Make something out of it

Without implementation and perseverance, there will be no results. But how do you keep at it? How does the coachee manage to keep the focus high and ensure that they keep at it? How does he manage to observe his experiences, thoughts, ideas, progress, milestones, and goals to make learnings transparent and establish new ways? After all, it is in everyday life that the coaching results have to be implemented and tested.

I, therefore, accompany my clients very closely during the cooperation. As science has discovered in the meantime, the brain does not learn by repetition alone, but above all by DOING. This is precisely the secret of coaching: it is not just about learning and repeating. On the one hand, the purpose of coaching is to acquire new knowledge (e.g. about leadership), but it is crucial to acquire new skills to solve problems and achieve goals that help the coachee move forward.

According to Lee Iacocca's motto: "Learn all you want, but then, for heaven's sake, don't stand around, do something with the knowledge. Apply it, do something with it!"

That's what it's all about for the coachee: getting into action, putting it into practice every day - applying it, feeling whether the strategies worked out work in everyday life - always! Sustainable. The question of whether we succeed in integrating new skills into our lives in a sustainable way depends above all on whether and how regularly we apply what we have learned and on the intensity with which our brain stores the change—the more intensive - the more successful.

Just as we remember our first car ride alone or the day 9/11 happened - that's how our brain works. If a new piece of information has a high intensity when it enters the brain, it is immediately networked and anchored and needs no repetition at all. High intensity of entry is given, among other things, when the "right" feelings are involved, the whole thing makes sense, and an experience is associated with it.

In practice, this means: In the best case, the coachee associates a "right" feeling with a behaviour change - considers the whole thing to make sense and associates a (preferably good) experience with it. In an implementation, this looks like this, for example:

A case study from my coaching practice

After cooperation marked by personal injuries, Herbert S. - director of a medium-sized IT company - asked his managing director for a fresh start. The goal: a feedback culture of responsiveness. The focus: regular responsiveness to issues that had repeatedly led to injuries on both sides in the previous years. The result: To achieve this regularity, Herbert S. asked for a 5-minute reflection before EACH Jour fixe (which takes place every fortnight) as a result of his executive coaching session.

The back story

The CEO highly appreciated Herbert S. because of his long experience, high loyalty and analytical skills. Therefore, the CEO had entrusted him with a new project - where the two had to work closely together. Herbert S. felt honoured on the one hand - on the other hand; he was afraid of working together. The leadership style of his boss was getting to him. He was criticised again and again - often with very hurtful words. So he came to me for coaching. Through the LINC Personality Profile Check, he found out that he is basically a profoundly relaxed person. His high level of relaxation used to drive his boss up the wall. No wonder, if you know the effect of relaxation - as it is aptly described in the LINC Personality Profiler: "Relaxed people tend to put off annoying, unpleasant or difficult activities as long as possible. They often work on several tasks at the same time." This is precisely where Herbert S. found himself. He was always putting off decisions - often for too long - until they had a noticeable negative impact on the operative business. He became aware of this in the coaching process.

The solution

In the regular check-ins on the topic of responsiveness before the jour fixe - from now on, both took it upon themselves - to directly address things that were bubbling in the background and to make their backstage transparent in the process. Herbert S. saw significant meaning for himself in this approach. He had suffered from a bad relationship with his boss for too long. He, in turn, let himself in for the 'adventure', as he initially called it. Herbert S. left the coaching with a 'excellent' feeling and was looking forward to the experience of improved cooperation. The resulting long-term coaching success was possible above all because Herbert S. had committed himself and regularly implemented the options for action that we had agreed upon in the coaching.