Sabine Asgodom

COACHING

MY WAY

Kreutzfeldt digital

Imprint

Sabine Asgodom: Coaching My Way

© 2014 Kreutzfeldt digital, Hamburg (Germany)

All rights reserved.

Cover photograph by Constanze Wild

Translated from German by Marinda Seisenberger

ISBN 978-3-86623-520-5

For more information please visit:

www.kreutzfeldt.de

Contents

Introduction: Coaching Impulses

SOFTCo – Solution Oriented Fast Tip Coaching in Practice

My Way to Coaching

How Does Coaching Actually Work?

The Inner Coach: Talk to Yourself and Make Progress

Think … and Take Action!

Change in Five Minutes?

Eight Principles of Coaching

Test: Are You a Good Coach?

Solutions With Methods

SOFTCo Strategy 1: Find Solutions – Your Own Solutions!

SOFTCo Strategy 2: Offer Orientation – Perspective Makes People Happy

SOFTCo Strategy 3: Keep It Short and Simple (KISS)

25 Coaching Impulses

1. The Alternative Wheel

2. The Camel Path Strategy

3. The Genie Generator

4. The Kitchen Table Overview

5. The Madonna Method

6. Anger Management

7. The Motivation Grid

8. The Yes-But-Technique

9. Shit Happens

10. Happy Hour

11. The 3-Million Dollar Game

12. The 7-A-Method

13. Who’s Leading Here?

14. Vivid Visions

15. Puzzle of Life

16. The Swarm Intelligence Kick

17. Strength Finder

18. The Wish List

19. Un-mess Your Mind

20. Someone Else’s Shoes

21. The Happiness Curve

22. The Triple Jump to Change

23. I’m Not a Fool

24. The Power of Acceptance

25. The Tiny Step Technique

Managers as Coaches: The Courage to be Human

From Critic to Coach

From “Push” to “Pull”

Would You Like to be a Coach?

Tips for Professional Coaches

Gratitude Makes People Happy

About the Author

References

Introduction: Coaching Impulses

Dear Reader,

COACHING MY WAY! This title obviously made you curious – and that was the whole idea!

This book offers you an all-embracing insight into my kind of coaching – into coaching MY WAY. I open the door to coaching sessions that is usually tightly shut, and invite you to take a look inside. Using my SOFTCo Method (Solution Oriented Fast Tip Coaching), I help my guests come up with good ideas within a few minutes.

“What therapy was for the 20th century, coaching will be for the 21st!” This statement by psychologist Siegfried Brockert reiterates the significance of coaching. It’s a modern approach that supports people in activating their own strengths in order to help themselves and come up with their very own solutions.

I take this one step further: this book will show you that coaching is not the privileged realm of a few experts, but that many people can be empowered to coach themselves and to help others on their way to finding solutions. Perhaps you’ve heard of the so-called “Guerrilla Gardeners”, who spruce up their environments through “wild, not always above-board gardening”: on green corridors, along garden pathways and even in front gardens. In similar fashion, I would like to support “Guerrilla Coaching”: help yourselves and others to solve problems and reach goals.

Not only do you get lots of information on coaching and ideas on how to improve your coaching abilities – I also introduce you to three strategies for speed coaching and give you 25 coaching impulses. Each of these is part of a jigsaw puzzle – on which I base COACHING MY WAY – that will support you to coach yourself and others. The many examples of speed coaching sessions, described in fine detail, contains helpful insights on living your life as you want to and achieving success in both your private and professional lives. Success, for me, means simply pursuing and reaching your own goals – in all walks of life. And this book leads the way:

In addition to the above, the coaching impulses described here enable you to do something for others:

▪  You can be more than a listener, comforter and strengthener: you can actively support others to find ideas and accompany them along the route to their goals.

▪  You can bring beneficial coaching impulses to your family, your circle of friends, to your workplace, your neighborhood and local community.

This book gives you all this – just one thing it cannot give you: merely reading it, will not make you a coach. What sets professional coaches apart from the rest, is their special knowledge, ability and experience. You may well want to become such a coach, and for this eventuality, there is a special chapter in this book.

If you already work as a coach, this book will offer new insights. You will often find self-affirmation and sometimes you will be surprised. Perhaps, as you grapple with my SOFTCo method, you become an even better coach.

This is not a reference book, so I have avoided jargon and explain all methods in the language of the ‘man on the street’.

SOFTCo – Solution Oriented Fast Tip Coaching in Practice

Coaching My Way:

Angela H. is a sales manager in a small northern German town. She leads a team of six sales reps. Frustrated with her current job, she wants to talk to me about alternatives in her coaching session. She often laments about the quality of her staff – four men and two women. One’s too lazy to think, the other uncooperatively ambitious and the third is complicated – all too often she has to come down on them to improve their performance. I notice her loud, degrading voice as she speaks about her staff – that troubles me more and more.

In the middle of all this she starts talking with great fervor about her dogs. One of them, a pedigree, regularly wins prizes at dog shows. The other one she rescued from an animal shelter some years ago – and he’s really sweet, she goes on. I capture this picture and ask her if she despises the second dog, because he simply isn’t a splendid specimen and she could never win prizes with him.

“Of course not,” she scoffs. He’s got other qualities, he’s trusting, playful, loves a good cuddle and is simply funny. She smiles dreamily. I point Angela to the different ways of looking at things, on the part of her dogs and her staff. For the one lot, she despises the difference, for the other, she treasures it. What does this tell you?

“That I like animals more than people?” she asks hesitantly.

“Is that true?” I ask.

“Yes, it could be. At least you can rely on animals!”

This statement could tempt me to probe further. “Why, did people disappoint you?” “Is that why you live alone?” That way we’d quickly find ourselves on the psycho couch. I don’t go this way, though, because a very clear definition of task has been set for this 4-hour coaching session, and that is: “Career satisfaction“. That’s the reason that I want to go somewhere else. I’m giving us half an hour to find something in her love for dogs and her skepticism of people, and turn that into something that can lead to greater job satisfaction.

“If you compared your staff to dogs, how would you describe each of them? And what would you like about each of these dogs?”

She laughs – yes, this exercise is fun!

“Okay … MIKE is a mongrel. Not particularly attractive, but street-wise. Even though he’s a bit old now, he can fight his way through most situations. He’s seen a lot – survived a few fights. Nowadays he sometimes just doesn’t have that aggressive bite of the past.”

There is both admiration and criticism in her description. I focus on the admiration and ask her: “What do you like most about him?”

“I can send MIKE to my most difficult customers. With his experience and his composure, he comes across as very trustworthy. He’s been on the team for over 20 years.” Her voice is much gentler than before: “The others can gain a lot from his experience.”

“Okay, who’s next?”

“BETTY is a highly talented, but very highly strung bitch. She has two little boys that she’s always fussing about. This often distracts her. Every now and then we have to consider this in our dealings with her, especially when it comes to the younger one, the puppy. That’s often irritating.”

“What do you like about her?”

“Mmm, she often has great ideas – for promotions, for instance. And she’s very creative, but as her boss, she drives me crazy. She’s constantly got private appointments ...”

“What do you find good about her?” I repeat.

“Well yes, her creativity. She really brings life into the team. She does things in new ways, leaves well-trodden paths and is fairly successful doing just that. If only she wouldn’t ...”

“Stop!” I write down the positive assessment of BETTY next to that of MIKE.

“And next ...”

“LARA is still a young dog. Often a bit too playful. She still has a lot to learn, but has a lot of fun doing so. If I had more time, I would train her more. A dog school would be really good for her. She’s good dog material ... upgradable!”

“A future prize specimen?”

Angela laughs: “Yes, I can really imagine that! If only I had more time for training. I’ve got to free some time somehow ...”

“So, who’s next?”

“BALLY is a rather aggressive dog – a bit like a spoilt boxer! He chases other dogs away – lets no one near him. It is only at a second glance that his charm becomes apparent. He doesn’t get on very well with the other dogs in the team. A typical loner!”

“What do you like about him?”

“Phew, he doesn’t easily give up – he’s got staying power! He hangs in there – especially with important clients. He’s not easy to get rid of. He goes the proverbial ‘extra mile’. And he’s highly competent. He closes the most deals. To be quite honest, it doesn’t matter if the others don’t like him – they should learn from him!”

We need about half an hour to go through each employee in this way. As we go along, Angela becomes more and more relaxed, happier and even enthusiastic. She smiles, amused at her own formulations and is actually glowing! Somehow, during this exercise, she was able to shift her focus from negative to positive.

I ask her: “So, what are we going to do with all these different descriptions?”

She hesitates. And then grins: “I really feel like sharing with all the team members what you have just written down.”

“And what do you wish to achieve by doing that?”

“I think I have never given any of them such an honest, but respectful opinion.”

“Do your staff know about your passion for dogs?”

“Yes, sure! I’ve got all my trophies and certificates in the office.”

“Really?”

“Yes, everybody knows I’m crazy about dogs!”

“Okay, so under which circumstances can you imagine sharing your opinions with the others?”

Angela thinks for a while. “In six weeks’ time we’ve got our annual department outing. It’s a ritual already. In that relaxed atmosphere, I could possibly … and I could take my dogs along ...” She smiles again, nodding! “Nice idea!”

We use the rest of the time to develop a few career alternatives for Angela. I notice though, that her thoughts are more with her team. She seems to have developed a new liking for her “pack of hounds”.

(The coaching impulse I used with Angela, “Someone Else’s Shoes”, is described in more detail here.)

My Way to Coaching

When we last met, Dr Petra Bock, a respected colleague from Berlin and herself founder and owner of one of the best coaching academies in Germany, gave me a lovely example to illustrate that coaching is not just about qualifications. She said: “Think about it – people started skiing long before skiing schools were established.” And that’s how it is: People were coaching long before there was even a word for it. Yes, some people can do that, without training and without formal qualifications – because they have a feeling for how they can best help others. And because they are able to hold back and have learned not to judge something the moment they hear it.

I too was coaching long before I even realized that there was an official job title for what I was doing: a Coach. At the beginning of the 90’s, while working as a journalist, I started writing books and holding seminars on the side. Sometimes I was asked by participants if I also did “one-on-one” sessions.

One-on-one sessions are what they were called before the era of coaching. And so I started offering one-on-one sessions. And in these sessions, I helped people find solutions. And they were very grateful for these. And they implemented them. Today, that’s called coaching. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of developing a coaching qualification at the time. Today you can register for a coaching course with my coaching academy and walk away with a qualification that enables and entitles you to earn your living as a practicing coach.

Since I didn’t know at the time that coaching was an actual profession, I developed my own methods for these one-on-one sessions. A short while later, when the first coaching books appeared on the market, it was with big eyes that I realized the methods described were the very methods that I was using already. What I playfully referred to as “The Madonna Method“, “The 3-Million Dollar Game” or the “Happiness Curve“, were suddenly being described in the most eloquent jargon. Communication rules were set up for what I (and perhaps you too) had simply seen as obvious until then. One should listen carefully? No kidding! A solid scientific angle was added to this lot by the use of terms like ‘intervention’, ‘resources’, ‘mirroring’ and ‘regress’.

At a psychologists’ congress I took part in as a journalist in Berlin about 20 years ago, I met my first ‘real-life’ coach. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the psychologist’s name, but I remember how fascinated I was in his workshop and thought to myself, “Yes! That’s similar to how I do things.” He worked with colourful, wooden figures, set out on a table, so that he could get an overall view, from a distance, of a particular situation (he wasn’t depicting a family constellation – this was a totally different approach). I was already doing something similar with my children’s PLAYMOBIL figures. (Straight after that, I had some beautiful wooden figures made by people in a sheltered workshop and still proudly use these today! Thank you for the inspiration Dear Colleague.)

From this time on, what I had called “one-on-one sessions“, I now called “one-on-one coaching“. I think I was one of the first and one of very few coaches in Germany that didn’t come from the realm of psychologists and therapists. And in 1993, I wrote a book about some coaching that I had done. (Back then, many of the colleagues who would like to see coaches without official qualifications banned from the profession, were still on the school benches).

In the mid-90s, I was once asked by a journalist in an interview: “Ms Asgodom, what are you going to do when the coaching boom is over?” I answered: “Then I’ll do something else. Although I can hardly imagine the demand dying out that quickly.” Coaching isn’t a fashion trend. What it is, is a possibility to find clarity and reach decisions, by talking.

Today there are an estimated 10 000 to 30 000 professional coaches that offer their services in Germany. Coaching qualification courses are also available en masse – both of good and poor quality. A dime a dozen. These range from one-year intensive courses to courses completely in writing, where you receive a little bundle of photocopied documents and have to send in assignments in return. Without a single minute of face-to-face coaching, after a written test, participants are then given a license to coach. So, the course itself is not sufficient – one may have knowledge, but not necessarily KNOW-HOW.

And then there are various coaching organizations, or coaching schools if you like, that define coaching as they see it. They speak of a kind of “doctrine” where the coachee (the person BEING coached) has to find his “own way out”, no matter how long that takes. Advice of any kind is explicitly forbidden. Another school of thought suggests that coaching can ONLY refer to “accompaniment of managers”. It is quite apparent that coaching is a fairly new discipline that still needs to find its appropriate profile.

I have coached almost ‘everything’ to date: chairmen, politicians, secretaries, managers, artists, free-lancers and job-seekers. It is encouraging to see how people, with devotion, appreciation and on-going mindfulness can be guided to finding good solutions. I see my coaching approach in a similar way to one of the great coach trainers, Dr Björn Migge, who positions coaching as non-therapeutic consulting. He writes: “It is explicitly allowed to inform, to clarify, to practise and to determine skills.”*

Why do I like the sound of that? Because I take on coaching with all my experience, my knowledge and all my intuition. And because I neither withhold my experience and expertise from my coaching clients nor do I lead them to believe that I know everything.

I am naturally a quick thinker and as a journalist I learned to ask questions and bring things to the point. I have been using this talent on the stage for years, where I also sometimes offer “high-speed coaching sessions”. Shortly before the start of these sessions, the participants can hand me a little note on which they’ve written their wished-for solution. I then coach them very quickly on how to implement this solution. To date, most people have left the stage with a useful impulse.

How Does Coaching Actually Work?

There are varied opinions on this – or rather, let’s called them ‘schools of thought’. I would like, therefore, to talk in particular about my way of coaching, my SOFTCo method, Solution Oriented Fast Tip Coaching. Before I start, let me tell you a little story:

Your neighbour is not happy. She complains to you about her husband, who does nothing at home: “He stands in front of the open fridge door and can’t find the butter.” And about their two sons who keenly mimic their father: “Mom, where are my football boots?” She complains that her half-day job in a small company “is nothing sensible at all.” She complains about a colleague that’s bullying her, and on and on she goes ...

How often and for how long can you listen to that? Perhaps your range of tolerance lies between “oh, just get lost ...” to “shame, she’s got nobody else, the poor woman.” If you’re a nice person, you listen patiently each time, nod agreeably, make simple utterances like “mmm”, “aha” and “oh”, and hope that you’ll also get a word in some time. If you’re not such a nice person, you try and avoid the whining neighbour at all costs, because she just complains and nothing ever changes.

People need other people as understanding listeners. Sometimes they need other people to console them, sometimes as a lightning conductor, sometimes to play the “wailing wall”, sometimes they need someone to spur them on and sometimes they need advisors.

And then there are situations where they need someone to help them get out of a rut they find themselves in. Or perhaps to turn general desires into concrete targets. They need someone to get them over their helplessness, rage or powerlessness. A person to take their suffering, anger, helplessness and lack of orientation, their desires and wishes seriously, and to help them find solutions and a way of getting from “misery to magic”, in a face-to-face discussion. “Dear Friend, I suggest that we meet up one evening and I’ll help you think about how you can improve your situation so that you feel good again.”

That’s called COACHING!

I know that many coach colleagues will vehemently denounce what I’m saying: “Now now, Ms Asgodom, that is extremely simplistic.”

Yes, it is! Because I have not written this book for psychologists, therapists and professional coaches; I’ve written it for every man and woman out there.

And I can already hear some stern colleagues saying: “Coaching requires an in-depth qualification with a founded psychological, therapeutic, systemic or neuro-linguistic-programming background. Surely not every Tom, Dick and Sally can call themselves coaches.

Indeed they can!

Mr Tom and Mrs Sally are more than capable of helping other people to find solutions. Coaching is not a secret code that one has to be let in on. Coaching is not a science that one has to study for years. Coaching is an art, that in particular has to do with attentiveness, mindfulness and humanity.

Of course, in addition to this, one requires other special abilities:

▪  Sensing what it’s really about

▪  Reflecting what’s up

▪  Being aware of what cajoles and/or hinders me (or someone else)

▪  Recognising the games behind the stories (why does someone get so worked up about someone/something?)

▪  Creating alternatives for future-oriented action

▪  Developing perspectives

▪  Developing enthusiasm for people’s own solutions

▪  Recognising links between thoughts

▪  Unravelling “yes-but chains” (“Yes, you know what’s right, but you don’t do it.”)

In this book, I tell you in more detail how each of these things work. And once again: What I say here about coaching is not gospel. Instead I describe my experiences, especially those from short coaching sessions. These offer the chance to find solutions really quickly and to implement them relatively quickly too. And I want to encourage, in fact to empower people who have a coaching talent – yes, they do exist – to make something of it.

My SOFTCo method, which I also call “High-speed Coaching”, is particularly suited to finding crystal clear solutions in record time. That suits my work very well, because many of my clients are very committed to their jobs, don’t have unlimited time and belong rather to the impatient and deed-orientated group of people. To date, with this method, I have helped over 700 coaching clients (mostly in two or four hour sessions – seldom in eight hours) find solutions that are right for them, for amongst other issues:

▪  finding their dream job

▪  becoming a member of the government

▪  saving their marriage

▪  becoming a best-selling author

▪  mastering crises at work

▪  finding new career orientation

▪  doubling their income (and even tripling it)

▪  leaving unhappy situations where there is no prospect of improvement

▪  setting up a company

▪  agreeing to arbitration in conflicts with their parents

▪  taking a sabbatical and developing themselves

▪  improving their relationships with colleagues

▪  recognising their own life’s wishes

▪  gaining clarity for important decisions

▪  being promoted

▪  raising their incomes radically in self-employment

Coaching deals with real life issues, not trivialities, which, despite the short time, can be clearly discussed and for which solutions can be found. The most important ingredients for this are: a perspective, a plan and positive action – so that the person can start acting.

This ultra-fast coaching method is clearly not suited for all-encompassing wishes like, “My whole life has to change!” Therefore, a part of my art is working on formulating a concrete desire for change. After an initial discussion, my clients get a questionnaire, in which, among other things, they describe their situation, reflect on their abilities and wishes, and very importantly, in which they give me a very clear coaching order. Very often they tell me in the actual session that simply filling out the form was already a step in the right direction.

I also ask the guests on my TV show in Germany, “What exactly do you need a solution for?” It is clear that within five to eight minutes, one can only give the first impulse for change. It is possible, however, to find that one deciding impulse that really helps the guest on his/her way.

My focus is on generating practical ideas for implementation. What helps me here is that I am not just a coach – also a trainer. Over the past 20 years, I have trained thousands of people in various seminars.* Naturally, some training elements creep into my coaching sessions (in the same way that more and more coaching elements are entering the realm of training.) I find that they enrich coaching sessions in that they talk to the fantasy side of people, allow pictures to develop in one’s head and open new perspectives. By the way: my journalism studies have been very helpful too. I learned to get to the point on things really quickly!

And that is what differentiates coaching from much psychotherapy. You know already: coaching is not therapy! It’s not about dealing with or healing mental illness. To do that, many therapists go way back into the childhoods of their clients. In such an approach, there is time and space to tell much from the past. And time to think of old grievances and key moments that determined the rest of their lives.

My coaching involves a view of the future. Or as the father of Positive Psychology, American Professor, Martin E. Seligman says: “We are not driven by the past, but drawn by the future.” Coaching therefore, concerns looking at the future.

Here’s an example from my TV coaching series:

A very pleasant man is a guest in the studio. He wants to be coached, because his flat is full of things and he cannot bring himself to throw anything away. He’s brought a photo along on which you can see that in the otherwise well-kept flat, there are things all over the place, except on the bed. He collects books and things from the flea market ranging from teddy bears to typewriters. How exactly does he think I can help him?

“I’d really like to invite someone around again. What can I do?”

I let him draw his apartment on a board … table, cupboard, shelves, another table, bed, kitchen units … he says he’s got hundreds of books, also in the basement. I tell him that I understand him well – I also had hundreds of books in boxes. Then I ask the members of the audience who of them also needs to tidy up a flat, a garage or the basement: more than half of them raise their hands.

You can imagine that wise words like, “Come on now, take your heart in your hands and really throw things out” would be worth nothing. If he could do that, he would have done it long ago. So I decide to try and bring him onto another idea. I ask him if he can imagine clearing up just two square metres of his apartment. I explain that it doesn’t matter what he does with the things lying there – he can even lie them on top of other things elsewhere.

At the end, my guest promises to send me a photo of the sorted square meters. Just a week after the show, the organisers of Sabine Asgodom – that’s the name of my show – got a letter and a picture from him: a squeaky clean, totally empty two square metre table – my guest is clearly proud of it. And I am too!

That’s why a strength of coaching is dialogue – being able to express things. And clever questions. Perhaps you too have already experienced how just speaking about something that moves us, jolts the brain into action. Like when we ask a colleague: “Hey, what’s the name of the switch on this machine for … never mind, got it ...”

Concerning the Gradual Formulation of Thoughts while Speaking

others.yourself!