Coach – Evokes Awareness
What does it mean for a coach to be in their own awareness in the “now” moment?
The ICF Definition: Facilitates client insight and learning by using tools and techniques such as powerful questioning, silence metaphor or analogy.
I have been reflecting over this concept of evoking awareness and my thoughts wonder off, imagine if everyone was more aware of who they were, how they felt in certain moments, their triggers, their actions their words. We would truly have a perfect world, no hurt, pain, sadness, joy, excitement. No lessons, good or bad. Wow, we certainly would not need coaches. Everyone would be able to go into their deepest thinking without any need to be heard, seen and loved.
In reality, we are here, and we gain greater insight of who we are when someone else holds up the mirror for us. We have all experienced this at one time or another. Sometimes the mirror is held up in a way that gives us shame and regret. When the mirror is held up by someone who is genuinely interested in our own growth, the mirror becomes a gift of awareness for us.
A Coach is someone that supports evoking awareness in a safe, no judgmental way. It is only with the coachee’s presence and the Coach’s observations that he/she will ask questions that go beyond the coachee’s current thinking. The Coach also is very aware of his/her own awareness, while listening to the coachee.
Everything is connected as the ICF Coach competencies all come into action, a Coach needs to manage their own state to truly evoke awareness in their coachee.
Evoking awareness also speaks to slowing down, appreciating the silence, moving from asking well crafted questions for deeper insight, to sharing observations that will also bring about new learning for the coachee. This allows for the reflection process to occur naturally where the coachee is able to be in awareness with an Open Mind.
If we think about our best thinking, its when we were not blurred or distracted, this allowed us to be present in a room. I loved that Colin started our session with an opening round and asked “how are you?” everyone was truthful, this allowed us to let go of our distraction and put everything away to be totally present for the session.
When we are present we are able to then connect our Open Mind to our Open Heart, when this happens we can easily go into action with Open Will. I love to think about this as connecting the head, heart and hand together. I enjoyed the learning in this webinar, it was a great reminder for me around how easily we can loose our awareness and how impactful we can become when we are aware of how we are showing up.
Our 11 Sub- points of learning for this session that inspired my reflection are :
Challenges client to evoke awareness or insight
Considers client experience to decide what is most useful
Questions the client value’s, needs, wants and beliefs
Asks questions to explore beyond current thinking
invites the clients to share their experience in the moment
Notices what is working to enhance progress
Adjusts the coaching to respond to clients needs
helps client identify current, future patterns
Ideas to move forward ( willing or able to do)
Supports client in re framing perspectives
Shares observations, insights, feelings to create new learning