Coaching Assignment CASE STUDY PROJECT. for. Certified Professional Coach Program, Corporate Coach Academy. Prepared by, Simon Yap Wing Kwee

Transcription

1 Coaching Assignment CASE STUDY PROJECT for Certified Professional Coach Program, Corporate Coach Academy Prepared by, Simon Yap Wing Kwee 8 August 2011

2 PREAMBLE The objective of this paper is to describe and explain a coaching journey experienced by the author in his personal and professional lives. The paper consists of five sections; namely Preamble, The Past, The Present, The Future and Conclusion. In the next section The Past, the author would describe about the background of his personal and professional lives; the journey of getting involved with coaching works, the coaching experience and challenges faced prior to attending a formal coach-learning training programme. Then, in the subsequent section The Present, the author would examine and explain about his experience of applying the coaching principles and theories into his current work. The impact of using powerful questions and managing accountability would be discussed. Next, in The Future section, the author would describe about his experience of applying the coaching principles and theories into his personal and future professional lives. Aiming to start a new business soon, the author would explain the self-coaching experience of asking powerful questions to reframe self to empowered mental frames; subsequently applying several critical coaching protocols and resources that helped him gained insights, key deliverables for generating a Business Master Plan for his new business. Finally, The Conclusion would summarise the coaching insights gained by the author throughout the coach-learning training program; for both personal and professional lives. 1

3 THE PAST: Before Coach-Learning Programme The author is an Industrial Chemist by profession. For the past eighteen years, he was working as a chemical sales professional, Training Consultant, Business Development Assistant Manager and Human Resources Manager. He has wide industry knowledge where he has worked in chemical trading, training consultancy, and direct selling. Currently, he is a Sales Training Manager for South East Asia (SEA) attached to a global food service organisation. His job encompasses sales capability development for sales leaders and sales force for six countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam). Specifically, he coaches and mentors six in-country Sales Training Managers and Sales Trainers on their sales training management and field sales coaching skills. The author was first learned about coaching skills six years ago when he attended a 2-day coaching skills workshop facilitated by Coaching & Training Asia Sdn Bhd, a coaching training provider in Malaysia. Later, he learned more about competency-based, behavioural coaching skills, field sales coaching skills; in which the coaching principles and theories are rooted from Hay s Group consultancy and Development Dimensions International (DDI). On top of that, he is a certified facilitator for Hay s Leadership Styles & Organisational Climate; and certified facilitator for DuPont s Supervisor Safety Behavioural Audit Workshop; which both certification program enhanced his coaching capability to unleash people potential. As a result of these training exposures, the author demonstrates high facilitation and coaching skills in all his classroom-style sales trainings. Meanwhile in the field sales, the author applies more Asking-style instead of Telling-style in the post-call debriefing and coaching conversation with the sales people and sales leaders. As a coach practitioner, the author realises that such empowering coaching style strengthens the sales force capabilities. Indeed, the author advocates that the sales coaching which aligned to business goal would bring high value to business return-on-investment (ROI). Nonetheless, in reality, most sales people still unable to show sufficient deep commitment and go-getter sales behaviour to yield impactful sales performance. In the author s current organisation, this phenomenon is evident despite of following a structured coaching system. It triggered the author to realise a need of deep learning a suite of powerful coaching skills. It is a high time helping the sales people (coachees) 2

4 become more self-motivated and willing to make positive changes through effective coaching techniques. As a result, the author signed-up a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) coach-learning training program organised by Corporate Coach Academy (CCA); and facilitated by Dr. Michael Heah, the founder of ICF-accredited coach-learning training institution. THE PRESENT: During Coach-Learning Training As a coaching practitioner, it was the first time that the author learned about the eleven coaching competencies advocated by International Coach Federation (ICF), a non-profit global organisation governing high professional coaching standards in coaching community. The author assimilates these core competencies seriously as they are very essential professional coaching guideline. Practising the core competencies would help to raise the coachees low self-awareness, make self-discovery and be empowered to take action for positive changes in their personal and professional lives. As these ICF core competencies bring great value into coaching experience, the author introduced these ICF coaching competencies to all his incountry Sales Trainers recently. He uses these core competencies in his coaching conversations with the Sales Trainers and mentor coach them on the principles of these core competencies. Besides that, the author also discovered that the ten milestones in the Three Stages of Coaching Model are very useful. Compare to the coaching system available in the author s organisation, these ten coaching milestones assert the essence of reframing a coachee from disempowered mental frames to more empower ones; whilst using the Buckets & Balloons Identifying technique to manage the coachee old habits disposal and new behaviours adoption. These are two important milestones which are not explicit in the author s current sales coaching system. As a result, the author has been making changes to embraces these two essences in the sales coaching system. In order to do this well, the author learned that it is equally imperative listen with empathy and ask insightful questions to move the coachee forward. 3

5 In the See tools, the listening, questioning and self-awareness tools are very powerful resources. After experienced several mock and supervised coaching sessions, the author developed a higher empathetic listening skill. He discovered the strength of listen to the coachee intuitively. Now, he is calmer, more confident and listens curiously without judgement during coaching conversations. Before learning the powerful questioning techniques, the author always probe about the past of a coachee that often resulting data collection conversation. The conversation inclines to monotonous and usually does not raise the coachee s self-awareness and move him forward. Now, the author now learned to ask more present and future questions in coaching. Furthermore in work, he listens to the coachee s world meaning, inferred meaning, unspoken words and disempowered mental frames. He asks challenging questions to widen the coachee s perspectives, make him to think creatively overcoming sales objections and close sales. In field work, the author follows the sales people to sales calls and coaches them in the field sales. Building rapport with sales people throughout the field coaching day is very important. Henceforth, the author makes conscious effort demonstrating ethical conduct & professional standards, establishing trust & intimacy with the client and establishing coaching agreement coaching competencies. These competencies help to break the ice, gain mutual trust and enrich the entire coaching relationships. During the sales calls, the author uses Observation Inquiry (OI) watches the sales person carefully on the kind of sales competencies, sales behaviours and sales actions displayed by him when dealing with the prospects and customers. After the sales calls, the author debriefs with the sales person in the car before the next sales call. He reflects on feedback with the sales person for what has happened in the sales call. He uses Appreciative Inquiry (AI) help the sales person identify his areas of strengths demonstrated in the sales call; whilst probes to challenge him to find a better or effective way in doing the selling next sales call. In many reflect on feedback coaching debriefing, sales people tend to generalise and make assumptions about their customers needs. They usually present solution that customers do not want and thus face sales objections. Obviously, they tend to show invalidation and reacting mental frames justifying their actions for not able to close sales. Often, the author use Observation Inquiry (OI) observes the sales person s body language, tone, choice of 4

6 words, sales behaviour and sales tools used while dealing with the prospects and customers. When the sales person probed and justified that it was tough to close sales just now, the author asked challenging questions such as How can you still make the chef listen to you? ; What can you do to get access to his kitchen?. These kinds of questions reframe the sales person to respect and responding mental frames. On the other hand, some new sales people are too significant about their incapable to overcome sales objections. They are usually de-motivated and show low self-esteem after failure in the sales calls. Asking them questions like What was the worst thing has happened to you? ; What has the chef lost for not making the order just now? ; What other chefs say about this egoistic chef? that reframe the sales person to game mental frame lighten the impact and objectively recall the event. Also, there are some sales people demonstrate blame mental frame pointing fingers to poor customer service, insufficient stock supply or plentiful of paper work. In coaching conversation, the author asks questions like What have you done to overcome the issues? ; What can you still do to make paper work not an issue? that reframe the sales person to responsibility mental frame. Another common weakness show by the sales people is lack of assertiveness to ask for order at the end of the sales calls. In coaching, the author usually applies Assertive Building method helping the sales people be more assertive, specific and result-oriented in their sales calls objectives. He role-plays with them to check on the quality delivery and assertiveness to close the sales. As a result, the sales people display higher self-confidence and assertiveness in closing sales. Before the entire field coaching day concludes, the author and sales person sits down together and make a summary of the day and write down moving forward action plans in Field Coaching Development Form. In the action plan, the sales person usually writes down what he could do differently to improve his sales results today. However, the action plans are mechanistic and does not address the intrinsic aspect of the sales person. After attending the High Performance Coaching module, the author changes his coaching approach. He uses divergent and convergent brainstorming co-creates with the sales person on possible options before select the most appropriate action plan. In addition, he uses Buckets & Balloons Identifying method managing sales person new behaviours adoption and old behaviours disposal. Questions such as What is one new habit you would adopt in order to make a sharp 5

7 and clear sales call objective? ; What would trigger you go back to this old habit? ; What could you do to improve how you feel? are a few common powerful questions asked to the sales person in Action Plan section. Later, a copy of the form is given to the sales person for reference and the original copy used by the Sales Trainer or immediate sales superior in the subsequent field coaching follow-ups. The author is grateful that these coaching protocols and resources are powerful and improve the organisation s existing sales coaching systems. Equally, the coach-learning modules have helped the author gained insights and deep learned about his own life success and career planning. THE FUTURE: After Coach-Learning Training Self-coaching is one of the greatest benefits in coach-learning training. Through Life & Executive Coaching and Business & Organisational Coaching modules, the author discovered compelling life and professional purposes. Firstly, while examining the Wheel of Life, the author raised a higher awareness of several aspects of his life that mostly neglected. The exercise has widened his life perspectives. Thus, he set Spiritual and Social as sub-goals in the Personal Master Plan to achieve a more balanced life chart. Next, the Source Document is a very useful Action Confirmation coaching resource. Combining both personal and professional goals, the author assimilated these two personal life sub-goals into Source Document. Indirectly, these goals are aligned to professional life goal setting. This is a very important step because the author s professional goal is to start his own coaching and training business by early So, aligning this business goal to personal goals would accelerate his personal effectiveness, peak performance and new business sustainability. 6

8 Throughout the coach-learning training, the author realised that he tends to show significant, doubt and reacting mental frames in relation to his new business preparation. Through supervised coaching sessions, he learned and performed self-coaching by asking himself questions like What is the worst thing would happen to me if I fail in my business? ; What are my positive experience relating to my coaching and training deliveries? ; What must I do to make it happens? and other powerful questions reframing myself to game, trust and responding mental frames. Addressing these intrinsic roadblocks is very critical so that the author is ready emotionally. Meanwhile for the extrinsic roadblocks, the author found that the entire business coaching protocols and resources are very useful. During the Discovery stage, the author uses Strategic Business Profiling write down the business background and settings explicitly. Next, in the Deep Learning stage, he deploys SWOT analysis and Competitor analysis to identify his areas of competitive advantages and possible business feasibility. Then, all these insights and key deliverables are assimilated into Business Plan and Marketing-mix Plan. Thereafter, these master plans are placed side-byside with Personal Master Plan and Source Document. The purpose is to check and ensure congruity between these goals set in the personal and professional master plans. Simultaneously, the author also ensures intrinsic roadblocks are identified and addressed them clearly in the master plans. In the Business Master Plan, he ask to himself the questions like What is the reason starting a coaching and training business is so important to me? ; What have I done so far to achieve the business goal? ; What is stopping me from achieving the goal? ; What must happen to achieve my business goal? ; What could fail (derail) me from reaching my goal? ; What support do I need to get rid of my negative behaviour? ; and other insightful questions. Having done so, the author has deep learned and sealed his commitment toward embarking the new career journey. 7

9 CONCLUSION It is apparent that the author institutionalises the ICF Coaching Competencies, ten coaching milestones and coaching protocols and coaching resources in his coaching journey. The combination of coach-learning modules, supervised coaching, mentor-coaching, and pro-bono coaching are very powerful, practical and useful experiential-learning methodologies. At the end of the coach-learning training, the author is grateful that he has improved his empathetic listening skills, asking powerful questions, aligned personal goals to professional goals in Source Document; and generate an explicit Personal and Business Master Plans. Now, he is more ready intrinsically and extrinsically towards mastering his personal and professional lives. 8