In the book Co-Active Coaching: Changing Business Transforming Lives, they discuss coaching having a big “A” and a little “a”. The little “a” represents the agenda of the coaching engagement (individual session or overall objectives), something in my own coaching process I hold loosely in order to 1) balance the long term and short term needs of the client and 2) promote iteration of the agenda to focus on the heart of the issue, which isn’t fully formed in an initial “contracting” meeting.
So what do they mean by this big “A” and why is it critical to my own coaching methodology? The big “A” is the heart of the coaching process, it is the client's “full, resonant life”. Through the discovery, clarification and prioritization of our values, we can now explicitly see the main ingredient in our individual identity. This process not only helps individuals align choice and actions to promote fulfilling life but while also giving insight into feelings of dissonance.
What are values? According to Co-active coaching, values are “not morals or principle” or something we do or have (for example, money or travel) but the “qualities of a life fully lived from the inside out” (adventure, spirituality) (pg 121). For me, values are important because they can evolve with a person. So how does this actually work? There is no magic formula for developing this list of values and most of the time we find value clusters more effective than designating a single, exact word. Discovery techniques include brainstorming activity, designed experiments or recounting meaningful “stories”.
By iterating and continuing to question the list of values you can understand the values you need to let go of in order to evolve into the person you want to be. While painful, embracing this list as a living document helps us not only see continued growth in ourselves but can also cultivate compassion to our own and others' inconsistencies.
Whitworth, L. (2009). Co-active coaching: New skills for coaching people toward success in work and life. Boston, MA: Davies-Black Pub.
Comments