Coaching is an underutilized approach to advising and an alternative to "counseling." Despite the diversity of approaches to academic advising and counseling, coaching actively engages four fundamental capabilities of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and harnesses EI more effectively than the other advising styles. Whereas similar advising approaches take technical queues from the academic field of positive psychology, this session will clarify key points of difference between similar advising approaches and techniques that coaching shares with formalized counseling interventions. A randomized study has shown a 5-10 percent student retention and completion rate when a coaching model for advising and counseling is implemented, an improvement much too significant to ignore.
4. What is Coaching?
1. Coaching works to enhance a persons
experience and capacity.
2. Meeting people where they are at while
maintaining an open and flexible style
3. Looks for the best fit for each interaction
4. Compassionate Detachment
(Objective Distance + Positive Intent + Domain Expertise)
5. Skills are shared across
the different levels. Skills
are blended to suit needs.
Distinct focuses make up
the points of departure
for each approach.
There’s a borrowing
effect for ‘techniques’
in Positive Psychology.
6. Coaching is the art of
creating an environment
through conversation,
and a way of being, that
facilitates the process by
which a person can move
toward desired goals in a
fulfilling manner.
7. Hearing our own voice
is more convincing
than hearing other
people trying to
convince you.
9. SOAR – Inquiry Driven Model
O A RS
Skills,
Skill Gaps,
Competencies
Abilities
Capacity
Successes
Vision,
Goals,
Targets,
Desired Performance
“Post“ Feelings
Plans,
Step-by-Steps,
Details,
Identify,
Obstacles
Accountability,
Willingness to accept
Responsibility,
Commitments,
Support people
SKILL OUTCOM
E
ACTION RESPONS
IBILITY
10. SOAR
S
Skills,
Skill Gaps,
Competencies
Abilities
Capacity
Successes
SKILL
Determining ability and capacity of student
What skills are current?
What skill gaps need to be addressed?
What competencies can be demonstrated?
Was there any past successes leveraging abilities?
What have you been successful at in the past?
Which approach is not working for you now that worked in
the past?
What do you foresee being a challenge?
What activities are you doing when you find yourself in “the
zone?”
11. SOAR
O
Vision,
Goals,
Targets,
Desired Performance
OUTCOME
What standards are holding you back from aligning your efforts
to your vision?
What is the primary outcome you will use to measure success?
What possibilities might be currently overlooked?
Who do you need to be to make your vision a reality?
What values do you need to demonstrate to emulate that
vision?
Who is participating in creating this vision?
How can you connect to the goals of the organization/system?
Do you have the necessary skills to accomplish the vision?
Who do you need to connect with to create a shared
responsibility?
Are your expectations aligned with skills and competencies?
12. SOAR
A
Plans,
Step-by-Steps,
Details,
Identify,
Obstacles
ACTION
Without an action plan, Coaching is just a pleasant
conversation.
Getting down to the nuts and bolts of what needs to happen.
Can we clearly and concisely map actions to each step toward
realizing the vision?
Are there measurements that can provide an idea of progress?
What standards need reevaluating to move forward successfully?
If you start with the outcome, how would your action plan change?
Even if you didn’t know, where would you start?
Who would you be able to collaborate with in order to make
progress?
What are you willing to say ‘No’ to in order to accomplish your
Action Plan?
13. SOAR
R
Accountability,
Willingness to accept
Responsibility,
Commitments
RESPONSIBILITY
How can a case be made for the benefits of committed efforts
to the cause?
Who has not provided input yet? (they might not be fully
committed yet)
What are you willing to commit to today?
How might we garner commitment from others?
Is the vision so lofty that it seems too abstract for full
commitment?
Are we watching the bottom-line and the results that we want?
How might we garner commitment from others?
Do students feel like they are supported as they deepen their
commitment?
16. Building Motivation
SELF-MOTIVATION Occurs when people make choices
for which they feel a sense of control.
INITIATIVE Connecting Voice to Outcomes
through committed and positive
language.
Coaching is positioned as a method
to transfer power via process.
POWER
18. Building Response Skills
Self-Awareness Includes accurate Self-
Assessments and increasing Self-
Confidence.
Self-Management
Includes recognizing emotions and
impulses for gaining self-control.
20. Self-Management
Trust Worthiness – We must be worthy
of being trusted, and be trusting.
Social-Awareness Demonstrate empathy
and positive intent
Building Trust
23. “Coaching also proved a
more cost-effective method
of achieving retention and
completion gains when
compared with previously
studied interventions such
as increased financial aid.”
Salient FindingBettinger, Baker (2011,2013)
Randomized study finds:
A) Coached student retention up
5 percentage points higher
than uncoached students.
(represents 9-12% increase)
B) Coached graduation up
4 percentage points higher
than uncoached students.
24. Benefits
• Student Retention Increases
• Student Completion Increases
• Focused approach for student
interactions
• Compassionate Detachment
• Positive organizational climate
• Enhanced interpersonal
communication skills
• Daily demonstration of many
institutional values
28. Thank You!
Thank you for attending this sessions and suppoting this work as the “Best of Region 8”
during the Annual NACADA Conference, in Phoenix, AZ - 2018. This was a great
experience and meeting each of you was one of the highlights of the conference for me.
I am humbled by the fact that many people attended my presentation, provided very
positive feedback and recognized these ideas as being valuable for the application of
Coaching to their professional development as Academic Advisors. I am by no means
perfect in my communication or delivery, and I appreciate all of the feedback responses
that have directed my attention to aspects of my presentation style that could benefit
from some careful thought, preparation, and improvement. Without feedback we would
never know how to improve, right?
If anyone would like more information, or to simply run through a couple of ideas,
please feel free to reach out.
30. ResponseStimulus
Between Stimulus and Response there is a space. In that space is our power
to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Viktor Frankl
32. 1. Must emphasize student developmental concerns.
2.Decision making process
Facilitated by communication and information exchange with the advisor.
3. Integrate academic goals with other life goals.
4. Develop student goals consistent with:
Interests. Aptitudes. Strengths. Background experiences.
5. Teaching function to help students use:
Rational processes. Environmental and interpersonal interactions. Behavior awareness. Evaluation skills.
6. Provide student with a “significant trusted guide or consultant”
This guide or consultant assists a student in articulating their purpose and life direction.
7. Coordinate student’s entire educational experience, to include:
Clarifying values. Providing information about educational options. Monitoring and evaluating progress.
Adapted from Arthur Chickering’s framework
Developmental Contexts
33. Glossary
Coaching – The application of skills and principles to conversations that provide the context within which change can occur. (see Tim Gallwey definition).
Unconditional Positive Regard – Holding the thoughts and world view of of someone in constant positive regard, i.e. they have value.
Motivation – The potential, energy and capacity of someone to initiate movement toward an outcome.
Trust – A quality, present in a relationship, that permits us to feel as if we can rely on our partner to consistently follow-through on what we are committing
to together, and the confidence that we place in our partner to keep their word. Simple
Responsibility – The feeling that we recognize when we are totally committed to our actions and take ownership of the resulting outcomes.
Powerful Questions – Questions that elicit and evoke deep thought, reflection and authentic responses – these usually will be open ended and begin
with What, Where, When and How. These power of these questions lies in their ability to transfer power in the conversation to the person who is responding
to the question. Inquiry drives all Coaching conversations forward.
Directive – Language that provides an opinion or thought of the speaker. Usually prompted by some form of judgment, no matter how light.
Non-Directive – Language that has the most non-judgmental flavor possible and allows the other person to respond in their own way, time and manner.
Compassionate Detachment – The ability of a Coach to build in some objective distance between their emotional attachment to the outcomes for
which the student will ultimately be responsible. This more than anything else, in my opinion, helps advisors avoid burn-out.
SOAR – Coaching model that Michael Heim follows during Coaching Conversations as part of method for Preferred Coaching LLC
Affirmation (MI) – Statements or gestures that recognize the student’s strengths and acknowledge behaviors that lead to positive change.
Summary (MI) – Helps to ensure that there is clear communication between the speaker and the listener. Transitions in the conversation are more fluid
when a summary accompanies the end of one topic and the beginning of another.
Open-Ended Questions (MI) – Questions that invite others to tell their story, voice their truth, speak to their understanding of things as they are.
Reflections (MI) - Reflecting the main point or feelings of the speaker to demonstrate that the Coach is listening.
34. Glossary
Theoretical/Clinical Approaches
Motivational interviewing (MI) – A psychotherapeutic approach that helps move a person away from ambiguity toward making change.
Positive Psychology – I like to start back with Carl Rogers and his approaches. It is particularly useful for advisors to read his book related to
education Freedom to Learn (1969).
Appreciative Inquiry – An approach to aid in challenging guiding assumptions of culture, raise fundamental questions regarding life and foster a
reconsideration of what we take for granted. AI provides the framework for Appreciative Advising.
Developmental Advising – A relationship in which life goals and personal growth are facilitated through intentionally engaging in an essential
process of caring for the development of the whole student. Coaching helps frame the conversation in which Developmental Advising is demonstrated.
Prescriptive Advising – An Advising approach that focuses on providing knowledge narrowly focused on academic requirements that helps a student
continue down a path leading to major/academic program.
People
Carl Rogers – Clinical Psychologist
William R. Miller – Clinical Psychologist
Coaching Models
GROW – Very famous Coaching model and process. Sir John Whitmore. Goal. Current Reality. Options. Way Forward (“Will”)
Co-Active – Coaching model and process designed by the Kimsey-House couple. Arguably the Holy Grail of Coaching foundations.
35. BRIEF
RESOURCE BANK
Freedom To Learn. (1994) – Carl R. Rogers
On Becoming A Person. (1995) – Carl R. Rogers
Education and Identity.(1970) – Arthur Chickering
“Academic Advising as Student Development.” (1982) –
Ender, et al.
“An Academic Advising Model.” (1994) -O’Banion. T
Developmental Academic Advising. (1984) –Winston, et al.
“Developmental Academic Advising.” (2005) –King, M.
“Developmental Academic Advising: A 10-Year Context.”
(2013) –Grites, T.
Certification Options/Requirements for Coaches:
International Coaching Federation (ICF) –ACC, PCC, MCC
Center for Credentialing and Education (CCE) –BCC
Text Resources:
“The Effects of Student Coaching.” (2011) Bettinger &
Baker.
Co-Active Coaching. (2007) -Kimsey-House, et al.
Coaching for Performance. (2009) -Whitmore, J.
Coaching Employees.(2015) – HBR
The Coaching Habit.(2016) – Bengay-Stanier, M.
The Coach U Personal and Corporate Coach Training
Handbook. (2005)
“Coaching vs Therapy: A Perspective.” (2001) –Hart, et
al.
Motivational Interviewing. (2012) – William R. Miller
Notas do Editor
What I want to accomplish with sharing this information is to provide a point of departure for anyone that would like to develop deeper relationships with their “advisees.” (I would say students but the fact of the matter is that Advisors are often in a situation that requires them to leverage their expertise to address people that are not students. And they often do this in a way that is different for everyone.) There is something to say about structuring our lives; and for that matter, there’s something about providing structure in how we approach our work with other people that allows them to understand us more consistently. What a structure can do for us is to place a framework around what each of us does during our interactions with other people.
I know that I am at my best with others when they are able to be themselves, verbalize their commitments and then leave the interaction with me feeling good about having met with me and having shared their honest opinions and best self with me. The reality is that each of us communicates as our primary means of letting people know who we are and what is inside of us. Communication can take many forms, and each of those methods of communication can be used to declare and clarify our intent. (It’s really the only way that people let each other know what they are truly about.)
In the end I hope that everyone will be able to come away with a firm understanding of the core of how Coaching and Advising are not too distant from each other and in fact the divide, if there were ever one at all, is more narrow than we might think.
Why Coach then?
We Coach to make a difference in the world. (Masterful Coaching, 65) When people hear that they usually think the WORLD. But, think about the story of the Boy saving the starfish. He begins his walk on the beach after a storm coming across an innumerable amount of beached starfish that will dry out and die if not thrown back into the ocean. Someone meets him along their walk along the beach and question his motives because there is no possible way to save all of them, therefore his efforts are seemingly futile and don’t matter. The boy then responds that it matters to this one, and continues to throw individual starfish back into the ocean.
That story is moving to me. You see, this is a story about a reality that we all face. When presented with the overwhelming responsibility feel when we would like to help the world, some of us feel like the stranger in the story – that our efforts don’t matter. Which is a smart approach to the dilemma. Some of us feel so moved with compassion that we can’t resist the urge to reach out to comfort and provide aid to those in need. Which is a noble effort.
Why Coach then?
The journey to becoming an effective coach is driven by passion, commitment, and zeal. It calls for leaders who recognize that the highest leverage in the adventure of pursuing the moral imperative to become someone with intelligence, someone of value, is to elevate their concerns to making an Impossible Future happen that makes a difference in the world. This can occur only if people let go of being the hero and being the center of the action and focus on developing the next generation of leaders in the process of getting the job done. It’s about applying that compassion, helping others live in the most fulfilling way possible while getting the job done.
I Coach because when I look at a student, I see the future people that I will need to work with or keep in touch with…maybe my future Boss…?
(MSFW’s occupy some of the most marginalized spots in our society, facing some of the most marginalizing challenges in our country, vying for the most marginal chances of procuring a basic and foundational security in life for themselves and their families.)
Listening: “I found that if I listened long enough, I was able to call forth from myself the insights that would help people achieve the impossible and change their lives.” (Hargrove 67)
In the “Using questions as an Advisor” they talked about the questions that you can ask students.
Could I share with you what the requirements are for making this happen? (Permission) Can I continue to be a part of your support system?
Do you have questions regarding your academic requirements or academic probation?
Tell me what you know about your academics?
What’s on your mind? What are you checking on? What are your goals today? Is that all? Is there anything else?
How do you feel now? Did our meeting meet your expectations? What are your thoughts on the plan we can up with? How do feel about what your doing?
AT UNC- Greensboro use the model SPARCK – Story, Purpose, Aspiration, Reflection, Connection, Kick Start.
FSU seems to have a slightly less defined method of Coaching.
There is something about Coaching that goes down to a 4 step process:
S-P-A-R-C-K
G-R-O-W
G-O-A-L
C-O-A-Ch
S-O-A-R
There are so many. Think about what LaShae Roberts from FSU said. Students are some times resistant or also ambivalent to joining up with Coaching – as if this is something that Coaches have to do separately. She also said that students find that after the 8th meeting they will see an increase in retention – “somewhere between the 8-12th meeting based on tailored meetings with students.” I take a slightly distinct position from which to help a student experience Coaching does not require a specific number of meetings to be effective. In fact, I am saying that you are able to start people down that track in 2 – one to set the path together, and two to look back on progress and push ahead. From there it is likely that, as Coaches observe, that students will find value in the Coaching.
SOAR
S – Skill – Skills.
O – Outcomes – Hargrove, Masterful Coaching,
A – Action –
R – Responsibility – Sir Ken Whitmore – Responsibility is embedded in coaching in a way that is more explicit than in other approaches.
A student learns as much from an Advisor’s quality of being as from the Advisor’s knowledge and technical skills. (Hargrove, 75)
Think about this train of thought: Self-Confidence is an active factor that increases Intrinsic Motivation. Being motivated is also a determining factor in the transfer of information from one person to the next. NACADA stresses the notion that Advising is a process by which information should be transferred between individuals. For this transfer to happen Self-Confidence must be increased – affirmations (MI technique), demonstrations of Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) – and tied directly to Motivational activities that can and will then fuel the underlying emotional drivers that push people toward higher performance.
“Confidence in one's abilities generally enhances motivation, making it a valuable asset for individuals with imperfect willpower. This demand for self-serving beliefs (which can also arise from hedonic or signaling motives) must be weighed against the risks of overconfidence.” (Intro – Bénabou & Tirole. “Self-Confidence and Personal Motivation.” 2002) Because of the disposition for Self-Confidence to become Over-Confidence this balance requires a deep understanding of Emotional Intelligence (EI) competencies and careful monitoring to make sure that and individual balances this binary in a manner that contributes toward successful implementation of Confidence.
When we are looking at specific things to do for students to increase motivation we can look at the following formula: Build self-Confidence + Build Motivation = Intrinsic Recurring Motivation.
The caveat Motivation is fleeting. There is something to say about Motivation being fleeting. To that I refer back over to Zig Ziglar, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.” If ideas and motives are fleeting but they have value for moving people toward a positive and meaningful horizon, then by all means rinse and repeat. This is OK. There is not a better way sometimes. What happens when you have made it to the top? Many choose to repeat making it to the top again, and again, over and over. Think or practice for an athlete, or climbing Mt Everest.
You might be surprised at how different each attempt to rise to the top is – mostly because we are all human and experiences are not perfectly remembered and as each of us attempts to overcome our imperfections we face new obstacles and circumstances over and over again. However, if we approach our Advisor relationship as a hygienic relationship, then we will have no problem repeating the motivating process of Coaching each time a student walks through the door – because we are trying to meet a student where they are at, when they are navigating their life at that specific moment in order to help them make Actions plans for which they will develop full responsibility as they move into the future toward a new horizon on a daily basis.
Motivation requires that we are able to re-spark that feeling of motivation over and over again. But that good feeling is fleeting. And it is only fleeting because you have to actually do something with that energy that you are tapping into in order to make sure that you moving toward the end goal that you have set off in the distance, in the future.
It feels good to listen to motivational speeches, do motivating fun activities, connect our actions to our feelings. It “tastes” good to us. It’s like eating dessert. It’s really easy to eat a dessert, and it is also something that we decide to start putting at the front of out before the real nurturing food. Our psychological appetites can be conditioned just like our body can be conditioned. Think about that. It becomes much more difficult to hold yourself to a regimen or nutritive substances when you are programming yourself, day-by-day, to eat things that taste good. Some of us like to listen to things that get us pumped up and then we don’t “eat our vegetables”. We leave that for another time and our minds become conditioned to seeking that out first. Let’s be clear there’s nothing wrong with dessert. But should it become the central part of your plan for nourishment? I would reinforce my mother’s wisdom and say, “No.”
Coaching is like the dessert, here. I’d like to position it that way, for now, within that metaphor. There are really great Core competencies that we all have and utilize throughout our interactions with people and students.
Things that I need to work on:
One example is that I sometimes don’t listen as deeply as I should or not at all. One recent conversation with my wife, she was supposed to drive me up to campus and I agreed that I would wait and she talked to me about 30 mins later and said that I could take the car and would just come back to get her and my daughter and take them when I get back. The first things I did was not let her finish and then tell her that I didn’t appreciate the way that she made me wait and didn’t follow through with what she told me she was going to do.
I will sometimes not set up the conversation with certain people. Long standing clients and student relationships make us feel comfortable about our interactions. This is a trap that we might fall into, and the interaction will go less smoothly. I have not touched on every step of the Coaching process and the interaction has been less fruitful.
I have failed to utilize some coaching skills that are shared with Non-Directive and Non-Evaluative language claims. I also have to be mindful of the space that I take up in education as a white male, that is fairly big and athletic, have a beard, etc. I need to rely on these skills to help guide the conversation and evoke the feelings necessary for conducting a great coaching conversation.
Coaching is something that enhances your interactions with people.
It is not something that you have to learn super extensively in order to develop a better approach to your advising. It is something that you might be able to do in 10 – 15 mins and help people start to think about how they are perceiving themselves and the world surrounding them.
Motivation is an emotional response to interactions with other people.
Most of these interactions are intrapersonal or interpersonal conversational moments. The language that we use to communicate with students is of the utmost importance when we would like to set up a climate for getting to the heart of the matter.
When we talk about internal standards of excellence for our students and connecting them to the same, we have to truly confront the need to connect with that standard of excellence.
I see this especially with our minority students. If you ask them if they all want to succeed, they will tell you yes and couple that with some of the prerecorded reasons that we all hear. If you show them a statistic that demonstrates the reality that most of them will not graduate, and even less so if they are male, then you begin to see that they begin to think about their engagement and their standard of excellence. In the end as they see that they all think they are going to be successful in education and then they all tell you that they know someone that has dropped out of college and is not attending anymore, or has not complete their degree and are “just working” you will see that the majority of them know someone in that situation and that they might actually be that person in 1, 2 or 3 years. Our underrepresented students are underrepresented not primarily because we don’t get them into the institutions where they have services and staff awaiting them, but more so because they are leaving. These are unfulfilled expectations that they have and they need people to help them navigate that reality. They need someone to demonstrate the qualities of how to overcome that reality just as much as they need food, clothing, books, tuition, friends and support staff.
Daniel Pink – Smarter, Faster, Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business. Psychological Safety. That people can express their ideas without “judgement.”
Original Slide Content:
Self-Motivation occurs when people make choices for which they feel a sense of control.
Can they control the outcome of that decision. This provides a feeling of accomplishment.
Connect their choices to their goals and deeper values.
Coaching is positioned to increase motivation.
By transferring the power within the relationship to the student through Powerful Questions, recruiters can elicit self-motivation.
Can you truly convince someone to do something?
Have you ever noticed that you can tell someone what to do and they still don’t follow through? It is most likely because people are much better at convincing themselves what they should believe and what statements to value. To convince people of something, make sure that they are hearing their own voice commit to the Outcome and the steps that they are going to take to reach their goal.
To increase motivation try this: (Starting with Unconditional Positive Regard)
Reward someone when they take initiative and develop a plan. (Creative)
Reward people when they figure out ways around obstacles and “get it done.” (Resourceful)
Congratulate and recognize (affirm) when someone demonstrates self-motivation and follows through. (Whole)
Remember, many of our students aren’t afforded opportunities to witness someone that trusts them, values their contributions, and provides them with moments to take control of their choices.
John Whitmore – Coaching for Performance, (223) “Self-Responsibility is what coaching is committed to delivering.”
My beginning thoughts here are based on the fact that we need to talk about responsibility and feeling responsible for our own destiny. We need to believe that we are able to become the creative force in our life and also feel connected to ourselves with that deep feeling of ownership over our life. It is far too easy to make up excuses and not do something – it’s simple really, it just requires less energy to not do something. That’s what makes it so enticing – to “do something” like decide that we don’t want to do anything, we don’t actually have to do anything. We just stop.
This is part of the Coach’s approach to working with a student. “People are more convinced by their own voices. If that is true, then our students need to say these things and start to verbalize their intentions. This is a mental formulation of a plan of action and one of the first steps to being responsible. In an advising model, if there are accurate and helpful notes about what is expected of the student after a conversation, then what we are doing is providing a means to hold the student accountable for their next steps. That clear communication between institutional representatives is necessary to ensure that we are able to demonstrate to the student that we care about their progress and we are paying attention to what they are saying.
EI Competencies (EI) for responsibility
What you are looking for as a Coach is essentially the recognizable outward behaviors that students are exhibiting through the conversation that you are having with them. If we look at the Emotional Intelligence Competencies (EI) that we are looking for in leadership qualities in individuals, I think they align with what we are trying to do.
Self-Awareness
Emotional Self-Awareness
The ability to read and understand your emotions as well as recognize their impact on work performance, relationships, and the like.
Accurate Self-Assessment
A realistic evaluation of your strengths and limitations.
Self-Confidence
A strong and positive sense of self-worth.
Self-Management
Self-Control
The ability to keep disruptive emotions and impulses under control.
Trustworthiness
A Consistent display of honesty and integrity.
Conscientiousness
The ability to manage yourself and your responsibilities.
Adaptability
Skill at adjusting to changing situations and overcoming obstacles.
Achievement Orientation
The drive to meet an internal standard of excellence.
Initiative
A readiness to seize opportunities.
Social Awareness
Empathy
Skill at sensing other people’s emotions, understanding their perspective, and taking an active interest in their concerns
Organizational Awareness
The ability to read the currents of organizational life, build decision networks, and navigate politics.
Service Orientation
The ability to recognize and meet customers’ needs.
Social Skill
Visionary Leadership
The ability to take charge and inspire with a compelling vision.
Influence
The ability to wide a range of persuasive tactics.
Developing Others
The propensity to bolster the abilities of others through feedback and guidance.
Communication
Skill at listening and sending clear, convincing, and well-tuned messages.
Change Catalyst
Proficiency in inviting new ideas and leading people in a new direction.
Conflict Management
The ability to de-escalate disagreements and orchestrate resolutions.
Building Bonds
Proficiency at cultivating and maintaining a web of relationships.
Teamwork and Collaboration
Competence at promoting cooperation and building teams.
Declaring your intent: “What you are doing and Why you are declaring it.”
Two parts to declaring intent
Declaring
Purpose and intention.
The opposite is to fail to declare your intent. Hiding and disgquising your intent. Over promising.
Assume Positive Intent
Based on the principles of trust
The opposite is…lip service to positive intent, but operating with hidden agendas, creating illusion, and sneaking behind their backs to check up on them.
Sharing the Why behind the what makes a strong difference.
We judge ourselves by our intent, but others by judging their actions.
Sharing the what and why will help people understand the actions that they are observing.
Behavior increases trust.
On a finite level, people are going to decide if they can trust you and can respect you as a representative of the institution.
Therefore, declaring intent to trust someone and then why you are extending that trust, quickens that.
Work toward clarifying expectations.
Citation(s) from Miller’s Motivational Interviewing on Trust: Chapter 2 - Why have we added compassion to the other three elements of MI spirit? Because it is possible to practice the other three in pursuit of self-interest. [We mean to] say that psychological knowledge and techniques, including those described later, can be used to exploit, to pursue one’s own advantage and gain undeserved trust and compliance (Cialdini, 2007). To work with a spirit of compassion is to have your heart in the right place so that the trust you engender will be deserved.
Hargrove (87) makes the declaration that, “To find the cure, you have to stand for the person’s success, have a sharp eye to distinguish the breakdown, and have enough domain expertise to know what’s missing that, if provided, would produce a breakthrough.” The key here is the mention of domain expertise. It is a slight shift in thought based on finding what’s missing from the student’s (client’s) process that, if provided, would make the difference for them and provide a breakthrough. This approach reframes the focus on surmounting challenges to not focusing on the fact that there are failures and setbacks at times to what could be added to the formula that would help make their approach successful.
Trust is an underlying operational premise when you are Coaching. Part of the reason for this is that there is no way that we can sit in our offices or even walk around campus during our 8 – 5 workdays and control student behavior. The goal then is to trust students to connect their
Trust
Smart trust actions:
Choose to believe in trust.
You beliefs and perception of how trust will operate in the world is what will ultimately
Start with self
Declare intent and assume positive intent in others:
This is similar to Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) that we have learned about in
Do what you say you’ll do
Lead out in extending trust in others.
Coaching is one of the most acceptable skills for human growth. (Coaching for Performance, Whitmore, 225) It is a different way of viewing people, a far more optimistic way than most of us are accustomed to, and it results in a different way of treating them. It requires us to suspend limiting beliefs about people including ourselves, abandoning old habits, and liberate ourselves from redundant ways of thinking. (225)
Regulations and processes don’t serve to build trust, but the way in which someone is able to
You should declare an intent to your students. This starts to develop a framework for how students can expect to work with you. “I am here to help.”
“I trust you.” “I know you are making a good decision.”
Acts to extend trust based on regulations (Smart Trust, Covery)
Continental Airlines
Always use good judgment
Increased autonomy, Increased freedom of expression, enhanced trust.
Student Coaching from the Anft article on Oklahoma – 13 % increases?
Wallace State Community College – 14% Increase in Graduation
Compassionate Detachment:
Acknowledging a persona freedom of choice typically diminishes defensiveness and can facilitate change, This involves letting go of the idea and burden that you have to ( or can make people change. It is, in essence, relinquishing a power that you never had in the first place. (Miller, Motivational Interviewing, 3rd Ed, 2014, 19)
Thus, our power in helping others rests in the ability of how good we can persuade, convince and allow people the freedom to work through their own decisions. Coercing or mandating that someone do something sows the seeds of reticent reactions to the opinions/knowledge that we are attempting to transfer.
Concluding words - Helen Keller: “ I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
What I want to accomplish with sharing this information is to provide a point of departure for anyone that would like to develop deeper relationships with their “advisees.” (I would say students but the fact of the matter is that Advisors are often in a situation that requires them to leverage their expertise to address people that are not students. And they often do this in a way that is different for everyone.) There is something to say about structuring our lives; and for that matter, there’s something about providing structure in how we approach our work with other people that allows them to understand us more consistently. What a structure can do for us is to place a framework around what each of us does during our interactions with other people.
I know that I am at my best with others when they are able to be themselves, verbalize their commitments and then leave the interaction with me feeling good about having met with me and having shared their honest opinions and best self with me. The reality is that each of us communicates as our primary means of letting people know who we are and what is inside of us. Communication can take many forms, and each of those methods of communication can be used to declare and clarify our intent. (It’s really the only way that people let each other know what they are truly about.)
In the end I hope that everyone will be able to come away with a firm understanding of the core of how Coaching and Advising are not too distant from each other and in fact the divide, if there were ever one at all, is more narrow than we might think.
(Anft, M. “Student Needs Have Changed, Advising Must Change, Too.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. July 6, 2018.)
Coached students at Oklahoma show a 13-percent increase above the predicted rates for retention of at-risk students. Student-success efforts overall, including academic coaching, have helped to raise the university’s retention rate from 86 percent in 2015 to 92 percent this year, Smith says.
"We’re asking advisers to do more and more: get involved in enrollment, recruitment, retention, a growing list of issues that a student might have. It’s a huge shift in the field,“ says Kathleen Shea Smith, associate provost for academic advising at Oklahoma.
