Coaching: permanent learning at its best

Today we are happy to offer you a guest posting from JJLer Sandra Heinzelmann. Sandra is a writer and business coach in Germany, and she writes at Creating a lifetime movie (Feed). Please welcome her with your joyful comments!
~ Rosa Say for Joyful Jubilant Learning

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Coaching for me is a wonderful synonym for the process of permanent, common and mutual learning. Coach and coachee always are both: teacher and student. The effects arising from that base are precious and various.

“What is the very best effect coaching can have?” This question was on my mind when I was professionally trained as a business coach in 2004. A thrilling process was going on then while I was seeking an answer that really satisfied me. Sometimes elder experiences suddenly unfold on a new level. That happened to me. In the early 90ies I worked as a freelance TV journalist and director for Germany’s public broadcast station called ARD. More than ten years later I received a truly inspirational gift. Guess, how? Well, it was very unspectacular: I sat on my stairs and fastened my sneakers when all of a sudden this idea popped up in my head: Dialogue Scripting! A coaching tool was born. More than that, it even was the headstone of a coaching concept. I learned that later.

Many coaches use fairy questions and their magic impacts on their clients. Dialogue Scripting is the “fairy of communication settings”. I derived it from screenplay writing. The idea behind it is that a coachee can influence every single word his counterpart says. Just imagine, millions of people dream of making others say something that they’d like to hear. They keep trying to control others. Dialogue scripting makes this dream come true. Designing his or her desired dialogue word by word provides insights in own needs and responsibilities for a successful communication. This tool works for both coachees and coaches. Therefore it is an appropriate technique for coaching and self-coaching processes. To write down the desired dialogue helps you to find out what you like to hear and how you would like to be treated yourself. As soon as you know that you can change your own communication in order to change the situation and provide what you long for yourself.

This idea of consciously designing the own communication gave birth to the concept of an inner dialogue director. And then the analogy unfolded in all its facets: (Business) life can be seen as a movie that is directed by us. Finally I found my answer to the question: “What is the very best effect coaching can have?” Coaching is successful when the client’s “inner coach” takes over responsibility for his or her issues. In my eyes this inner coach is less abstract in a role you can identify with: the (business) life director.

In detail this means:

1. You choose the plot, the genre and the title of your movie.
2. You write the script and dialogues day by day.
3. You cast the characters.
4. You set the light.
5. You are responsible for the tone.
6. You balance all this at your life movie’s set.
7. Director’s cut is the very essence of all.

Creating a lifetime movie clarifies that this is a real process, one that is going on as long as we live. Becoming the best life director in our own life is a challenge and purpose. For me this is permanent learning and teaching at the same time. The best effect coaching can have is learning and to make its effects last. This is what I call sustainability of coaching and that was what I had looked for while I was trained.

Sandra Heinzelmann
Author of "The 7 Secrets of happy and successful Life Directors - How to benefit from your Powerful Self-Coaching Gifts"

Comments

Thanks for sharing this with me Sandra; there is lots of insight in this piece!

[tim]

Hi Sandra. Thanks for your investment here at JJL.

I was recently thinking about what it would take to write a "great story" with your life. In most great stories, the difference between the hero and the villain is fairly simple - the hero will put the needs of others before his or her own needs. I keep trying to remind my life director of that everyday.

[Joanna Young]

Sandra, welcome to JJL and thanks for sharing these insights with us. As a coach myself I'm always interested in metaphors for the coaching process - and life as story (that you get to tell) is the one that I probably love the most. It's very similar to the idea of life as movie though - and I really enjoyed the way you expanded on the role of the director here.

"You set the light" is one that really struck me - sometimes I feel my outlook getting darker and gloomier, and this is a good reminder that we can take control of the way that we look at things. Your piece has got me thinking that I just need to keep an eye on that light dial - and adjust it when needed...

Best wishes

Joanna

[Sandra]

:-) thank you for your warm welcome and the feedbacks.

Tim, in my eyes sometimes the hero says "Yes" to himself or herself (which is a "no" to needs, demands or requests of others). I think this "need field" is one of duality and thus balance, too.

Joanna, yes, for me the light analogy is as fascinating as the dialogue impact. I consider those two the strongest in everyday life, followed by the inner casting agent.

... And sometimes even darkness is healing beyond fears: when it shows us the beauty of lights in our life. They shine much brighter in the dark. Therefore the lightmaster can also allow that the headlights are off for moments and stand it... when our director allows it. My 2007 reminded me of this.

[Steve Sherlock]

I love your insight: "Coaching is successful when the client’s “inner coach” takes over responsibility for his or her issues." I too coach, runners and the issue is the same. If they can accept that it is possible for them to achieve the time/their goal, then the rest is relatively easy. Then their 'inner coach' can accept the guidance and instruction I provide.

Welcome to the group Sandra. Good things will be created here and amongst this fine group of learners!

Honk! Honk!

[Bridget Aboussafy]

"Coaching is successful when the client’s “inner coach” takes over responsibility for his or her issues."

This quote reminds me of being taught that many (if not all) answers we seek are inside ourselves. If you keep asking questions this is a good thing! Ask yourself many questions, and don't forget to allow as many answers as possible to float up from the depths of your mind. Write them all down as they come, and when they stop coming, -then- go back and read them. You'll be surprised at what you can come up with.

And if the "writer's block" gets you and it seems like there's nothing coming, that's telling you that maybe you aren't currently asking the right question for the moment. You may have something else in the way. Ask a different question. Focus on the blockage. Ask your inner director why it's there, what's holding you back? How does the block make you feel?

The idea is to get yourself generating ideas/answers even if they seem off-topic at the time. Get a flow going. Later on you'll be able to see how everything is connected and why it came in the first place. Sometimes you can work an issue from a side angle and then work your way to being directly on track. The most valuable path over the big rock wall is not necessarily straight over it.

Write the answers to all down, and once the block is worked out, re-ask your original question! Sometimes your Inner Director really wants you to look at one issue before it will let you go on to another one.

I have observed with myself, that where life lessons are concerned, circumstances will keep looping and repeating until you "get" the lesson you are trying to learn - even if you are unaware of the lesson! Only then will you grow! Try to become aware of those lessons! With awareness comes the ability to help others along in their own journeys :-D