My personal coaching experiences with indian corporate leaders - A Dozen Insights

1. My Personal Coaching Experiences with Indian
Corporate Leaders - A Dozen Insights by
Sandeep Kaul
Some points from my personal experience of working on coaching enagements
with Indian corporate leaders. Have worked for me. Take them if you find them
suitable for your style.
Its all about the coachee – Get them in the action..it’s of the coachee, for the
coachee and by the coachee….I am a lazy coach so my coachees do the triple
immersion in each session. They make personal notes after each session,
before each session, they send me their notes and focus areas for the session.
The third area is something I think most of the coaches won’t be doing….I get
the coachees to write the action points and give it to me…This triple sundae is
quite effective and enjoyed by all the coachees…for me it was born out of
compulsion…for a client, i had to do 4 coaching sessions back to back on a
weekly basis…so it was a efficiency tactic which turned out to be effective too !
Briefing from the Manager – Normally, I like the CXO (manager of the
coachees) to brief me outside the office, sometimes it can even be the tea shop
outside the office. the best briefings come out of office cabins. Give it a try
once.
Coach should share his learning – I recently during a coaching engagement
got a coachee to develop a very effective delegation cum developmental plan
for his team. I told the CEO that he should rollout this delegation plan template
for all team managers. He was concerned if I would charge for it. I said, please
use it gratis and let all managers enjoy this gush of energy. So a coach should
be open to sharing. The more you share, the more you generate abundance.
Psychometric Tests – Lot of coaches use psychometric tests. MBTI seems to
be preferred test by most of the HR folks. My personal opinion is FIRO-B is a
better choice for two reasons 1. Its relatively simpler for the coachee to
understand (remember its all about the coachee) 2. Most of the issues (in
corporates atleast) stem from interpersonal effectiveness rather the self. This is
purely my personal opinion. DISC is also a good starting point. Bear in mind,
the tests are just a small part of the process, the key element is whether the
coach can create a trust, so that the CXO feels comfortable in inviting the
coach into his/her personal space.

2. Coaching Session Timing – Atleast first two sessions should be 2 hours long.
Helps build the trust and coaching connect. Lot of coaches are very obsessed
with the 1 hour time limit of coaching session, which might not be appropriate
for the initial sessions.
Develop the Strong Areas – Normally, the coachee identifies areas which he
need to develop in which he may be average. You can also get the coachee to
pickup one strong area of his and ask him, how he can take it from good to
exceptional. Lot of the coachees will have difficulty/confusion on working on
this goal but the results will surprise both the coach and coachee. Also the
coachees seem to love the challenge of working on making something better,
which they already are good at !
Silence – giving the silence space to the coachee is so every important.
Sometimes speaking too soon by the coaching can disrupt the coachees
thought process. Its like waking somebody who is in deep sleep.
Coaching Tools – These are good frameworks but some coaches depend
more on using the tool than working on their coaching presence or connecting
with the coachee. Its like operation successful but patient dead.
Mentoring - Business leaders do look at some mentoring advice from the
coach, so it helps if the coach has a strong business experience. The typical
mix of coaching session for me breaks up into Coaching - 80%;
silence/reflection space - 10%, Mentoring - 10%.
I have also learnt if the coach can become “invisible” in the coaching
session, then the coaching effectiveness really leapfrogs.
Coach should be ready to get surprised…sometimes after a series of good
coaching sessions, the coachee does things which you couldnt visualise…I
recently had a client who had a fear of driving car in city and he started driving
his car one fine day…that was not the primary goal of the coaching
engagement but nonetheless a surprising byproduct.
Summarise each session – Keep enough time for summarising each session.
Dont hurry it up. Its very very important, its like putting a full stop after the
sentence. If you dont do it, for the coachee, their will not be a sense of
completion to the session.
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