Meeting One
The coach
Elaine Robinson, senior lecturer, HRM, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University
I met Rebecca for our first coaching session with a sense of excitement coupled with a little trepidation. We started out by building rapport with some convivial conversation: a little bit of small talk, a little bit of gossip and a good belly laugh about something that had amused us both.
We began the session by discussing our “coaching contract”. Foremost, this meant creating a confidential, open, honest and trusting environment. Other rules we set ourselves included maintaining high standards of professional conduct in terms of ethics, confidentiality of the process, keeping any notes locked away and attention to our practical arrangements in terms of venue, duration (four to six sessions of 1-1.5 hours) and our desire to be punctual.
We shared our hopes and fears of what coaching might look and be like for us and Rebecca made a commitment both to change and to take action as necessary. I made a commitment to support Rebecca as her coach and to be supervised myself by a coaching supervisor.
We both made a commitment to be willing to accept constructive feedback and challenge. We then each signed a prepared coaching contract as a statement of our intent and commitment. I asked Rebecca to outline her current experience and expectations of coaching.
Rebecca is bright, with an outgoing and cheerful disposition. She is also enthusiastic about her work. I was therefore not surprised when, on asking her to provide details of a theme or challenge that she wanted coaching to assist her with, she responded: “I want to look at options for career development. I’m happy where I am but want to focus on the future and set some specific goals for myself.”
So began our journey of exploring Rebecca’s hopes and desires for the future.
Learning/key points
- Build rapport
- Contract: begin with the end in mind (Covey, 1990)
- The coach’s job is to encourage reflection by the client (Erik de Haan, 2008)
- Establish and sign up to commitment
- Deal with the practical arrangements
- Set the coaching scene by communicating and offering coaching to other staff
Key coaching question
What is the main theme on which you would like to work?
Reflections
I am an experienced coach and had carried out some of my coaching practice on colleagues in the past, but this was my first time coaching a member of staff that I actually line-managed. My first concern was to ensure that other staff members were happy with the fact that Rebecca and I would be meeting regularly, over and above normal meetings.
The last thing I wanted was for any other employee to think that Rebecca was getting special attention (of course, that could be seen both positively and negatively). Neither did we want our coaching relationship to be secretive; in any case it is in both our natures to be open.
Our team comprised of HR development personnel so a development culture was the norm and coaching was just one example of another activity that “we do around here”. I did intend to raise the matter at our regular “keep in touch” meeting but that was not possible as the office was being moved at the time.
This was unfortunate as such communications are so important in building trust. In any case the coaching was somewhat experimental and we did informally discuss it openly in the office. In addition I wanted to “keep it real” for both of us. Lee (2003) has said that to be effective, leaders and managers must be authentic, and I aspired to this challenge.
The client
Rebecca Peat, staff development trainer, Centre for Professional Learning and Development, Nottingham Trent University
Having heard the word “coaching” more and more, I was intrigued to know what it actually entailed; how it could help me with my career and how I could help others to determine what they wanted and how to achieve it. So, I entered the first coaching session with anticipation and enthusiasm. Finally, this mystery would be solved!
Elaine started the session by contracting on ground rules. We agreed on the number and length of the sessions, our commitment to this and confidentiality. This was vital, not only to encourage trust and openness between us but also to ensure that we could stop at any time, should we feel that our regular manager-colleague relationship may have an impact on the coaching relationship or vice versa.
It was important for me that this was discussed right at the start, as we both knew this was a non-typical coaching session, with my line manager coaching me on my career aspirations while I was learning coaching techniques from her.
The session was an exploration of where I currently was in my career, where I wanted to be and what hurdles I anticipated in getting there. Elaine challenged me on assumptions I was making and I was encouraged to think of ways to overcome hurdles.
We then agreed on some actions for our next session: to SMARTen up my objectives and do some research on the qualities of an effective coach. I was also asked to complete two questionnaires: one to reflect on influences, themes and values in my life, the other to establish what I hoped to gained from coaching.
I left the session feeling enthusiastic, eager to complete my actions and already with more of a sense of what I could achieve.
Learning/key points
- Establish ground rules
- Clarify the coaching process
- Build trust and rapport, even if coach and client already have a good working relationship
- Include an opt-out clause in the ground rules should either party feel uncomfortable or have concerns about the manager-employee relationship
- Clarifying goals may take more than one session
Reflections
The set up was interesting as the aims of the session were twofold: for me to establish career goals with the means of achieving them and to learn about the techniques of coaching so I could coach others in the future.
It felt different from a regular goal setting/performance development review meeting as it was defining my long-term goals. Although very contented with my work and home life, I wanted something specific to work towards. I was also aware that once the session was over, we would both go back to the office and continue as line manager and employee. I felt this was a mini-hurdle to overcome.
Finally, I did not want the rest of team to see this as any kind of favouritism; being open about and discussing this in the session helped to address it. The ground rule we set was to stop the session if either one of us was uncomfortable, and Elaine informing the team.
References
- SR Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Free Press, New Jersey, 1990.
- E de Haan, Relational Coaching: Journeys Towards Mastering
- One-to-One Learning, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2008.
- G Lee, Leadership Coaching: From Personal Insight to Organisational Performance, CIPD, London, 2003.
Volume 3, Issue 6