Non-Directive Coaching for Complexity an introduction.

“Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership”

International Coaching Federation (ICF)

Coaching at its simplest is about having conversations with purpose. Although the ICF has its definition of coaching many coaches around the world have described coaching based on their own views and use it as a support function that exists on the broader spectrum of help.

Non-directive coaching is one of three schools of coaching. It is distinguished by its constraint of not directing coachees (clients, staff, partners, teams) on the development of their own strategies, actions, and plans.

The non-directive school of coaching is pragmatic and is most commonly associated with co-creation, curiosity, exploration, sense-making, meaning-making, empathy, and listening. The school is most famously associated with the International Coaching Federation and its Core Competencies.

Contents

1. Introduction

As Charles Brassard states, adults learn best when they anchor their learning in what really matters to them and their community or organization. Most people don’t coach in a non-directive way, or they learn to do it and stop because they have not discovered what makes non-directive coaching personal for them. For most people, their non-directive coaching journey typically begins because:

• they are curious about non-directive coaching, so they tried it,
• they are told to attend non-directive coaching training, or
• they are told to use a non-directive coach as a support option.

For those who are curious about non-directive coaching and decide they are ready for it, they tend to start their journey because they want to look inward at their own self as a way of coping with their external environment. As they move through a non-directive coaching relationship, they begin to develop their own answer for another fundamental question that must be answered by any individual who wants to use non-directive coaching:

Why Coach?

By making non-directive coaching personal we shrink the internal constraints that we put up to safeguard us from change. Through non-directive coaching, we are in a better place to see how our fears, values, and beliefs impact our ability to make sense of our environment, develop meaning, and make decisions. Moreover, non-directive coaching helps us manage external constraints that might creep up and hold us back from innovation and creativity. Organizations and communities that want to weave non-directive coaching into their culture non-directive coaching must:

• make sense within the context of how the organization or community came to be;
• make sense in the context of their emergent and prescribed networks;
• make sense in the context of their external relationships;
• have meaning to everyone involved with the organization or community;