19 PART THREE - THE 5 STEP COACHING EXCHANGE Step 1 - Identify Identify Discover Strategize Clear the Way Recap Listening In this first step the coach draws out, with active listening skills, what is going on for the coachee and what the coachee wants for themselves. This is where the coachee unpacks the situation, opportunity or challenge. Often during this part of the coaching exchange, the coachee is trying to convey an elaborate and complex situation that forms as a story. It is the coach’s responsibility to move the ‘story’ forward into discovery, learning and action. After the coachee has unpacked the general overview of their coaching situation, the coach will need to let the coachee know, with active listening skills, they are getting the contextual essence of what the coachee is trying to convey. With reflective listening and paraphrasing, the coach lets the coachee know they ‘get it’. While it is necessary to get a contextual idea of what is happening with the coachee, it is not necessary to know all the details. It’s easy to get caught up in the story itself and miss the opportunity to move the coachee forward into action. As a busy leader, your informal coaching exchanges may only be a few minutes long due to time constraints, so it is important to get the exchange moving forward quickly. Once the coach feels they have identified the contextual essence of the coachee’s situation and the coachee feels that the coach has sufficiently understood their situation, the exchange enters into identifying a gap. This would be the gap between where the coachee is at the moment with the situation and where they would like to go. This is done using active listening and clarifying questions, which are based on and built upon what the coach is hearing. Once the gap is identified, the coach then evokes a succinct focus and desired outcome for the coaching exchange from the coachee. That succinct focus will have to be manageable within the time frame you have available for the exchange. That may mean the desired outcome might have to be reduced down to one small step forward versus completely solving a complicated situation or fully exploring and making a decision on an impending, complex choice to be made.
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