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“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

It felt like arrogance when I once quit a consultancy project. It was going to bring the money that I could use to advance my life and living condition, but I ‘fired’ the manager of the project.

The major reason I did was because, I wasn’t learning, it was draining and my efforts weren’t coming with desirable outcomes (though, the processes was showing some progress).

Growth is a core aspect of Coaching.

As a Coach, we need to partner with the client to “transform learning and insight into action”, that promotes client autonomy.

Here are 8 points to consider in helping our client lean towards growth:

1-works with the client to integrate new awareness, insight or learning into their worldviews – the key point here is to make it about their worldview, rather than the perspective of the Coach.

2-partners with clients to design goals, actions and accountability that integrate and expand new learning – from understanding what they want to achieve to the process flow of how it is happening and to measure the progress, are all important.

3-acknowledge and support clients Autonomy in the design of goals and actions and method of accountability – the coachee still needs to have a mind of their own, to make decisions, and take action as the Coach is also co-learning in the relationship.

4-supports the clients in identifying potential results or learning from identified action plans.

5-invite the client on how to move forward include results and barriers and resources.

6-partner with clients to summarize lessons and insight in between and after a session – this point is very crucial. Sometimes, a session may last for hours and while note-taking is happening, it is important to get a feedback of what has been shared and what steps the coachee will be taking going forward.

7-celebrate client’s success and progress – every form of step should be celebrated, just like we do for kids, as they take each step when learning to walk. I have observed that celebrating success is a good motivation for human beings.

8-partners with clients to close the session

Fixed mindset and Growth mindset

As a Coach, What kind of mindset do you have?

It is better to qualify people into coaching instead of just taking anyone in. It makes things more seamless and straightforward – This makes a lot of sense. Segmentation is important. People with a growth mindset (the desire and readiness to improve) will make the coaching sessions productive.

For example, In working with grassroots communities, one of the things my team has realized is that our ‘intervention’ is more seamless and scales faster when we work with people that are already looking for ways to succeed.

Coach Mel shared his Client Growth Mindset Model – the 5 As.

Awareness Integrated – the coachee have to be getting insights from their insights. They have to be learning from their own learning.

Action designed – Dreams must come into reality for progress to be made.

Autonomy re-Established (me, we, them).

Alignment Evaluated (up, down, side)

Achievement facilitated (Celebrate, Progress).

I remember asking this Question during this webtorial session:

“Does a person with a growth mindset need so much Coaching, compared to a person with fixed mindset?”

The response was: “Yes. The growth mindset person is probably ready to take action. They may just not be ready to pay for Coaching.”

Another question that came up was:

“Could a fixed mindset be useful in some scenario while growth mindset may be ‘harmful’?

The response: “Yes. If the growth mindset is just all about optimism without action, that’s certainly harmful than being able to move forward.

My Takeaway from this session:

In everyday life, it is important to track progress, for example, we set goals in different areas of our lives, we also have vision map (or boards), the only way to know we are moving forward is to measure and celebrate.

In the Coach-Coachee relationship, measuring growth is a must.