NLP Coaching

When coaching anybody the below coaching behaviors, applied consistently and with integrity, will help you to gain rapport, to explore and understand “the model of the world” of your interlocutor. We like to be acknowledged and understood. Sure you will build up rapport, listen to the answers given and ask Meta Model questions.
Understanding and seeing the world “through the eyes of the other” will help you to further influence him by using the right levers. Ultimately you both win! And PS: You will notice eye-accessing cues as they occur and use them to the speedy benefit of your coaching practice. And you will apply all the body-language techniques learnt earlier, don’t you?NLP Coaching

Steps to familiarize yourself with in NLP Coaching

1. Deep listening:

pay attention to the whole person, let her finish the thoughts and stay with the pace of the person especially during the process of gathering information. Use your sensory acuity to detect the verbal and non-verbal responses of the person. Remember, the behavior you see is the tip of the iceberg. NLP Coaching

2. Use open questions:

What, who, where, how, when, what are the reasons for, etc? Pay attention when using “Why” as this triggers defensive behaviors many times. If you want a dialog help yourself and open up the other by giving him opportunity to answer with more than yes or no …

3. Summing up what the speaker said

Before responding to ensure you got the message as intended! The meaning of communication is the result you get. Also, check what and how your interlocutor understands your message. It saves you of potential misunderstandings. NLP Coaching

4. Challenging:

when you have rapport with the speaker and know your highest intention and outcome for the interaction (e.g. higher performance) this might be the right thing to do to help somebody progress…

5. Supporting:

After you understand the motivators of the person, use them, also to create a win-win context.

6. Clarifying:

ensure people have a clear understanding of what is expected from them, this means also defining the issue/problem in solvable terms. NLP Coaching

7. Break time:

When confusion is present a person is on the verge of learning something and a pause for reviewing might be the best thing to do in that moment.

8. Reviewing:

Keep yourself and others on track towards the goals. Change happens anyway but progress is a very important motivation factor to people. NLP Coaching

What to look for while Coaching?

Value maximizing behaviors/linking them to coaching behaviors. Think in terms of progress  (is this behavior helping me to progress?)

a) Endeavoring for stretching goals (clarify, sum up, challenge, reviewing).
b) Focusing on creating value and solutions (clarify, challenge, break time, review)
c) Dialogue with others to better understand current performance(ask open questions, challenge, sum up, support, clarify, review).
d) Review for where you are now. NLP Coaching
e) Search and find the learnings and where you can utilize them in your activities to create progress (open questions, sum up, support, clarify, review).
f) Contribute and share your learnings so others can benefit (deep listening, clarify, review, break time)
g) Dare to grow and step up, life rewards those of us who dare.

What to do (suggestions)?

a) To maximize your learning focus on one, maximum two behaviors, in one period.
b) Practice, practice, practice until they become your second nature. When you feel confident these are integrated in you go to the next one!
c) Start with less challenging situations and work your way up as you gain more confidence.
d) Ask for feedback from people. At the beginning choose people that do not have an agenda, and as you become more confident increase the number of your feed-forward corespondents as desired.
e) Enjoy as this is something you do for yourself and be confident it will pay off in various areas of your life(e.g. imagine successfully practicing deep listening, clarifying and supporting with your spouse and children; how would this impact your relationships?). This will create more choices for you in your responses to various situations. Having them practiced and integrated in you will allow you to act out of choice and not impulse.
f) We learn best when we teach others and so you could teach those behaviors to others.
g) Lists these behaviors on a small card and put it on your desk as a reminder.
h) Be in competition with the you of yesterday! How much better are you today? And more important, how much pleasure can you stand?

To your success and remember to leave people and your business in a better place that how and where you found them, every day!

About Mind Tools

Mind Tools provides NLP Practitioner and NLP Master Practitioner Trainings and Certifications. We educate you according to the renowned, latest and highest standards set by the Society of NLP. We will train you thoroughly in all the corners of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and some extras we learned from Richard Bandler directly.