Coaching educational

Constantin Alina-Cristina

”Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are
capable of being” - Goethe

1. INTRODUCTION TO CHOACHING
1.1. What is coaching?
1.2. What is it specific to coaching?
1.3. What coaching is not?
1.4. Who and when turns to coaching?
1.5. Client benefits
1.6. How does the coaching process take place?
1.7. Types of coaching

2. COACH
2.1. Beliefs and values

3. CUSTOMER
3.1. Life conceptions

4. LEARNING
4.1. LASER – a coaching process

Objectives: after studying this chapter, the students will be able to:
1. define the notion of coaching
2. analyze the role of the client in the process of personal development
3. explain the role of a coach in the personal development
4. use certain techniques used in coaching

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 1. INTRODUCTION TO CHOACHING

1.1. WHAT IS COACHING?

The first use of the term coaching (instructor or coach) appeared around 1830 at the
Oxford University. It was used as slang for a tutor who ”carries” a student through an exam.
The use of the term in sports came in 1831. The concept of coaching has been used in many
fields, such as personal development, adult education, psychology, clinical psychology,
organizational, social and industrial domain. Since the mid-90s, coaching was a more
independent discipline, such as the establishment of the International Coach Federation has
helped to develop a set of training standards.
A coach is a person trained to support you in expressing your needs, help you and
encourage you to find solutions for them. A coach suitable for you is the one who makes you
feel comfortable, safe to develop the confidence necessary to change.
In short, coaching involves:
a. A costumer – who wishes to make progress in a given area, based on our own forces and
willing to ”train” for it, like an athlete who knows he can become better
and better.
b. A coach – a person who has the necessary training as a coach and the necessary abilities.
c. The process of coaching, effectively – which includes:
• identifying the present situation, as it is perceived by the costumer (“where am
I”)
• choosing and defining the desired state – of the target (“where do I want to get”)
• finding / building a strategy to achieve the desired condition
• choosing the techniques for activating the necessary resources
• customer support all the way from the present state to the desired one, through
specific methods of coaching.

1.2. WHAT IS IT SPECIFIC TO COACHING?

Appeared under the influence of humanistic psychology and constructivism, coaching

is based on the assumption that every man is meant to evolve, that he has a significant need
for self-assertion and that he is full of resources - visible or potential - which are required or

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wished to make worth. Furthermore, each man builds his own life and reality in a personal
way, his own and therefore he is the only one able to decide what he wants to do now or how
he wants to evolve in the future.
Therefore, coaching is not based on giving advices, evaluate or make diagnoses. On
the contrary, the central idea is to act like a ray of light, which brings to the foreground all
that is good in his customer like a provocative voice: putting certain questions, new and
exciting answers will appear, that will make people transform their perspective on how they
think, feel and act.
We could say that man is like a puzzle, however, not an usual one...
If in any puzzle game you can get only one final image, the “pieces” that represent the
mind and the human experience are almost magical – they can be rearranged and assembled
in countless ways and you can get final results very different! The same man can perform
mediocre, good or excellent, depending on many factors. The aim of coaching is to get an
excellent arrangement for this puzzle called life, profession or human performance...

The specific of coaching:

• It stimulates a way of thinking and / or behaviour fundamentally optimistic and
constructive
• It helps us understand how we generate problems and how can we create high
performance solutions
• It assumes the existence of the desired goals to be achieved
• It is focused on results, in the present and in the future
• It builds strategies
• It works with generative changes - leading to an upward spiral of development and
refinement
• It shows the client in his best light, determining him to self-valorise and develop
• It generates trust, satisfaction, motivation, self-awareness and personal development

THE COACHING APPEARED IN NEED FOR PERFORMANCE AND FROM

THE KNOWLEDGE THAT CHANGE IS INHERENT, AT THE LEVEL OF THE
INDIVIDUAL AND AT THE LEVEL OF THE ORGANIZATION.
THEREFORE, ALTHOUGH WE CAN NOT CONTROL THE EXISTENCE
OF CHANGE, WE CAN CONTROL THE DIRECTION AND THE WAY IN WHICH

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THE CHANGE WILL BE HELD AT THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE
ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL.

1.3. WHAT COACHING IS NOT?

Coaching is not:
a. Training: meaning ”education”, is a process whereby information in a given area
on a given subject is transmitted to a group of people and it assumes that the instructor is
experienced in the domain approached (he is an expert). It is essentially structured as a
course, seminar or workshop, it may also have some practical training (”at work”) and often
aims to develop new skills and competencies.
b. Psychological counselling: a process that takes place in the presence of a
psychologist, involves a psychological evaluation and instruments specific to this profession.
c. Psychotherapy: is an approach to the people living in difficult situations or who
show symptoms of psycho-emotional disorders (such as anxiety or depression) and is
performed by a physiotherapist.
d. Mentoring: involves a mentor (or ”senior”) and a ”disciple” (or ”junior”), the
purpose of the relationship being that the mentor advises and conveys professional
experience to the other.
e. Specialized consulting (management, marketing, sales, financial, etc.): is preferred
when it comes to expert opinion of a consultant. He is hired to provide advice and relevant
solutions, which the customer will put into practice, as they were designed by the consultant.

1.4. WHO AND WHEN TURNS TO COACHING?

How can a company ensure that it has the right man in the right place, that the right
man has the desired information and skills, the right attitude - in harmony with the image the
company wants to promote?
• Are there technical training opportunities that are not exploited?
• Do the employees know they can do more, but they do not know exactly how they
might improve performance?
• Is there a stress level more difficult to manage or which affects the individual
performance, on longer periods of time?

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 • The connection between employees and managers has been eroded?
• Is there an internal competition, unproductive and a lack of communication between
departments or team members?
• Is there a gap between the implementation and IT development and the training of
your staff?
If you answered YES to at least one of the questions above, then certainly YES, it is
advisable to invest in coaching!
When the members of the team or of the department do not share enough their
experience to the others, when there is no feed-back or the feed-back of the market, the
customers, the suppliers, the management or the employees is not taken into account, when
there is not enough time for the encouragement or the talent management, when there is a
need for creativity, innovation, when the challenges and opportunities brought by change are
not fully understood or accepted... then YES, you need coaching!

1.5 CLIENT BENEFITS

The individual in a coaching process will be aware, firstly, of his level, this being the
starting line in his personal and professional development. This means, necessarily,
commitment and ownership.
He will establish clear and realistic goals, knowing precisely from where to go, and
the necessary steps that he will have to follow. We learn to be proactive, open and flexible,
constructive and organized. Being accompanied, during the process, by a professional coach,
following a development program and checking the stages established initially, he will gain
self-confidence, will acquire new knowledge and skills, will practice qualities and skills less
developed. All these things will strengthen the confidence in himself and build motivation.
The coaching process will guide him in the survey of staff development potential and
will enable those qualities, skills and resources latent needed to become better and better.
The most valuable capital of an organization is the human potential, precisely because
it offers endless possibilities. Analyzing the various organizations, statistics, case studies
made by professionals, anyone interested will find: the best companies, the most dynamic
and successful or pioneering, from various areas, are the ones which have a top human
capital. That means involved, dynamic, creative, flexible and confident employees in their
performance. The ultimate benefits are increasing performance, productivity and profit.

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 1.6. HOW DOES THE COACHING PROCESS TAKE PLACE?

As in any form of cooperation, there is a contract - with objectives, terms and

conditions.
• The process itself involves individual meetings or, if appropriate, in group.
• The duration of sessions can vary from 30 minutes to 3-4 hours (most often the
assigned time to a session is 1 hour).
During the coaching session, which is the role of the coach?
1. Supports the client to decide what he really wants, to distinguish between desires
and goals and to decide which his objectives are.
2. Uses specific sets of questions, whose purpose is to generate new perspectives on a
situation, new insights or new approaches.
3. Uses different techniques that will enable customers to access their inner resources
- to understand and to motivate himself, to make decisions, to develop new action strategies,
to refine his behaviour, attitudes or personal working strategies.
4. Offers a certain kind of feedback: constructive and generative (which generates
new insights on the topic addressed)
5. Supports the customer to browse all the way from the problem to the most
convenient solution.
6. Acts as a road partner: reliable, respectful and confidential.

At what level does coaching act?

1. Thinking and attitude
2. Strategy
3. Behaviours
4. Skills
5. Emotional

1.7 . TYPES OF COACHING

What types of coaching are used at the moment?

a. After the method used, we find:

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 - non-specific, eclectic coaching: the coach uses various methods, belonging to
different systems based on a personal working strategy, that he knows he can get good results
with.
- specific coaching - the coach uses a specific system, with a specific name, type:
NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), focusing, transactional analysis (TA), ontological
coaching etc. or elements of positive psychology, cognitive-behavioural, etc.
- informal, for example the coaching based on spiritual principles (rare in Romania,
more commonly used in Western countries).
b. After the action level, we can talk about coaching:
- facilitative - mainly addresses the conscious and rational mind of the customer (e.g.,
motivational coaching, or the one based on cognitive-behavioural elements) and it is
characterized usually by a gradual progress, sequential - throughout the coaching process.
- transformative - operates both with the conscious and the subconscious mind and
allows, in principle, rapid changes and real progress of personal efficiency, because of the
access to the immense resources of the client’s subconscious.

2. COACHUL

2.1. BELIEFS AND VALUES

In a coaching relation, it is important for the customer to feel safe with the coach.
Thus, a big part of his energy and attention will be diverted to protect himself instead of
being channelled towards development and progress. People who best succeed to make
others feel safe are those whose intentions towards the interlocutors go beyond the mere stage
of goodwill, making a positive asset. Our intentions toward the others are determined by our
beliefs and values that are deeply rooted in our ego, they are not a simple sum of tools and
methods but they are the fundamental foundation of what we want to be and what we
consider to be important.
The cornerstone of coaching is respect. With respect every human being sees the
world differently and has his own well-founded reasons to see it how he does. No other
human being has the right to impose his own right way of seeing the world to another human
being, nor to assert that any other way of seeing the world than his does not make sense. The
notion of respect can also result in a sample placed in the context of coaching.

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 Another belief that a coach must have is that people can change, that they can make
their lives better and that they can take advantage of the greater part of their personal
potential. It's hard to imagine how a coach who does not have this fundamentally optimistic
vision of the possibilities of human nature could create a proper environment for his
customer. The customer would feel that there is a mismatch between what the coach says and
what he really thinks. This disparity would make him feel uncomfortable and he would feel
less confident that there is no danger.
Beware of a coach who claims to care about everything! In fact, he probably does not
care about anything.

3. CUSTOMER

The customer is an active partner in the process of coaching. His usual attitude
towards life, his fundamental system of values and beliefs about self and the others and about
self in relation with the others, will be very important in determining how to fulfil his role in
this partnership. Some life concepts are very suitable for coaching; working with a customer
who has such a conception of life has usually no problem, and it is often a pleasure. Other
concepts of life rise problems for the coaching process and the coach will have to detect them
as such and to make great efforts to ensure that he does not prevent the customers from
obtaining the maximum possible benefit from the coaching approach.
Berne's concepts of life predict in a very relevant way the ease and promptness with
which the efficient coaching relationship can establish.
The four conceptions of life are:
1. ”I am OK, you are OK”
When a customer acts in the light of this concept of life, coaching prognosis is very
good. The client believes that an adult is equal to the others, he is willing to share without
hesitation responsibility and has a basic trust in self, which positions him well for
development. It is unlikely to fall prey to unrealistic hopes or fears of handicapping. He will
be able to give and receive feedback and learn from successes and failures.

2. ”I am OK, you are not OK”

The person acting in terms of the conception ”I'm OK, you are not OK” decided
that the attack is the best defence. He does not feel equal to others, so he acts like they

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superior to them. With a little luck, the others will be so busy defending themselves from
his attacks, that they will have the chance to notice inferiority (at least that is how his
reasoning sounds). This person puts himself in front of the others. He can be aggressive.
He hides his own weaknesses and failures, but points the finger to the others. He acts in a
way that can make the others feel inferior. Frequently, he could say that the others are
guilty.

3. ”I am not OK, you are OK”

This attitude to life is the exactly the opposite of the earlier defensive concept. It is
based on the idea that the best form of defence is giving up. The others are your superiors, so
you subordinate your own desires to their wishes. The signs are: abnormal predisposition to
treat the coach as an expert, the lack of a critical attitude to the coach, accepting all the
immediate suggestions and requests of the coach and a general attitude of submission.

4. ”I am not OK, you ate not OK”

Sometimes, those who act on this view of life are said to be ”cynical”. Because, in
their view, all we care about, at a fundamental level, is ourselves and we are not even
admired or even competent, such individuals are likely to seek to manipulate rather than to
negotiate, and to conclude a priori that all relations are devoid of honesty. Sometimes they
will use humour to avoid a real commitment to others - that kind of humour which says that
”always makes you laugh”.
When we coach someone, we actually guide, without exception, their faith in
themselves.

4. LASER - A COACHING PROCESS

The emphasis in educational coaching is on the need to reach a deeper understanding

of students. This understanding should include the personal history and the unconscious and
to make a connection between personal insights and practical changes.
The coaching process has five stages (the first letters of the English name of each
forming the acronym LASER: Learning, Assessing, Story-Making, Enabling, Reframing)
• Learning
• Assessing
• Story-Making

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 • Enabling
• Reframing
These steps should not be seen as a linear path, but rather as a flexible conceptual
framework that indicates the main activities of the educational coaching.

• Learning means to create and maintain the necessary conditions for change.
Establishing a clearly defined area of learning is essential – it is a benchmark for the rest
of the coaching course.
• Assessing means to collect and analyze information. This is the stage at which the coach
encourages the student self-disclosure, but takes into account other sources of
information, such as feedback from colleagues and the results of psychometric
questionnaires.
• Story-making is the stage at which the coach finds a logical interpretation of the
student’s problem facing development. Assumptions about change are built in terms of
several possible conjectures.
• Enabling seeks to distinguish between the factors that will allow or will limit the
possibility of changing the manager. At this stage it goes beyond the explanations of
how the student behaves, using conjectures in a productive way, leading to driving
change.
• Reframing is the stage when the coach makes interventions designed to facilitate
change. The term ”reframing” suggests that the student is required to see a different
aspect of his experience and as a consequence of this new way of seeing things, he is
able to engage more actively in the practical aspects of change
This coaching process does not end with the Reframing stage. The results of the
Reframing stage interventions re-enter the Assessing stage and are reviewed, and their
success or failure serves on the progress of the Story-Making and Enabling stages. Also,
throughout the process, the coach seeks with vigilance the state of the learning space,
highlighted by the manager's attitude towards the process of coaching, and the quality of the
relationship that develops between the coach and manager. The learning area provides extra
information for the Assessment stage, becoming part of the overall narrative construction of
what is happening with the student.

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 Learning Area
The learning space is a metaphorical space created between the student and the coach.
It can be described as a potential or transitional space as it opens the door to new ways of
rational and emotional knowledge of the self and the others – makes possible the transition
from a certain set of certainties and behaviours to new and more productive ways of
conceiving the self and the others.

Recommended bibliography:
1. Cardon A., 2006, Coaching şi leadership în procesle de tranziţie, Editura Codecs, Bucureşti
2. Hardingham A., Brealey M., Moorhouse A., Venter B., 2007 Coaching pentru un coach –
dezvoltare personală pentru specialiştii în dezvoltarea personală, Editura Codecs, Bucureşti.
3. Lee G., 2007, Coaching pentru lideri – de la dezvoltarea personală la performanţa
organizaţională, Editura Codex, Bucureşti.
4. *** Societatea Română de coaching – Ghid rapid de business coaching, Bucureşti.

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