Coaching World Issue 19: Science of Coaching | Page 20
Promoting Change in
Your Coaching Practice
A model of adult change can provide valuable structure for your
coaching engagements, bringing awareness to specific areas
where blocks or resistance may be occurring and illuminating
pathways for deeper exploration.
Each of us is born with a specific personality, or temperament, that will have
a strong influence on our motivations and behavior patterns. Psychologists
frequently refer to these as trait behaviors. Experiences we have throughout
our lifetime overlay upon our temperament and bring about modifications in
behavior, developing what are described as state behaviors. If we are willing, we
may continue to explore our behaviors and evolve until the day we die. These
behaviors and the motivations behind them are the framework from which we
all operate.
Joel DiGirolamo,
Joel is ICF’s Director of Coaching
Science, where he leads the
organization’s efforts to develop,
curate and disseminate information
around the science of coaching. He
has more than 30 years of staff and
management experience in Fortune
500 companies and is the author
of two books, Leading Team Alpha
(PranaPower, 2010) and Yoga in No
Time at All (PranaPower, 2009). Joel
holds a master’s degree in psychology,
an MBA and a bachelor’s degree in
electrical engineering.
Kurt Lewin, an early social psychologist, observed how groups would evolve
through “unfreezing,” shifting and then “refreezing.” Individuals are no different.
Business trainers Edgar Schein and Warren Bennis utilized this concept in multiweek corporate leadership development retreats they developed in the 1960s.
Perhaps the most familiar and famous coaching tool emerging from these
developments is David Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle, shown below.
Coaches frequently use the learning cycle to promote a shift in a client’s
paradigm, values or self-identity. This tool encourages clients to observe
and reflect upon specific experiences. The idea is that the reflection will help
develop new concepts pertaining to that experience so that the client may
form new attitudes or behaviors in future experiences. Taken a step further,
organizational development and leadership development professionals have
applied this concept to situations where a client’s or organization’s paradigms
no longer fit and one must explore more abstract layers in their framework.
The Experiential Learning Cycle
20
Coaching World
Thomas Tkach
Thomas is a Research Assistant
for ICF, as well as a Life Vision and
Enhancement Coach, writer, artist and
entrepreneur. He holds a bachelor’s
degree in business administration from
the University of Toledo and a bachelor’s
degree in psychology from
The Ohio State University.
(Kolb, 1971)