The 15 Coaching Proficiencies are a distillation of over 20 years
work by hundreds of coaches. Originally developed by Thomas Leonard
and Susan Austin, the 15 Proficiencies were tweaked and perfected by
the CoachVille R&D Team of 1,000+ coaches over a year period. This
material is an evolution of previous coach training and most coaches
will improve their skills and knowledge by incorporating the 15
Coaching Proficiencies into their work with clients.
Coaching sessions are generally short. By hearing what the client is
saying and not saying, by questioning what you hear, by asking the
right questions, pressing for clarity, and by sharing what you know
and how you feel, provocative conversations can occur within
minutes, not months. Welcome to the world of the Certified Coach.
Examples:
Listen for the unsaid.
Ask the "duh/obvious" question
Question what does not resonate.
The key distinction is provocative conversation vs. nice chat.
The more aware anyone is, the better choices they can make for
themselves. Part of what Certified Coaches do with clients is to
help them discover their gifts, talents, wants, values, needs and
dreams, as well as come to understand what what motivates and
inspires them. The result? A well-informed client, quickly moving
forward on their path of self-awareness.
Examples:
Point to their unseen gifts/secret aspirations.
Help them see their way of thinking/paradigm.
Help to identify their sources of motivation/energy.
Who else is trained to be proficient in this, 24/7/365, but the
Certified Coach? And, while it is true that few clients come to a
coach and specifically ask that we bring out and develop this
greatness, this is what we do naturally when we ask the client to
think and act bigger, and by challenging the client to continually
raise their own bar and standards.
How is 'enjoying the client' a proficiency? Simple. Because when you
enjoy the client in their entirety (including their upsides and
downsides), high levels of trust naturally occur. And the benefit of
that? Clients naturally take more risks and move forward more
quickly because they know you are totally there for them. When the
coach is at this place with a client, the coaching is collaborative
and light, not heavy.
One of the reasons clients hire a coach is to support them to do
more in a shorter period of time than they would do on their own.
Hence, the Certified Coach acts as both a catalyst and accelerant.
By supporting the client to do more than they have done or think
that they are capable of doing, significant value is added.
The coach who is naturally curious can be well guided by that
curiosity. After all, coaches are in the discovery business and how
can you help the client find new and better ways of doing things, if
you are not curious? And the real benefit of curiosity is that it
leads to learning for both the coach and client.
Examples:
Be curious about situations.
Be curious about dynamics.
Be curious about the facts.
The key distinction is curiosity vs. information gathering.
One way of looking at life is to believe that everything happens for
a perfectly good reason, even if we cannot always see or know that
reason within our own lifetime. The point here is to look for and
find how a client's event, problem, situation or trait is perfect,
even if it's clearly not. Seeking to understand and recognizing
perfection first, instead of offering tips, techniques and solutions
as a knee-jerk reaction, is what the Certified Coach does naturally.
Examples:
Transcend your own bias against the word "perfect."
Identify the Greater Truth of the situation; perfection is in
there.
Ask the client to find the perfection and/or share the perfection
that you see
Depending on the day, hour or even minute, what is most important to
the client will change. Such is the nature of individuals in a
high-growth phase of their lives. The Certified Coach is both quick
to recognize this moving target and is flexible enough to adjust the
coaching to be effective in this new terrain.
Examples:
Ask the client what is most important, not just most urgent.
Focus on the shifts called for, not just the urgent business.
Continually get updated by what the client says is most
important.
The key distinction is present moment vs. recent priority.
This should be obvious, yes? After all, the cleaner the
communication, the less that gets in the way of great coaching. That
said, most of us have 'stuff' in our communication style, which
slows down the super-conductive nature of the coaching process.
Certified Coaches have worked to clean up the stuff that can get in
the way of effective coaching. What kind of stuff? Everything from
biases, judgments, unmet needs, shoulds, coulds, to singularity,
vicariousness, agendas, arrogance and fears. It can all be cleaned.
Example:
Transcend your reactions/smallness.
Share your biases/limits.
Be responsible for how you are heard, not just what you say.
The key distinction is absence of vs. unnecessary additives.
Clients rely on our observations, intuition and even our inklings to
help move them forward in life. Hence, the more often, and easily, a
coach can share what they see, feel and hear, the more value that
can be created for that client. It's often the tiniest, most subtle
inklings that can act as powerful beacons and catalysts to the
client's life or business.
Examples:
1. Share inklings. 2. Share observations. 3. Share what you are hesitant to share.
The more often, and deeply, the coach champions their client at all
levels (including their actions, progress, dreams, traits,
commitments, gifts and qualities), the more encouraged the client
feels and the more likely they are to succeed. For the coach to
merely be encouraging is not enough; there is a much higher level of
support generated when the coach operates at the championing level,
which is where the Certified Coach operates.
Examples:
Be excited about their actions/progress.
Point to underlying shifts/growth.
Be awed by their willingness.
The key distinction is championing vs. cheerleading.
The Certified Coach expands the client's thinking by weaving in new
concepts, principles and distinctions during the coaching session,
and also by inviting the client to experiment with new models, ways
of doing things, and even to identify new goals or outcomes. Clients
don't usually ask the coach for this, but these are key ways that
value is created for the client.
Examples:
Broach topics that client didn't retain you for.
Share ideas/distinctions that will expand the client.
This may sound obvious, and it's deeper than that. After all, truth
is a level above mere honesty, as in there is always a truth about a
situation, person or event that, when discovered and articulated,
can transforms one's life or business. Certified Coaches have come
to enjoy and orient around truth as a source of joy and guidance.
Examples:
Come to enjoy/relish truth about the client's abilities and
limitations.
each the client how to relish the truth for the pleasure, not
just the utility, of it.
Be open to truths about your coaching style/paradigm.
The key distinction is relishing truth vs. expecting honesty.
Success, not to mention personal evolution, becomes sustainable when
there are environments and failsafe structures that support it.
After all, who wants to rely on fortitude and willpower to get
things done or to develop oneself? Enter the Certified Coach who has
been specifically trained in helping the client to design and
install these environments.
Examples:
Design environments that automatically support.
Design stimulating environments that evolve.
Repair environments that weaken.
The key distinction is environments vs. self-reliance.
We all have limits, both internal and external, and as much as
coaching is about maximizing potential and opportunities, we are all
human and the Certified Coach respects this. Success without stress
is what we are all after and by recognizing limits and appreciating
different paths to achievement, the client is both individually and
universally respected.
Examples:
Respect the client's RAM limitations.
Respect the client's style/approach.
Respect the client's wishes.
The key distinction is respect vs. accept.
Furthering the interests of coaching clients worldwide
through a rigorous
certification of coaches
and the highest ethical, professional and business standards.
