CLEAR - FOCUS Model

You may be feeling that you don't really have the time to coach others to improve performance. After all, most of the changes you make in your life just seem to happen anyway - such as moving jobs or studying for a qualification. But sometimes the change is forced upon you without warning or consultation. Coaching helps you and others make sense of the adjustments in attitude and thinking that you need to make to succeed in a new context..

The uncertainty of imposed change can leave you feeling paralysed. It generates a feeling of anxiety or a fear of impending chaos. The source of the stress might be a change of person, place, thing or timescale. It doesn't really matter, the reaction is the same. You stiffen up, become defensive and resistant. If action is not taken and new information is rejected the mind blocks things out. This is known as the brain's autopeietic tendancy to protect itself from anything that it perceives to be a threat to its identity.

"All knowing is doing and all doing is knowing".
Umberto Maturana 'Tree of Knowledge'

Real change can feel like a life and death issue. You have to let go of something important to you in order to gain something else. Emotions run high. Clearly focusing on a postive outcome helps the body to see the change as non-threatening, creating the ability to move forward.

By taking action to do something NOW to change, you stop fearing the unknown. As you become more familiar with your concerns, the fears subside. Change is a process of becoming aware of your feelings and redirecting them through a process of self-managed learning - information gathering, capacity building and competency development.

Applying a "clear focus"
to learning and change

In a coaching relationship it is important to spend a little time before preparing and a bit of time after the meeting to reflect. For example, you may need to clarify the ground rules for how you will work together and there is no confusion over the coaching role. Reviewing how things went in each session could be valuable in learning how to meet each others needs better next time. Times for the meetings/conversations and what's expected between the meetings/conversations should be clarified, particularly if action plans are to be drawn up and followed.

The following elements represent a coaching for learning relationship that I use as a guide. It helps you ask clear and well focused questions.

Clarify issues through questioning

Link ends and means by listening

Explore options and new thinking

Assist goal setting and ability to implement

Review the process and evaluate results

Facilitate deeper conversation

Organise the information so it makes sense

Create caring relationships

Understand the wants that feed emotions

Support the development of new habits

At the heart of all coaching is change and therefore learning. There can be no real change without it. From the coachees point of view, learning is a by-product of taking action to achieve their goals, develop their abilities or deal with difficult situations.

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Applying a "clear focus"
to the dynamics of change

The dynamics of change provide a framework for approaching the coaching task in complex situations.

Top-Down - clarity of purpose
This perspective reminds you to look for what is important to the organisation that employs the coachee. These are the criteria that will limit and direct the conversation in order for the coach to understand and communicate well. It helps to define the aim or purpose of the coaching relationship. For example, the reasons for an action could well be different from the reasons why you would want to do it well.

Clarity about where the coachee is coming from in terms of the criteria they use to define what's important to them, will ensure that the coach focuses on what it would take to fulfil the criteria. It may mean asking the coachee what would be a quality outcome from their point of view. The job of the coach is to link the coachees mission to that of the team and organisation.

Bottom-Up - informal relationships
This perspective reminds you how important it is to build a rapport with the coachee. It's often about finding something you have in common, maybe a shared interest or a similar sense of humour. It's about making the coachee feel more comfortable within themselves and with you.

The things to focus on in face-to-face situations is body posture, paying attention, voice tempo and volume, etc. In e-mails the focus shifts to sensitive language and explaining your thinking. Matching the coachees style is obviously vital. Treating everyone the same does not recognise or value their diversity or promote inclusion.

Outside-In - the reality check
This perspective reminds you that whatever worked in the coaching context has to work out there in the real world as well. This often means rehearsing for a future possibility so the coachee is prepared for what reality might throw at them.

I remember coaching one senior manager who developed a plan for centralising the personnel activities of a large local authority, and another who developed a business plan for his organisation. Both proposals for action were detailed, rational and made a strong case, but they were perceived to be owned by them and assumed unquestioning compliance from staff and appreciation from customers. They received neither. The challenge for them lay in developing their proposals and implementing them by engaging others in an coaching approach. They had to think what it would look like and feel like for different stakeholders. What would they want them to see, hear and feel when the change was happening.

Inside-Out - multiple perspectives
Different people see the same things differently. Indeed, we are all motivated by different things at different times. This phenomenon is known as 'framing'. It is important that coach and coachee think about the frame of meaning they give to words, situations and events. It is then possible to explore what alternative meanings could be applied and how useful they may be to solving the problem.

Sometimes changing your behaviour is not possible unless you are prepared to think about things differently. This is known as 're-framing'. One valuable form of re-framing is to be solution rather than problem focused. See Solutions in Focus. Another is to appreciate what people do well, and see mistakes as valuable sources for learning..

As the old saying goes "If you don't like what you see - change the way you look".