I am amazed at how many coaching models appear to have been created over the last few years. Almost every time I run a session on coaching, someone in the group tells me of another model I then encounter for the first time. Are they all required? Are any of them required? Perhaps I ask the question as I come from a standpoint that I don’t see any of them as particularly useful.
Well, there’s one I like – and I first heard about it last year. It is the “WAIT” model. And it stands for “Why Am I Talking?”. Which perhaps isn’t a model but more of a principle – which could explain why I like it. I much prefer the idea of operating from a set of principles.
The best bit of coaching I ever received was about 13 or 14 years ago near a lock on a waterway somewhere in Cambridgeshire. I had stopped off on the way to or from somewhere to have a meal with my very dear friend Sara. Sara and I are different in many ways – perhaps the most striking being my liking to consider and plan, and Sara being a person who does almost everything on the spur of the moment. We were having a walk (with a bit of skipping and the odd cartwheel thrown in for good measure) near this river or canal, having a laugh and being silly. As we approached the lock, Sara said, “Come on, let’s walk across the lock”, and off she went stepping on to this thin lock gate. “But I might fall in”, I retorted. “And?” she shouted back, almost at the other side.
That “And?” has replayed many times in my mind since then and in many different situations. It didn’t need a model to make it great, but it did need a relationship.
Sara also introduced me to a book called “The Prophet” by Khalil Gibran. As he is apparently the third most read poet in history, and this particular work is his most famous, you may have read it. “The Prophet” is said to be his metaphor for life.
I think it offers some very inspirational thoughts that can work very well as principles for coaching and training. The following are some extracts that help me to ensure that I am as effective as possible as a coach or trainer.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words many indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.What do you think?
Tomorrow I will offer some other quotes from the book which will relate to principles that coachees or learners could adopt and quotes that could apply to the coach and coachee relationship.
Paul
Tags: coaching, Gibran, model, principles