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NLP or coaching? Choices, choices… |
A few days ago, we ran a webinar on Life as an NLP Therapist.
And an interesting question came up. Why NLP rather than coaching? Or, indeed, why not the other way round.
The odd thing was that Peggy (our head of NLP) and I (a dyed in the wool coach) instinctively felt we knew the answer but we could neither of us fully put it into words. You see here at the Smart School, coaching has become increasingly transformational. Long gone are the days when coaching was just about planning a series of actions (actually, in many places outside the Smart School, that attitude still exists but let’s not worry about that here!)
And so any simple answer that coaching only deals with tasks and clarity of action and NLP/hypnotherapy with the deep issues that block us was clearly not right.
There was something else at stake that would mean someone should choose one over the other OR decide to master both to get the best of both worlds.
But what worlds? What’s the terrain? What’s the atmosphere?
And the more we tried to pin it down, the more like mist it was to say something that concretely separated them. We felt it but we couldn’t voice it. So we pondered, we debated, we questioned and we examined.
And we reached a conclusion, of sorts.
It seems to us that it’s like a Venn diagram. There’s a crossover where coaching and NLP look, sound and feel like each other. But there are parts that differ significantly and it’s in those parts that the distinctive qualities, the je ne sais quoi (Peggy will like that as she’s from Nice in sunny south France!) exist.
Peggy spoke about how we she helped a client with Crohn’s disease to recover faster from surgery not through any specific actions on his part but through a change in his own sense of mind/body connection. As a coach, I couldn’t do what Peggy did. I might help someone manage an illness more effectively but I couldn’t create an unconscious shift in the body’s ability to heal itself.
But as a coach, I would have all the tools and understanding to help someone think through at a conscious level their choices, decisions, actions, perceptions and thoughts. I would have more tools perhaps to bring to conscious awareness the unconscious thoughts and beliefs.
Was that it, then? Was it a divide between conscious discovery in coaching and unconscious change in NLP/hypnotherapy.
Well, yes and no! Life is never so simple. You see, although in coaching, we are working at a conscious level, the client’s unconscious is still at play. And although in NLP, the unconscious plays such a big role, the conscious mind is (usually) still engaged.
But I think we can say this:
Someone who invests their time and energy in mastering NLP and hypnotherapy does so because it offers them the ability to work with clients at a deep level of unconscious change on emotional and perceptual blocks that manifest themselves in ways often remote from the source.
And people who spend their time mastering coaching want to be able to work first and foremost at the conscious level using a range of approaches to help clients learn through active awareness and specific actions.
Now I KNOW that there will be NLP practitioners screaming at this blog, defaming my name for such a simple distinction. And I KNOW there will be coaches turning in disgust from their screens at my philistine conclusion. But this post is opening a debate and raising one way to see the difference. It’s not conclusive and it’s not definitive. But it’s a start!
And in the end, it seems to me, it comes down to two core questions:
Firstly, for you, what way of working resonates with you? What excites you and appeals to your way of thinking and doing things? Explore coaching and NLP/hypnotherapy and see what you prefer.
And then thinking of your future clients, what do they need from you? Who are the clients you want to help and what approach is most appropriate? Would hypnotherapy or specific NLP processes gel with them or would it fall on stony ground? Would coaching be able to reach the parts that your client group needs?
Or do you need both? Do you need to integrate the skills?
You see, both coaching and NLP bring important and unique strengths to client work in the change field. For some people, learning and mastering both will be an essential journey where for others knowing what work they want to do and deciding which best fits that work is an important step to taking the right journey.
If you want to know more about NLP and even experience some of its power, then book a place at our NLP Therapy Discovery Day. And if you want to know more about transformational coaching, book your place at our Coaching Discovery Day. It’s a great way to start your own journey.
Filed Under From the Director's Chair, NLP & Hypnotherapy, Transformational Coaching
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Is transformational coaching just a trendy buzzword? |
We talk a lot about a transformational approach to coaching here at the Smart School.
But is it just a meaningless buzzword or does it have substance? Does it actually mean something tangible?
In fact, this was a question I was asked by email just the other day. The writer was asking me whether we actually teach a different style of coaching or whether we just attach a meaningless word to coaching.
Here’s what i wrote back and I hope you find it help ful too:
“Thanks for your email – I’ll do my best to answer your question.
Firstly, by the way, it’s a great question.
Many people use the word transformational in a meaningless way and I guess it’s this that you’re questioning.
However, there is also no set concept of what transformational coaching is and so what I say here is just our interpretation.
In summary, yes we teach transformational coaching. In other words we focus on teaching coaching which isn’t just about changing behaviours or improving performance or coaching through development but rather about creating paradigm shifts.
How we do that is uniquely our approach and consists of integrating a number of key approaches to create shifts in perception AND behaviour for clients.
So we blend a strong person-centred foundation with cognitive behavioural coaching, transactional analysis coaching and NLP.
But this isn’t about using each approach discreetly. It’s about understanding the needs of the client in front of you and having a range of approaches to create change from within.
I appreciate that on the face of it, what I have written is quite sketchy but the main issue here is that we approach coaching from a point of view of helping people see themselves differently within a situation rather than simply dealing with the situation differently. And in that sense it’s transformational.”
That was my email response but afterwards I wondered if it was sufficient.
So the question is, “What does all that means in practice?”
Well, it means that instead of coaching on short term performance improvement or to overcome a specific challenge, as a transformational coach you are also coaching on how the person “shows up” in that situation in the first place. That way, if they face a similar challenge they will have new resources, new perspectives and a new sense of self to bring to the issue.
One of the key questions a transformational coach is asking is, what is it about you that makes this situation/challenge/problem an issue. And that’s not about blame – it’s about empowerment, it’s about holding yourself as responsible for the issue and its resolution.
It shifts the perception from one of a cause-and-effect problem you’ve been made to face to a problem on one’s own perception and handling. And whilst that might at first be more uncomfortable, in the end, it’s where true transformation comes from.
Filed Under Transformational Coaching
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Parental messages in coaching |
I was thinking today how people live their lives based upon the messages that they would have received from parenting.
Within coaching sessions these messages come out in the way that people self-sabotage what they set out to do and achieve.
This is almost always subconscious and automatic and through coaching we help people understand in how they might be doing this, where this comes from and, importantly, help them to move forward from some of these self defeating patterns.
A very interesting part of transformational coaching is looking at the realm of Transactional Analysis.
Many people will know the book Games People Play by Eric Berne, which brought the idea of TA to the modern world.
One part of TA it looks at the concept of injunctions.
What are these?
Simply put they are unconscious messages that we pick up on as children from our parents. Read more
Filed Under Transformational Coaching|
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10 key questions to kick start your coaching |
For those in the know and for those who are interested in the field of coaching one of the key parts of gaining results and helping people to fundamentally transform their lives will be asking simple and purposeful questions.
There isn’t a rulebook of questions that needs to be adhered to or a cheats guide in how to do this.
Once you have established rapport with a client, built on the trust that is on going and essential for coaching to be useful you will need to then work with the client in establishing an arena for change and what they want to gain from working with you.
I have put together 10 key questions that are simple to deliver, purposeful in their aim and allow the client to reflect on what they would like to see change in their life and also lead into further questioning.
Also and very importantly it allows the client to feel the impact of what your coaching could give them in positive ways. Read more
Filed Under Transformational Coaching|
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New Approaches to Coaching: Cognitive Behavioural Coaching |
Cognitive Behavioural Coaching forms a core part of our Diploma in Coaching Excellence and represents one of the recent powerful developments in coaching.
But what is it? What are its origins? What are some of the models it uses? And when is it the right approach to use?
In this webinar, Paul Kensett, Head of Training and Mentoring at the Smart School, gives the lowdown and cognitive behavioural coaching.
Watch the webinar video here:
Filed Under Transformational Coaching
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