From Coach to Awakener
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Coaching is the process of helping people and teams to perform at the peak of their abilities. It involves drawing out people’s strengths, helping them to bypass personal barriers and limits in order to achieve their personal bests, and facilitating them to function more effectively as members of a team.
Historically, coachi
Robert Brian Dilts
Robert B. Dilts has been a developer, author, trainer and consultant in the field of Neuro- Linguistic Programming (NLP)-a model of human behavior, learning and communication- since its creation in 1975. Robert is also co- developer (with his brother John Dilts) of Success Factor Modeling and (with Stephen Gilligan) of the process of Generative Change. A long time student and colleague of both Grinder and Bandler, Mr. Dilts also studied personally with Milton H. Erickson, M.D. and Gregory Bateson.In addition to spearheading the applications of NLP to education, creativity, health, and leadership, his personal contributions to the field of NLP include much of the seminal work on the NLP techniques of Strategies and Belief Sys- tems, and the development of what has become known as Systemic NLP. Some of his techniques and models include: Reimprinting, the Disney Imagineering Strategy, Integration of Conflicting Beliefs, Sleight of Mouth Patterns, The Spell- ing Strategy, The Allergy Technique, Neuro-Logical Levels, The Belief Change Cycle, The SFM Circle of Success and the Six Steps of Generative Coaching (with Stephen Gilligan).Robert has authored or co-authored more than thirty books and fifty articles on a variety of topics relating to personal and professional development includ- ing From Coach to Awakener, NLP II: The Next Generation, Sleight of Mouth and, Generative Coaching and The Hero's Journey: A Voyage of Self Discovery (with Dr. Stephen Gilligan). Robert's recent book series on Success Factor Modeling iden- tifies key characteristics and capabilities shared by successful entrepreneurs, teams and ventures. His recent book The Power of Mindset Change (with Mickey Feher) presents a powerful methodology for assessing and shaping key aspects of mindset to achieve greater performance and satisfaction.For the past forty-five years, Robert has conducted trainings and workshops around the world for a range of organizations, institutes and government bod- ies. Past clients and sponsors include Apple Inc., Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Société Générale, The World Bank, Fiat, Alitalia, Telecom Italia, Lucasfilms Ltd., Ernst & Young, AT Kearney, EDHEC Business School and the State Railway of Italy.A co-founder of Dilts Strategy Group, Robert is also co-founder of NLP Uni- versity International, the Institute for Advanced Studies of Health (IASH) and the International Association for Generative Change (IAGC). Robert was also found- er and CEO of Behavioral Engineering, a company that developed computer software and hardware applications emphasizing behavioral change. Robert has a degree in Behavioral Technology from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
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Book preview
From Coach to Awakener - Robert Brian Dilts
From
Coach
to
Awakener
by
Robert Dilts
Dilts Strategy Group
P.O. Box 67448
Scotts Valley, California 95067
Phone: +1 (831) 438-8314
E-Mail: [email protected]
Homepage: http://www.diltsstrategygroup.com
© Copyright 2003 by Robert Dilts and Dilts Strategy Group. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the Publisher.
Library of Congress Card Number 2003104426
I.S.B.N. 978-1-947629-01-1
I.S.B.N. 978-1-947629-05-9 (e-book)
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
Origins of Coaching
The Coaching Revolution
Large C
and Small c
Coaching
NLP and Coaching
The Coaching-Modeling Loop
Levels of Learning and Change in Individuals and Organizations
Levels of Support for Learning and Change
—A Road Map for Large C
Coaching
CHAPTER 1 CARETAKING AND GUIDING
Caretaking and Guiding
Environmental Factors
Caretaking
Guiding
Assumptions and Style of the Caretaker or Guide
Caretaker Toolbox: Psychogeography
Using Psychogeography in Groups and Teams
Using Psychogeography to Facilitate Different Types of Group Processes
Psychogeography as a Key Aspect of Coaching and Caretaking
Caretaker Toolbox: Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel Checklist
Guide Toolbox: Mapping, Metaphor and Intervision
Mapping
Metaphor and Analogy
Intervision
Intervision Mapping Process
Guide Toolbox: Self-Mapping and Causal Loops
Causal Loops
Making a Causal Loop Map
Summary
CHAPTER 2 COACHING
Coaching
Behaviors
Behavioral Coaching
Coaching Toolbox: Establishing Goals
Defining Goals
Goal Setting Questions
Coaching Toolbox: Well-Formed Outcomes
Well-Formed Outcome Worksheet
Parable of the Porpoise
Coaching Principles Illustrated by the Parable of the Porpoise
Relevance of the Parable of the Porpoise to Coaching
Applying the Parable of the Porpoise
Coaching Toolbox: Feedback and Stretching
Coaching Toolbox: Contrastive Analysis and
Mapping Across
Contrastive Analysis Format
Body Posture and Performance
Gestures and Performance
Coaching Toolbox: Anchoring
Anchoring Your Inner Resources
Summary
CHAPTER 3 TEACHING
Teaching
Developing Capabilities
Teaching and the Inner Game
of Performance
Representational Channels
Representational Channels and Learning Styles
Teaching Toolbox: Learning Style
Assessment Questions
Applying the Results of the Learning Style
Assessment Questions
Teaching Toolbox: Visualizing Success and
Mental Rehearsal
Teaching Toolbox: State Management
The Circle of Excellence
Modeling Capabilities
The T.O.T.E.: Minimum Requirements for Modeling Effective Skills and Behaviors
Teaching Toolbox: T.O.T.E. Modeling Questions
Teaching Toolbox: Mapping Across
Effective T.O.T.E.s
Teaching Toolbox: Cooperative Learning
Cooperative Learning Process
Teaching Toolbox: Focusing on Feedback
Instead of Failure
Basic Perceptual Positions in Communication and Relationships
Second Position
Teaching Toolbox: Building a Second Position
Perspective
Teaching Toolbox: Meta Mapping
Basic Meta Map Format
Teaching Toolbox: Imagineering
Imagineering Coaching Format
Summary
CHAPTER 4 MENTORING
Mentoring
Values
Values and Beliefs
The Power of Beliefs
Mentoring Values and Beliefs
Role Modeling
Mentoring Toolbox: Establishing Inner Mentors
Mentoring Toolbox: Values Audit
Values Audit Worksheet
Aligning Values with Vision and Actions
Mentoring Toolbox: Creating Alignment for Change
Mentoring Toolbox: Putting Values Into Action
Mentoring Toolbox: Values Planning
Mentoring Toolbox: Establishing Practices
Belief Systems and Change
Mentoring Toolbox: Belief Assessment
Belief Assessment Worksheet
Mentoring Toolbox: Using Inner Mentors to Build Confidence and Strengthen Belief
Mentoring Toolbox: The As If
Frame
Reframing
One-Word Reframing
Mentoring Toolbox: Applying One-Word Reframes
Mentoring Toolbox: Values Bridging
Reframing Critics and Criticism
Getting Positive Statements of Positive Intentions
Turning Criticisms Into Questions
Mentoring Toolbox: Helping Critics to Be Advisors
Summary
CHAPTER 5 SPONSORSHIP
Sponsorship
Identity
The Style and Beliefs of a Sponsor
Sponsorship Messages
Non-Sponsorship and Negative Sponsorship
An Example of Sponsorship
Skills of Sponsorship
Sponsorship Toolbox: Finding the Source of Your Resources
Sponsorship Toolbox: Active Centering
Sponsorship Toolbox: Listening Partnerships
Sponsorship Toolbox: I See
and I Sense
Exercise
The Hero’s Journey
Sponsorship Toolbox: Mapping the Hero’s Journey
Sponsorship Toolbox: Beginning the Hero’s Journey
Archetypic Energies
Sponsorship Toolbox: Co-Sponsoring Archetypic Energies
Sponsorship Toolbox: Proper Naming
Sponsorship Toolbox: Sponsoring a Potential
Sponsorship Toolbox: Group Sponsorship Format
Sponsorship Toolbox: Recovering Lost Sponsors
Summary
CHAPTER 6 AWAKENING
Awakening
Spirit
and Field
Coach as an Awakener
Not Knowing
Nerk-Nerk
Uptime
Awakener’s Toolbox: Creating an Uptime
Anchor
Getting Access to the Unconscious
Awakener’s Toolbox: Active Dreaming
Active Dreaming Exercise
Awakener’s Toolbox: Awakening to Freedom
Awakening to Freedom Format
Double Binds
Awakener’s Toolbox: Transcending Double Binds
Awakener’s Toolbox: Creating Positive Double Binds
Bateson’s Levels of Learning and Change
Learning IV
Overview of the Four Levels of Learning
Survival Strategies
Awakener’s Toolbox: Updating Survival Strategies through Bateson’s Levels of Learning
Summary
CONCLUSION
Creating an Aligned Path from Caretaker to Awakener
Capital C
Coach Alignment Process
AFTERWORD
APPENDIX A: A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOGICAL LEVELS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dedication
This book is dedicated with affection and respect to my many caretakers, guides, coaches, teachers, mentors, sponsors and awakeners; and in particular to
Gregory Bateson
who helped me to awaken at many levels.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge:
Stephen Gilligan for his profoundly important contribution of the notion of therapeutic sponsorship and for his personal sponsorship of me and my work.
Judith DeLozier, Todd Epstein, Robert McDonald, Tim Hallbom, Suzi Smith and Richard Clarke for their friendship, support and for their contributions in terms of several of the tools and processes described in this book.
John Grinder and Richard Bandler who awakened my calling with respect to coaching and NLP, and who have been sponsors and guardians for me at key times during my journey.
Jenny D’Angelo, who devoted her sharp eyes and strong literary sensibility to help with the proof reading, editing and production of this book from cover to cover. She has been the guardian angel and project manager for this undertaking in many ways.
Alain Moenart and Anne Pierard for suggesting the topic and title of From Coach to Awakener and for sponsoring the first workshop that became the basis for this book. I want to also acknowledge Anne for her ideas and suggestions related to the notion of survival strategies.
To Anita, Drew and Julia Dilts for their support during the times of sometimes intense focus that it takes to write a book.
Preface
From Coach to Awakener can be considered, in many ways, a workbook for coaches. In fact, the book started as a manual for a workshop sponsored by Anne Pierard and Alain Moenart of Institute Ressources in Brussels, Belgium, in May of 1999. As they have done so many times, Anne and Alain wanted to help me create a program that pushed the edge of the envelope of training for people interested in helping others and themselves to grow and improve.
The purpose of the seminar was to provide coaches, consultants, trainers, counselors and therapists with a set of tools to help their clients address goals, issues and change at different levels in their lives.
The structure of the seminar, and thus this book, is founded upon the NeuroLogical Levels model, which was inspired by the work of Gregory Bateson. (The relationship between NeuroLogical Levels and Bateson’s work is covered in depth in Appendix A.) The basic idea of this model is that there is a hierarchy of levels of learning and change in our lives—each level transcending but including processes and relationships on the level beneath it. The range of levels in this hierarchy includes our environment, behavior, capabilities, beliefs, values, identity and purpose with respect to the larger system or field
of which we are a part.
The premise of the NeuroLogical Levels model is that each level in this hierarchy has a different structure and function in our lives. Consequently, different types of support are needed in order to effectively produce or manage change at the various levels. We guide people to learn about new environments, for instance; coach them to improve specific behavioral competencies; teach them new cognitive capabilities; mentor empowering beliefs and values; sponsor growth at the identity level; and awaken people’s awareness of the larger system or field.
To succeed in reaching desired outcomes at each of these levels, we also need effective tools. Thus, one of the main objectives of From Coach to Awakener is to provide specific toolboxes for each level of change to be addressed.
An important implication of the approach taken in this book is that different tools have different uses and purposes; and it is important to select the right tools for the job. Tools that are effective for producing change at one level, for instance, may be of limited value at a different level. As an analogy, a surgeon’s scalpel would be of little use to attempt to alter the genetic code of a cell. Attempting to update beliefs using behavior level techniques could be likened to trying to use a hammer to drive in a screw or cut a board in half when using a screwdriver or saw would be much easier and more effective.
It is also important to point out that the tools
described in this book are intended to be more than just one-time techniques which are used to fix something that is broken. A tool is something that can be used time and again to build something new, as well as to improve and repair what already exists.
The overall goal is for coaches and clients to use these tools together to help clients build the future they desire and activate the resources necessary to reach that future. The role of the coach is to help clients learn to apply the tools for themselves. As clients become more proficient with each tool in the toolbox, they are able to utilize those tools for themselves with progressively less dependence on the coach for their success. In this regard, this book can be as valuable to clients as it is to coaches.
While the chapters have been organized sequentially, beginning with the tools and support needed for change at an environmental level and culminating with the spiritual level, it is not necessary to read or use the materials in a sequential fashion. Feel free to skip around and focus on the area of change that is most relevant to you.
Robert Dilts
March, 2003
Santa Cruz, California
Introduction
In general, coaching is the process of helping people and teams to perform at the peak of their abilities. It involves drawing out people’s strengths, helping them to bypass personal barriers and limits in order to achieve their personal best, and facilitating them to function more effectively as members of a team. Thus, effective coaching requires an emphasis on both task and relationship.
Coaching emphasizes generative change, concentrating on defining and achieving specific goals. Coaching methodologies are outcome-oriented rather than problem-oriented. They tend to be highly solution focused, promoting the development of new strategies for thinking and acting, as opposed to trying to resolve problems and past conflicts. Problem solving, or remedial change, is more associated with counseling and therapy.
Origins of Coaching
The term coach
comes from the Middle English word coche, which meant a wagon or carriage.
In fact, the word still carries this meaning today—such as when a person travels coach
on a railway or airline. A coach
is literally a vehicle which carries a person or group of people from some starting location to a desired location.
The notion of coaching in the educational sense derived from the concept that the tutor conveys
or transports
the student through his or her examinations. An educational coach is defined as a private tutor,
one who instructs or trains a performer or a team of performers,
or one who instructs players in the fundamentals of a competitive sport and directs team strategy.
The process of being a coach is defined as to train intensively (as by instruction and demonstration).
Thus, historically, coaching is typically focused toward achieving improvement with respect to a specific behavioral performance. An effective coach of this type (such as a voice coach,
an acting coach,
a pitching coach
) observes a person’s behavior and gives him or her tips and guidance about how to improve in specific contexts and situations. This involves promoting the development of that person’s behavioral competence through careful observation and feedback.
The Coaching Revolution
In recent years, starting in the 1980s, the notion of coaching has taken on a more generalized and expanded meaning. Coaching in organizations involves a variety of ways of helping people perform more effectively, including project, situational and transitional coaching. Project coaching involves the strategic management of a team in order to reach the most effective result. Situational coaching focuses on the specific enhancement or improvement of performance within a context. Transitional coaching involves helping people move from one job or role to another.
Many companies and organizations are opting for coaching of these types, in place of or in addition to training. Because coaching is more focused, contextualized and individually targeted, it is frequently more cost effective than traditional training methods in producing real change.
The essential question to be addressed by all types of organizational coaching is, How can the organization be made more effective through the personal development of individual managers and leaders, acting independently and in teams?
To provide the practical answer to this question, executive coaching for organizations covers a range of activities, including:
• Personal development in a non-therapeutic context, which is aligned with the goals of the organization.
• Business consulting on a one-to-one basis.
• Organizational transformation through individual and organizational alignment toward future goals.
Common issues dealt with in executive coaching involve those necessary in order to reach desired outcomes in key areas of business and entrepreneurship including:
* Generating possibilities
* Making choices
* Setting expectations (self/other)
* Communicating clearly
* Managing time
* Learning from past mistakes
* Solving problems
* Improving working relationships
* Managing up/down
* Balancing personal and professional life
Another rapidly developing area of coaching is that of life coaching. Life coaching involves helping people to reach personal goals, which may be largely independent from professional or organizational objectives. Similar to transitional coaching, life coaching involves helping people deal effectively with a variety of performance issues which may face them as they move from one life phase to another.
Large C
and Small c
Coaching
Clearly, personal coaching, executive coaching and life coaching provide support on a number of different levels: behaviors, capabilities, beliefs, values and even identity. These new and more general forms of coaching—executive coaching and life coaching—can be referred to as capital C
Coaching.
Small c
coaching is more focused at a behavioral level, referring to the process of helping another person to achieve or improve a particular behavioral performance. Small c
coaching methods derive primarily from a sports training model, promoting conscious awareness of resources and abilities, and the development of conscious competence.
Large C
Coaching involves helping people effectively achieve outcomes on a range of levels. It emphasizes generative change, concentrating on strengthening identity and values, and bringing dreams and goals into reality. This encompasses the skills of small c
coaching, but also includes much more.
This book is about the range of tools and skills necessary to be an effective large C
Coach.
NLP and Coaching
The techniques and methods presented in this book are drawn largely from the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). The skills and tools of NLP are uniquely suited for promoting effective coaching. NLP’s focus on well-formed outcomes, its foundation in modeling exceptional performers, and its ability to produce step-by-step processes to promote excellence, make it one of the most important and powerful resources for both large C
and small c
coaches.
Common NLP skills, tools and techniques that support effective coaching include: establishing goals and well-formed outcomes, managing internal states, taking different perceptual positions, identifying moments of excellence, mapping across resources, and providing high quality feedback.
The Coaching-Modeling Loop
While the focus of coaching is typically upon what a person is doing and needs to do in order to perform effectively, the focus of NLP and the NLP modeling process is on how to perform optimally. Modeling involves identifying and analyzing examples of successful performances (a type of combination of benchmarking and success analysis); sometimes by making comparisons to unsuccessful performances. (See Modeling With NLP, Dilts, 1999.)
Coaching and modeling are thus two essential and complementary processes for achieving optimal performance in any area, forming a loop between what needs to be done and how to do it. Modeling augments coaching by defining how key tasks and activities may best be done, and coaching augments modeling by helping people to internalize and put into practice what has been modeled. (See Modeling and Coaching, Dilts and DeLozier, 2002.)
The ‘coaching-modeling’ loop is an example of double loop learning. There is an old adage which states that if you give a person a fish, you have fed him for a day; but if you teach a person how to fish, you have fed him for the rest of his life.
Double loop learning
would involve helping a person to catch a fish, and in doing so, teaching the person how to fish at the same time. Thus, it involves achieving two simultaneous outcomes—learning what to do and, at the same time, how to do it.
Double Loop Learning Involves Two Simultaneous Levels of Learning
In a sense, double loop learning involves getting two for the price of one.
In a double loop creative process, for example, a person would be coached to come up with an important and innovative idea or solution, and at the same time learn a strategy or recipe
for generating other creative ideas that could be applied in other situations later on.
The objective of the tools and processes in this book is to provide this double loop capability, combining coaching and modeling to enrich and enhance effective performance.
Levels of Learning and Change in Individuals and Organizations
One of the most useful NLP models for capital C
coaches is that of NeuroLogical Levels (see Appendix A). Both coaching and modeling frequently need to address multiple levels of learning and change in order to be successful. According to the NeuroLogical Levels model (Dilts, 1989, 1990, 1993, 2000), the life of people in any system, and indeed, the life of the system itself, can be described and understood on a number of different levels: environment, behavior, capabilities, values and beliefs, identity and spiritual.
At the most basic level, coaching and modeling must address the environment in which a system and its members act and interact—i.e., when and where the operations and relationships within a system or organization take place. Environmental factors determine the context and constraints under which people operate. An organization’s environment, for instance, is made up of such things as the geographical locations of its operations, the buildings and facilities which define the work place,
office and factory design, etc. In addition to the influence these environmental factors may have on people within the organization, one can also examine the influence and impact that people within an organization have upon their environment, and what products or creations they bring to the environment.
At another level, we can examine the specific behaviors and actions of a group or individual—i.e., what the person or organization does within the environment. What are the particular patterns of work, interaction or communication? On an organizational level, behaviors may be defined in terms of general procedures. On the individual level, behaviors take the form of specific work routines, working habits or job related activities.
Another level of process involves the strategies, skills and capabilities by which the organization or individual selects and directs actions within their environment—i.e., how they generate and guide their behaviors within a particular context. For an individual, capabilities include cognitive strategies and skills such as learning, memory, decision making and creativity, which facilitate the performance of a particular behavior or task. On an organizational level, capabilities relate to the infrastructures available to support communication, innovation, planning and decision making between members of the organization.
These other levels of process are shaped by values and beliefs, which provide the motivation and guidelines behind the strategies and capabilities used to accomplish behavioral outcomes in the environment—i.e., why people do things the way they do them in a particular time and place. Our values and beliefs provide the reinforcement (motivation and permission) that supports or inhibits particular capabilities and behaviors. Values and beliefs determine how events are given meaning, and are at the core of judgment and culture.
Values and beliefs support the individual’s or organization’s sense of identity—i.e., the who behind the why, how, what, where and when. Identity level processes involve people’s sense of role and mission with respect to their vision and the larger systems of which they are members.
Typically, a mission is defined in terms of the service performed by people in a particular role with respect to others within a larger system. A particular identity or role is expressed in terms of several key values and beliefs, which determine the priorities to be followed by individuals within the role. These, in turn, are supported by a larger range of skills and capabilities, which are required to manifest particular values and beliefs. Effective capabilities produce an even wider set of specific behaviors and actions, which express and adapt values with respect to many particular environmental contexts and conditions.
There is another level, that can best be referred to as a spiritual level. This level has to do with people’s perceptions of the larger systems to which they belong and within which they participate. These perceptions relate to a person’s sense of for whom or for what their actions are directed, providing a sense of meaning and purpose for their actions, capabilities, beliefs and role identity.
Levels of Processes Within Individuals and Organizations
In summary, coaching and modeling must address several levels of factors:
• Environmental factors determine the external opportunities or constraints which individuals and organizations must recognize and react to. They involve considering where and when success occurs.
• Behavioral factors are the specific action steps taken in order to reach success. They involve what , specifically, must be done or accomplished in order to succeed.
• Capabilities relate to the mental maps, plans or strategies that lead to success. They direct how actions are selected and monitored.
• Beliefs and values provide the reinforcement that supports or inhibits particular capabilities and actions. They relate to why a particular path is taken and the deeper motivations which drive people to act or persevere.
• Identity factors relate to people’s sense of their role or mission. These factors are a function of who a person or group perceives themselves to be.
• Spiritual
factors relate to people’s view of the larger system of which they are a part. These factors involve for whom or for what a particular action step or path has been taken (the purpose).
Levels of Support for Learning and Change —A Roadmap for Large C
Coaching
The task of the capital C
Coach is to provide the necessary support and guardianship
which help clients to successfully develop, grow and evolve at all these levels of learning and change. Depending on the situation and needs of the client, the coach may be called upon to provide support at one or all of these levels, requiring that he or she take on one of several possible roles (Dilts, 1998, 1999, 2000).
Guiding and Caretaking
Guiding and caretaking have to do with providing support with respect to the environment in which change takes place. Guiding is the process of directing a person or group along the path leading from some present state to a desired state. It presupposes that the ‘guide’ has been there before, and knows the best way (or at least a way) to reach the desired state. Being a caretaker, or custodian,
involves providing a safe and supportive environment. It has to do with attending to the external context and making sure that what is needed is available, and that there are no unnecessary distractions or interferences from the outside.
Coaching
Traditional coaching (i.e., small c
coaching) is focused at a behavioral level, involving the process of helping another person to achieve or improve a particular behavioral performance. Coaching methods at this level derive primarily from a sports training model, promoting conscious awareness of resources and abilities, and the development of conscious competence. They involve drawing out and strengthening people’s abilities through careful observation and feedback, and facilitating them to act in coordination with other team members. An effective coach of this type observes people’s behavior and gives them tips and guidance about how to improve in specific contexts and situations.
Teaching
Teaching relates to helping a person develop cognitive skills and capabilities. The goal of teaching is generally to assist people to increase competencies and thinking skills
relevant to an area of learning. Teaching focuses on the acquisition of general cognitive abilities, rather than on particular performances in specific situations. A teacher helps a person to develop new strategies for thinking and acting. The emphasis of teaching is more on new learning than on refining one’s previous performance.
Mentoring
Mentoring involves guiding someone to discover his or her own unconscious competencies and overcome internal resistances