Putting Research into Practice

Rosalind Healy UclanAssociate Head, Centre for Employability, Academic Manager, CETH (Uclan’s Cetl)

Employability Coordinator, Agcas

Exploring whether a knowledge of Coaching can

inform guidance, with particular focus on decision-

making

Why this Step?

• Our PROP sub group identified decision-making as an area of careers guidance somewhat lacking in resources and expertise.

• We were interested in how (and if) coaching might address decision making

• So we organised ourselves some initial insight and development in coaching.

Our objective:• To explore how Coaching

approaches can support career guidance work, specifically Decision Making. To use this knowledge and insight to develop a resource, tool or process that will be useful to careers guidance practitioners in assisting clients with their career (and perhaps) life decision making.

4 main aims1 To inform ourselves about the

background and underpinning philosophies of Coaching such as when and how it started, what are its roots, what disciplines it draws on, what are the main research or academic works and who are the key practitioners.

2 To become aware of the professional ethics, codes and values of coaching.

3 To learn some basic processes of coaching; how does coaching help people to make decisions, what model or models of decision making are used.

4 To practice some simple coaching techniques that may help careers professionals decide if they wish to pursue further training and development.

How we proceeded...

• Identified a trained, qualified and experienced practitioner in coaching

www.chartwellcoaching.co.uk• Briefed her on the needs and background of the

group• Ros and Zoë worked together to draft a suitable

programme for a 24 hour training session• Found a suitable venue

http://www.confluencecentre.co.uk/

Participants• Nine participants came to the event

– 2 from Reading University (Careers)– 2 from GIEU – 2 from Bradford LDU– 1 from Uclan– 2 from Sheffield Hallam (Careers)

- a fantastic group!

The programme

• We deliberately built in plenty of time for discussion and reflection

• The group operated as a client in a coaching session through questioning eg “How do you wish to use this time?”

• Responsibility for decision making deferred to group itself

Before the event• Zoë modelled the sessions on a coaching

approach. This meant we directly experienced the processes that help us make decisions. Before the meeting we were encouraged to consider:– What two things would we like to come away with

from this workshop– What single question would we like answered

through the workshop?– And to also consider the model (or models) of

decision making that we currently use - either implicitly or explicitly

We explored...

• How coaching differs from guidance (that was quite a discussion)

• How it differs from counselling (luckily we had trained counsellors amongst us)

• How coaching techniques and styles can inform our own guidance skills

• We practised on each other and learnt a lot.

• From time to time we stumbled to a halt.• Zoë made us responsible for our own

decision making and planning as a group• It was energising and a bit scary...

which is just like coaching can feel

What coaching is…

• A purposeful conversation that helps people to create the life (changes) they want– Dialogue exploring WHY you act the way you

do– What beliefs are forming these actions– How to go about getting what you really want– Maintaining motivation

What coaching isn’t

• Counselling

• Therapy

• Mentoring

• Advice giving

Coaching is about Questioning…

• What would achieving this goal give you?

• What will tell you that you have achieved your goal?

• What is positive about what you are choosing?

• What would the answer be if you did know it!

and lots of other very powerful questions

• This made us think carefully about all the decision making tools and expertise we already possess

• Coaching is another one for the kitbag

The outcome of our experiences...

• As a group we wanted to produce or create something from what we had learnt

• Lots of ideas were floated; training courses, an Agcas module, a book, a project, journal articles, a webpage...

• We brainstormed all the decision-making tools and concepts we knew about

• And decided a most useful outcome would be to each take one or more that we were familiar with, to briefly outline it and to log these on the Moodle site that Becka had already established

• http://www.blogs.prospects.ac.uk/moodle/

• We would eventually make the resource or toolkit available to the profession in some way or another.

• We set a target date to upload the materials...

• Pat - MBTI• Feel the fear and do it anyway•  • Helen - NLP - Well Formed Intentions• Robert Dilts Logical Levels•  • Russell - DeBonos thinking hats• Egan's Skilled Helper model• PMI•  • Kevin - NLP 2 - 3 Chair triad work•  • Kent - Lifeline exercise and points of transition• Stress management techniques and locus of control• Change strategy Good - bad now and later / future

• Zoe - Task / behaviours triangle• Storying -- Joseph Connor•  • Becka - Kubler- Ross sabotage / validation• General decision-making questionnaire• Storying - metaphors - Margaret Parkin•  • Ros - CIP• Martin Nemco - Peter's life changer•  • Peter - Windmills - lottery balls and MI Tribes• Gardner and RIASEC• Information Interviews Daniel Porot•  • David - Change management technique - force field analysis• Matrices - using them and making them

After the event

Throughout the two days we learnt how to apply simple coaching techniques and after the event Zoë asked us to complete the cycle started initially by asking us to consider the following….

– What was most significant for me from the 2 days?

– What does that tell me about myself and my work just now?

– What do I need to do to ensure that I keep hold of these things?

– When am I going to do that?– If I had to share one thing from the

programme, what would it be and who would it be with?

– What do I need to do, to get more support for all of this?

Will (deadline)• Our efforts will be posted by 15th June

• We hope the resources will be useful to advisers but have not decided how to disseminate them.

• Ideas welcome...

http://www.blogs.prospects.ac.uk/moodle/

David’s Options Matrices page

Kent’s Lifeline

What next?

We have another PROP session in July. We will take things forward then.