Peer coaching micro-learning 3

There are three components to this Let's get real learning experience:

• Reinforcing the coaching model
• Reflection
• Informed practice

This learning is a reflection on your coaching experience – either as coach or coachee – and the presence of listening, curiosity and compassion. Additionally it requires a reflection on your energy in your recent coaching conversations, considering your energy and your focus and what that brought to those conversations.

There are three coaching superpowers that you are developing (and these have positive applications well beyond the coaching relationship!). Those superpowers are:

Listening with fascination

Be present and listen intently for all that is being said AND not being said. Demonstrate active listening techniques to show that you are listening and ask clarifying questions of anything that you are not sure of or could be ambiguous.

Being curious with your questions

Ask open questions that expand possibilities rather than directing the coachee to a conclusion or solution. Maintain a curious mindset where you seek to be open to possibilities and you share that openness with your coachee.

Showing compassion

Compassion requires a calm, mindful state that recognises the coachee’s negative or positive emotion but where you do not lose your own self-awareness. Compassion requires action, for the coach this means noticing and commenting on the coachee’s emotional response and asking questions which enables the coachee to also notice their emotional state and the impact that has on their responses.

Reflection 1

Reflect on recent specific coaching conversations you have had – either as coach or coachee – and consider what part listening, curiosity and compassion played in those conversations. Ask yourself how those conversations might have played out had listening, curiosity and compassion been applied differently. Make a note to yourself on what you want to be mindful of regarding these three in your next coaching conversation.

Reflection 2

Your second self-reflective question is: what was your energy state and focus during your recent coaching conversations? If you think back to our first learning exercise with peer coaching it included a self-reflective check-in on your energy state. You were asked to consider what you were bringing into the conversation that was a carry over from your work environment. Has it been a useful or positive energy? Has it impacted on your focus? Has it affected your ability to be present during the coaching conversation? What would you choose to do differently?

Make a note to yourself of your intention around your energy and focus for your next coaching conversation.