What makes coaching effective? What can you do to coach a client or coach yourself to increasing productivity and success?

Jump-start results with this handy Star formula. In no time you’ll be using the principles of how to help your client/coachee click new ideas into action. The fresh perspective and visual tracking keeps you on target for getting results.

Let’s look at the All Star Formula with 5 P’s for effective coaching:

Participative
What are you doing to help your coachee participate? Are you asking questions? Are you inviting rather than telling or policing? Are you working with them to set the agenda, choose the process and solutions that they prefer? Keep asking yourself,  “What else can you do to increase participation?”

Practical
If it isn’t practical, do-able, then it’s not coaching—it’s theory. How can you help your client take the next step? It can be as straightforward as asking the question:“What’s your next step?” or “How can you take action on this realization?”

Keep short timeframes—What will you do when you leave here? What will you do in the next 24 hours? What steps will you take before our next session? A time frame with a few specific tasks keeps overwhelm at bay, and supports practical action.

Positive
What can you do to support a positive outlook? You know from experience that if you focus on positive or you focus on negative, either way, you can be right. How can you support your client to have a positive outlook?

Shift the conversation to strengths. Emphasize what’s working. Help them by seeing what they have that they can build on.

What positive quotes can you have to help your client? Do you have a reading list for them? What can you do or say that will help them focus on what’s working?

Push Comfort Zone
Growing is stretching. What do you see that might be a blind spot for your client? What questions can you ask to help them reduce that “X” factor that they keep tripping over? It may not be comfortable, but they are working with you in order to grow, learn and change. Keep pushing the envelope.

Permanent
What can you do to help your client in the long term? How can you set your sights on a long-term change instead of a temporary fix? What can you do to help them address root causes so they can take charge of the changes they want?  Keep your focus on a big picture of permanent change—not just touch and go tidbits. How does that affect your thinking? Your choice of words? Your metaphors?

This is a flexible system that you can track on a five-pointed star. Use this method of thinking before, during and after a session. Organize session objectives, process and content around the five points of a star. Use this to keep track as you:

Plan for Success—what are you doing to address each of the success points?

Practice in Session—Is your session on track, continuing to be participative, practical, positive, pushing the comfort zone and focused on permanent change?

Perfect your practice—Use the same star to evaluate how effective you were as a coach. One way to do this is to draw a large circle, several inches larger than the star, all the way around the star. Now, draw lines extending out from each point of a star until they meet the circle. Put cross-lines, like markers on a ruler along each line.

Next, rate yourself in effectiveness—with the most effective being along the circle, and the least effective point being closest in to the star. Once you’ve put in your evaluation marks, connect the dots. You’ll see the shape that describes what areas you are strong in and where you have room to improve.

If you do this over a period of time, and over several sessions, you’ll have a visual evaluation for how effective your coaching is along each of these coordinates.

How are you doing?
If you want to get additional feedback, ask the people you’re coaching. Give them the same star sheet and instructions. Have them rate you along the five areas. You’ll find out exactly how they are experiencing your coaching effectiveness—it’s the same as a customer survey. The visual imprint will tell you exactly what you need to know.

How’s self-coaching going?
If you’re coaching yourself, be sure to use this fast, visual method to keep you focused on results. Ask yourself the same questions. Am I participating? Am I positive? Am I focused on practical? Am I pushing my comfort zones? Am I setting my sights and action on permanent results?

Remember, this is a process. Don’t expect 100% on each point—just continue keeping a big-picture, moving around the star to address each aspect.

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