TABLE OF CONTENTS Where do you start your work as a coach? This chapter suggests a particular flow that has proved useful over the years. As you read, recall particular times when you coached or were coached. How does the flow map onto your experience? Does it show you why the coaching succeeded or failed?
This chapter will serve as an overview of the whole coaching process what I m calling the flow of coaching (see Figure 3.1). The presentation is linear and our experiences, conversations, and lives are not. Consequently, the flow is usually not as simple or direct as is shown in the text. The stages are really buoys, which indicate for trained observers where they are on their journey through the bay, and can indicate to the coach how the work is progressing. The point of the chapter is to identify the indicators and provide a framework in which a coach can think and design.
As you being to work with this flow, it will make more and more sense to you and at some point you won t need to refer to it for guidance anymore. Instead, you will naturally move in your own particular way through the various stages of coaching.
Until then, here is a proven structure for you to use. Each stage is distinct; however, the boundaries between stages frequently merge so that it is difficult to determine when one ends and one starts. For learning purposes, though, it s useful to...
