Reflection on Peer Coaching-The Seventh

Peer Coaching with Mrs. Faiza Ikeda

March 19, 2009, I had my seventh peer coaching with my peer coach, Miss Faiza and she gave me our talking summary as below, which I would like to share with you.
My wins for the previous week:
~ Exercised 3 times (running) and went cycling once - This is a great achievement, James!
~ My personal life is getting better
~ Coaching - the ICA classes are quite OK now, I am used to it.
~ Also I was able to attend a learning circle in Taipei with other people who joined ICA at the same time.

At work, I am still finding it difficult to lay people off. And yet I would like to challenge myself in this, to practice: When I feel that something is the right thing to do, even if somebody gets a disadvantage through it, I want to do it because I believe that by doing it I might be able to help them get an opportunity to find a better job...

Maybe I will use inner conversation technique to practice this more.

Changing ours or our client's perspective:
Q: How do you do it?
James: I use my personal imagination. When I lay someone off, I imagine this person half a year later in another place, happier and smiling...

Combination of asking questions: What advantages does the old perspective have?
What disadvantage does it have? Or what is it costing you? Also I will ask the client to visualize a successful situation with the new perspective in the future. There are so many things I feel grateful for. Even though the economic situation in general is not very good right now, I am aware that I am very fortunate having your family and the job that I have. Also I feel that my life is better compared to others because I use coaching to balance myself. I believe that coaching can really make people happier.

Taking away from this session:
~ Every time we coach, I feel more energetic afterwards
~ Visualization
~ Karen Cappello ( The ICA chief learning instructor) and the idea of inspired, authentic action
~ Understanding that you want to have more coaching skills in order to be able to help more people

Committing for the next week to:

~ Create a list of my strengths as a coach
~ Think about my coaching role models and their qualities (You spot it, you got it:)
~ Practice more shifting my perspective for the situation at work
~ Keep running and cycling (my goal is the 5km run)

My acronym, rainbow logo and SWOT presentation are great steps in this direction!