[Neurons] The CEO who took Meta-Coaching

[meta]

From: L. Michael Hall



THE CEO

WHO TOOK META-COACHING





You would think that only coaches, consultants, therapists, managers, and personal development enthusiasts would attend Meta-Coach Training. That's the group that I assumed would be our participants when I first got into this training. But no.

Entrepreneurs creating their own businesses came. So did people in sales- real estate agents, those in marketing, sales managers. And so did CEOs- some who were in charge of thousands of people. But why?

What's in Meta-Coach Training that would get Chief Executive Officers of major corporations? What would draw them, engage them, and even fascinate them about coaching and Meta-Coaching? Over the years (2002 to 2007) there have been 15 to 20 CEOs at Meta-Coaching that I have been aware of. Why did the come and what did they get? Here's some of the stories that I know about.

Systematic Approach 

One CEO was really, really impressed with the Matrix Business Plan. That happened in South Africa and so excited was the CEO that he brought his CFO and several times during the training, instead of doing some of the coaching processes, they found a private area where they spent time working out how they could use the Matrix to re-format their departments. They thought the systematic approach to developing a Business Plan that included not only vision and mission (meaning and intention), but also state (attitude, mood, emotional intelligence) that then connected it to identity (self), assets (power), relationships (others), time, and context (world) was fabulous. At the end of the training they said that the Matrix Business Plan alone was well worth the investment they made in the training.

People Management Skills

Another CEO discovered something very personal, first to his shock and dismay, then to his delight and excitement. When he heard about the seven core coaching skills, he thought to himself (as he later reported to us), that this would be "a walk in the park." That's because he just knew that he had already developed his communication skills and already was excellent at listening and giving feedback.

His shock came as he got feedback on his listening and supporting skills. And his dismay came when he learned about real feedback and effective feedback that made a transformative difference. His dismay was that he got a "1" on his feedback skills because it was full of judgment and mind-reading statements. But that dismay turned to actual joy and excitement when he got additional feedback about what he could do to take his skills to the level. That gave him a specific template for giving feedback, which he tried on, and when he did, he felt an explosion of delight within himself. This is what he told us about his experience:

"For years I just knew that I was highly skilled at giving feedback. But what this course has shown me is that I wasn't giving feedback at all -not sensory based feedback that people could actually use to improve. I was just 'straightening them out,' and telling them what to do, not really being a 'mirror' to what I had seen or heard. This is incredible; this will change everything, and I already can feel that I have become a transformative leader through this process."

As you probably can tell, this CEO was committed to his own growth and development, and his previous skill in "judging" and "advice giving" was not due to having "control issues" or anything like that. He had just never seen real feedback that met the seven conditions of effectiveness that we present in Meta-Coaching. Yet when he did see it and experience it, he was so passionate about becoming the best leader he could become, he immediately and openly took on the new skills.

Structure 

Another CEO had literally tens-of-thousands of people reporting to her in a government division. For her, the big "Aha!" in Meta-Coaching was the structure that we provided her in each of the dimensions. There was structure in the seven core skills, structure in the process of facilitating generative change at the individual and group level with the four axes of change. There was structure in thinking systemically with the Matrix model. There was structure in Benchmarking, in the Meaning/Performance axes of the Self-Actualization Quadrants.

For her, this took the guess-work out of things and gave her a format or template. And that meant that using coaching as a managerial style was not "an airy-fairy" thing that required that she operate "from the seat of her pants" just hoping that what she was doing would work. At the end of the training, she explained,

"I resisted coaching for several years because the first three experiences I had involved being coached by someone who I could tell had no real idea of what to do. He had no structure so it felt more like a stream-of-consciousness therapy session. In the end, I really didn't get much from the coaching."

What really turned her on about Meta-Coaching was "the question." That's the question we use from the beginning of Coaching Mastery as we explain the objective of Meta-Coaching as being able to thoroughly answering the question:

How do you know what to do, when, with whom, and why?"

Persuasion

Another CEO who came to Meta-Coaching wrote in his final evaluation that what brought him and what delighted him was the skills and processes in Meta-Coaching for increasing his persuasiveness with people. And for him it was learning about frames.

"I never thought about persuasion in terms of frames before. I always thought of persuasion in terms of subtleness, charm, and presentation. When I took APG and learned about frames, I was sold. Then learning about the Matrix Model in Meta-Coaching took it to a whole new level, but what really did it was the distinction of the FBI questions [Frames-by-Implication]. I never realized that questions could be so powerful in setting forth ideas and influencing people so profoundly."

Actually, while all of that sounds completely positive and wonderful, this particular CEO actually had a very rough time during the first three days of Coaching Mastery. The benchmarks he kept getting for listening, supporting, and questioning were 0, ½, and 1. Why? Because instead of attentively listening and being present to support the clients he worked with, he kept interrupting, telling, advice giving, judging, etc. During the feedback he also had a hard time just hearing the feedback and being with it. He fended it off saying, "I was just trying to get the client the outcome he wanted."

And indeed, that was his positive intention. He really did want to be influential and persuasive with the people he worked. But his style was so direct, in-your-face, and confrontational that everybody experienced it as "controlling, disrespectful, and even insulting." That's when the Team Leader, who was giving the feedback, asked, "Have you ever received this kind of response before?" 

And sure enough, he had. In fact, it was because of that that he signed up for the coaching course. His heart was good; he just wanted to be effective and influential, but his style-his style was the problem. So the Team Leader coached him about that. "What's your frame of mind about your client, about him or her getting the outcome, and your role?" And when the CEO discovered his frames and then quality controlled them, being as sharp and intelligent as he was, he immediately recognized the inadequacy of those frames.

A coaching conversation is very influential and persuasive. That's because a coach enables a client to find the answers and resources from within. And of course, when a person finds his or her own solutions- they are the person's. They do not come from the outside, they come from within. That makes them more memorable and empowers the person to fully own them. And this style makes it so that there's nothing to resist!

Leadership

Another CEO discovered that the methodology of coaching offers refined leadership skills. It was obvious to her with the seven core coaching skills. While that was not new to her, it did give her a whole new approach to refining those skills. But what was new to her and absolutely fascinating was the leadership skills in the Axes of Change. In that model she discovered that her unique niche and passion as a change agent leader.

The Axes of Change model in Meta-Coaching is the only generative change model in the field of coaching that it not based on therapy models of change. Distinguishing healthy people from people who are sick and not healthy, who are dysfunctional or neurotic in some way, we built the Axes of Change upon the premises of Self-Actualization Psychology. That is, supposing that a person is already "up to average," "okay" within him or herself, no longer living in the past, and with plenty of ego-strength to take on the challenges of life-how does a psychologically health person change and think of change?

How does a person who is a change-embracer change in contrast to a therapy client who typically resists change? And how does a person committed to his or her own growth, to kaizen, take ownership of change in contrast to the population for therapy who tend to relapse? The Axes of Change model is designed in such a way that these two problems, resistance and relapse, just does not play into the formula.

For this CEO this was great. So the vision of the two loops of change, the preparation loop of motivation and decision, and the actualization loop of creation and integration gave her a new appreciation for the eight coaching or leadership roles as a change agent.

Summary

Even CEOs attend Meta-Coaching and the reasons they come are not unique to them. They are also the same reasons that others similarly invest their time, intellect, heart, money, and energy. So while we call it Meta-Coaching and have formulated the program around "coaching," the actual skills are those that facilitate the highest quality of communicating, transforming, leading, managing, influencing, and making a positive meaning in the world.



Author:

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. co-developed Meta-Coaching with Michelle Duval and is now developing a full set of Meta-Coaching books that covers the 7 models of Meta-Coaching and the Self-Actualization Psychology upon which it is based. www.meta-coaching.org; www.neurosemantics.com; www.self-actualizing.org.



Meta-Coach  Training in 2008:



1) Mexico City, Mexico

               Coaching Mastery in two parts (Part I and Part II, four days each) in May and June: 

                May 14 and June 18 -- Team Leaders Days 

                May 15-18 and June 19-22 

This is co-sponsored by Salom Change Dynamics and Reencuadres NLP Training Center. Contact Marisa at Reencuadre: 

                Tels. 5662-2661 y 5662-0257 

                contacta at reencuadre.com 

                Marisa at reencuadre.com 

2) USA --- Colorado             Modules II and III: Coaching Genius & Coaching Mastery in Grand Junction, Colorado

            July 1-3 APG

            July 4 Team Leaders Day 

            July 5-12 Coaching Mastery 

            usa at meta-coaching.org for flyer, registration form, details on hotel and airlines. 

                (970) 523-7877. FAX: 1- 970 523-5790 

3) New Zealand -- Auchland 

Sponsored by Ignition - Modules I and II Coaching Essentials and Coaching Genius will be delivered there several times during the year, then Coaching Mastery in September. 

                Sept. 18 Team Leaders Day 

                Sept. 19-26 Coaching Mastery 

                Contact Lena Gray, Director, Ignition, INSNZ 

                027 4774 561 http://www.ignition.org.nz



4) South Africa --- Pretoria 

Sponsored by People South Africa in October. Throughout the year there will be many opportunities for Coaching Essentials and Coaching Genius. 

            Oct. 23 -- Team Leaders Day 

            Oct. 24-31 -- Coaching Mastery 

            Contact Cheryl Lucas for details. cheryl at peoplesa.co.za 

            Cell : 083 267 1412 

            Tel: 012 362 6542 

            Fax : 088 012 362 6641 

            Skype: meta coach www.psacoaching.co.za www.meta-coaching.org

     

For more information about Meta-Coaching and to see the Color Brochure, go to 

www.meta-coaching.org 











L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Ltd., Executive Director
ISNS - International Society of Neuro-Semantics
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, Colorado, 81520 USA
www.neurosemantics.com 
www.meta-coaching.org
www.self-actualizing.org 

Email: meta @onlinecol.com @acsol.net @mindfocus.co.za
(970) 523-7877
(970) 523-5790 FAX
(877) 686-2867 toll free in the USA only
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://eight.pairlist.net/pipermail/neurons/attachments/20080507/93cd83a6/attachment.html>