, my coaching skills improved significantly. The format of practice coaching and expert feedback enabled me to see more opportunities to improve my coaching and to practice new skills in a safe learning space. Jane Hardy Certified Executive Coach and Owner Hardy Coaching Group 

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In The Trainer Spotlight:

Francis Garwe

This month's 5/5/5 Coaching Skills Training Program™ Licensed Trainer in the spotlight is Francis Garwe and we are thrilled to share a little bit about Francis with you.

Coaching Out of the Box®:How have you been using the 5/5/5 Coaching Skills Training Program™ in your  day-to-day practice and/or internally in your organizations?

Francis: As recent graduate of the 5/5/5 and Advisor for Organization Development, I have realized great business impact of coaching to the mid-level leadership teams i.e. in the way how they model themselves when interacting with their subordinates and also the changes in certain behaviors leading to high performance work teams in health care industry. Throughout facilitation processes in my Organization, I have been enriched and refreshed through the understanding that, I do not have to be the subject matter expert (SME) in the room. I am applying the triangle of wisdom to rephrasing participant's questions and it's amazing the creativity, knowledge and deep thoughts shared by other participants or even including the originator of the question. I have applied the 5/5/5 in the following areas, conflict resolution, respect in the work place environment, mid-level leadership interpersonal communication skills enhancement and the results are highly evidence based. The greatest benefit from the tool is through constant practice and modeling the behavior and past that point it becomes natural like the Amazon jungle.  
 

Coaching Out of the Box®:What impact has coaching had on your life?

Francis: I have noticed a gradual change in the way how I approach challenging situations in life. My personality type through the MBTI ( Myers Briggs performance indicator assessment) is ESTJ and patience does not come natural, quick solution to fix others challenges and the list goes on, now I can reflect on any situation using the coach approach and the results are truly astonishing every time. I am a father of boys, decisions often come in a hammer and nail format especially when the boys get to be 4 years through teenage age. I have modeled my boys to be coaches through the ways I interact with them and I am enjoying every piece of it.

Coaching Out of the Box®:What's one thing you like to do for fun and why?