For the last 2 years, I have been working as an internal consultant at a Design Consultancy in Stockholm. When I had discussions with the company and they described their focus on the well-being and development of individual consultants, I knew this was something that resonated with me and I wanted to support. The consultants are primarily different types of Designers (UX, Visual, Service) and Product Leaders.
Coaching is something that I have derived great value from personally as well as professionally. Whether I am designing something new or guiding an organisation through a change, using a coaching approach has been effective for me. Through asking questions, understanding a person’s values and their definition of success, I am better able to build trust and help them.
Most of the consultants have limited experience with coaching. It’s hard to find a consistent definition so I find the following image helpful to describe the difference between coaching, mentoring, counselling and consulting.
I also point out that I am a certified Co-Active coach and use many of the principles outlined in that training in our sessions.
Coaching is part of the on-boarding process for all new hires and provides a good way of deepening the understanding for both the individual and organisation.
When we understand the employee’s values and what areas that give them energy in their work, we are better able to place them in the right assignments and support their development.
As an individual, this session allows them to understand themselves through some key questions:
Where they have been in their working lives.
Where there are today.
Where they want to go in the future.
Values help facilitate fulfilling choices, to develop appropriate actions, and to recognise situations in which values are an issue.
Each session is made up of a few activities over a period of about 1.5 hours. I have done this session both in-person as well as remotely using the MURAL app.
Although I will outline a process it is important to point out that this is a focused conversation that has no real set agenda and is more like dancing than following a recipe.
So I improvise.
Career Timeline and Emotional Map:
The backbone of the conversation is a career timeline. Most people do not reflect much about why they change jobs or roles and this is a good way of allowing people to spend some time and reflect on past experiences. The tool is familiar to most designers as a journey map and doesn’t require that much explanation:
I invite the coachees to mark key years and the places they worked over their career on the horizontal time-axis (choose a relevant starting point). They also plot how happy or unhappy they were at each significant point in time. Most people have peaks and valleys during each role and it is good to note certain themes that occur for each change.
Values
After the map is completed we have a discussion focused specifically around the peaks and valleys. One of the goals of these sessions is to discuss the values that each person has around their work. Instead of beginning with a list of values and selecting which ones resonate it is easier to look at specific career events and identify values from their experience. The coach’s job is to assist clients in viewing their lives in such a way that values are revealed. Coaches and coachees use values to help facilitate fulfilling choices, to develop appropriate actions, and to recognise situations in which values are an issue.
Some questions that are helpful:
What did you love hate about your role?
What made these experiences either positive or negative?
What happened during these times?
What words would you use to describe these feelings?
I acknowledge what I am hearing and keep probing, periodically testing words to see what values resonate for this client. Through this dialogue-we can slowly establish a list of words that represent the coachee’s values associated with their work.
Many people still struggle with finding the right words. They are limited because they feel they have to find the perfect word and the value has much more meaning than the definition of a single word allows. To manage this I encourage the coachees to document these words physically on paper/whiteboard.
Alternatively, I will document the words that I hear mentioned frequently and then revisit the list towards the end of the session. Reviewing this list allows them to reflect on the words and make any changes they feel relevant.
Example Career Timeline and Emotion Map
A note about negative feelings
Another way to isolate values is to go to the opposite extreme, looking at times when a person was angry, frustrated, or upset. This will often lead to the identification of a value that was being suppressed. When a person can name the feelings and circumstances around the upset; then flip it over and look for the opposite of those feelings. In most people’s working life; there were times when they felt frustrated, and these are documented in a written form similar to the values described above.
Competencies
Once people have developed some new knowledge about themselves the focus of our conversation shifts to action.
How can these insights be transformed into an action that can lead to change?
It is important to harness the energy people feel after they have an insight about themselves and transform this into action. In the context of working with Design, common actions are acquiring new knowledge and mastering skills.
Learning is a consistent value for many people.
An effective way to begin this conversation is to visualise the coachee’s present competence in certain areas. There are a number of ways of mapping skills but I think the key is to focus on the areas of development.
If areas of development are clear to people it is much easier for them to move in that direction. When you focus your attention on something, action follows. An example of this can be learning a new skill. There are lots of ways to learn a new skill but people often focus on the first idea that they have to achieve this; formalised education. A valuable question in this situation would be something like:
What are some effective ways you can learn and practise these new skills?
Once people give this some thought, they can usually come up with something concrete they can do to move in the desired direction. When I encourage the coachee to refine and quantify this idea as much as possible they can easily form concrete goals. This is the first step in allowing the coachee to begin progress leading to lasting change.
Wrapping it up
The response from having had more than 50 of these conversations has been extremely positive.
From a professional perspective, the coachees have had an opportunity to reflect over past work experiences and gather insights as to what specifically motivates them. The company uses this knowledge to match the best assignments with the values and developmental areas of the consultant.
When people understand and can articulate their values, that often gives them clarity in many aspects of their lives. Coachees are grateful for this opportunity in the context and many choose to continue their coaching outside the workplace.
I am glad to be part of their development
Coaching is the universal language of learning and lasting change because it comes from within the person, not from someone else. I believe coaching delivers a concrete value to organisations. Through a focus on the well-being and development of individuals, companies can excel and meet the challenges of the future.
If you are interested in learning more about coaching and understanding how you can integrate it into your organisation, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
You can also read more about my individual coaching here.