Helping People Change — Summary
Helping people change is one of the best book for people to learn how to help others. Whether you are a teacher, manager, parent, healthcare provider or a coach- this book will give you solid guidance. Author tells inspiring stories of coaching with compassion to illustrate how power of your dreams is the key to make positive changes.
We all need help to make important changes in our lives and work and to learn new things. The book will show you how to help others more effectively. Anyone who wishes to help people will find an important guide here including a number of practical exercises to develop your helping skills.
The most common mistake people make while helping others is the take the problem center approach, they try to fix other people and focus on the gaps between where they are and where we think they should or could be. People start fixing the problem as soon as they start hearing the problem and other person doesn’t open fully when you start fixing them. You have to listen more and speak less when you are trying to help, you have to avoid stating obvious and “I told you so” attitude.
My coach referred me this book when I told him that I want to improve my helping ability as a leader. Also, I want to become a coach and help others effectively. This book provides lot of case studies, lot of exercises to practices on yourself and maybe some close people. If you cant help(coach) yourself, it will be difficult to help others. So, check out this book and definitely try the exercises.
Coaching is partnering with an individual or group in a thought provoking and creative process that inspire them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
Coaching with Compassion — It’s based on Intentional change theory where Coach or the person trying to help shows compassion and nudge positive emotions in the individual to create sustainable, desired change. There are 5 discoveries of this theory -
1. The ideal self — Personal Vision
The first step in helping people is to help them make conscious choice and begins with exploration and ideation of ideal self, answering such questions as “Who do I really want to be” and “What do I really want to do with my life?”. They should be encouraged to reflect on their core values. Core identity and what they see as their calling or purpose in life. Put simply, Personal vision is an expression of an individual’s ideal self and ideal future. It encompasses dreams values, passions, purpose, sense of calling, and core identity. It represents what one wishes to be. Use these questions to think — “How would your life and work change if you won a lottery of $100Mn?” OR “ If you are living your ideal life after 15 years, how does that look?”
2. The real self
The second discovery of intentional change process involves helping them uncover an accurate vie w of their real self. It’s not just about Strengths and weaknesses but helping them identify more holistically and authentically who they are relative to who they want to be as expressed in their personal vision. Coach should help people recognize their real self, both how they see themselves and how others see them. Coach helps coachee by improving Self-awareness- Internal Self-awareness(how they see themselves) and external awareness(how others see you). One can use Johari window exercise to identify the known strengths and weaknesses and most importantly blind spots. One should use 360-feedback to get the authentic feedback. Now, wherever their ideal self and real self matches, that’s the strengths and where it’s not matching, that’s the gap and developmental area. A good coach first focus on the strengths to make environment more positive and then address improvement areas.
3. Learning agenda
The third step is crafting a learning agenda. A Coach should help individual recognize that If they continue to do what they’ve always done, they will continue to be who they’ve always been. The key task for coach here is the awakening the desire to change. Asking more positive questions and using personal vision. A good coach doesn’t start on weakness and just plan for those only, whereas a good coach focusses more on strengths and push for how strengths can be utilized more to push for ideal self. A coach helps one reflect more on strengths to be in positive state and eventually, that positivity helps one improve on weaknesses too.
4. Experimentation and practice
This is the fourth discovery where coach encourages individual to continually try new behaviors and actions, even if they don’t always lead to intended outcome. Experimentation efforts sometimes fail, and that’s okay, that’s the nature of experimentation. If it doesn’t work, coach should encourage to try again or try something new. The key is continually experiment and once individual finds what’s working for them, then coach shifts these efforts into actual practice and practice until it becomes part of identity. One shouldn’t rush in this step, it’s one of the most important and patience discovery of ICT. Regardless of the time that’s necessary, coaches and other helpers should encourage individual to practice behavior they hope to solidify. This is the discovery where lot of people stops coaching and don’t show patience to try things and try one thing at a time. Remember, change is a process and a slow process.
5. Resonant relationship and social identity groups.
The fifth and final discovery — a helper or a coach helps people recognize that they’ll need continued assistance from a network of trusting, supportive relationships with others. While the connection with coach or helper is one of resonant relationships, individuals should also have others they can turn to for support, encouragement and sometimes accountability. We often refer such a network as personal board of directors. Such network of trusted supportive relationships can also help us move forward if we become sidetracked or lose energy or focus around our desired change efforts. These networks helps people get beyond their blind spots and provide a reality check.
Its important to create a culture of coaching or helping in families or in organizations. In families, people should encourage one another by helping. In organizations, it’s important to provide effective resources for people to ask for help and reach out to coaches- be it peer to peer coaching or hiring external trained coaches. I believe, in today’s times, L&D should focus more on 1–1 coaching along with training programs most of organizations run.
In the end, We all help one or the other person, so why not learn how to help. Thanks for reading! Appreciate your time.
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