2 Responses

1. teach coaching as you give a demonstration of coaching
   Here’s an idea….

   Assuming that you are doing something interactive rather than lecture based….get the delegates to do their “training” bit and after they have completed it coach each one to improve their performance.

   After you have finished take them through what you have just done so they realise that they were training and you were coaching…it’ll help them see the difference as well as see that it works (and they’ll improve their training too)
   It sounds simplistic but it does work, regardless of whether you are using GROW, OSCAR, 7 C’s or any other coaching method.

   Then you can get them to redo their training bit….improving it from the first exercise and get a delegate to coach each one as they finish, thus practicing the new found skill.

   Hope this helps
   Rus

2. Training Coaches
   I find the essence of good training of coaches is to break out the core skills and practice them with sensitive feedback.

   Key skills for me include both questioning and listening. As there are many types of questions (open, closed, clarifying, exploring, summarising, confirming, challenging etc) it might be useful to agree what these are and when they might be used most effectively, followed by practice of each type, exclusively without using any other.

   Eg? Open questions only. (This may seem rather artifical but it is astonishingly difficult and helpful!) Working in threes by rotation, ask one to nominate an outside interest for example, the second to ask the first person open questions about this for say 5 minutes and the third to observe and comment afterwards. (This also practices feedback skills!) Ensure the first person only answers ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to any closed questions and does not talk too voluminously, and enlist the third person’s support of the first to ensure closed questions are well spotted. Encourage the second person to build on previous answers wherever possible rather than to fire grapeshot questions that do not connect with each other.

   Helpful I hope?

   Best wishes

   Jeremy