To be an effective coach does not require you to be an expert in what the person wants to achieve but an expert in helping them to recognise they have the means within themselves to achieve it. Therefore coaching is about empowerment of the individual being coached. This is achieved through a coaching process which starts with the person having specific goals or outcomes they wish to achieve.  

Having established what it is they want, the next step in the discussion turns to establishing if there is the time to achieve it, if the goal is realistic from the current start point.

The next step is to look at what options the coaches has available to make it happen. What success will look and how we will know we have made it.

Th final stages would be about establishing the way forward and the will to commit to the plan, setting timescales and review processes. 

The coach guides the person by questioning, clarifying, summarising and actively listening, to help them better define what they want (i.e. the goal) and establish if 

it can realistically be attained within their expectations and from their starting point 

it is truly worthwhile to them

discover what is preventing them from realising the goal

discover what options they have to overcome these obstacles 

explore how they might best apply themselves in this cause

establish whether they have the resolve to make it happen

develop a personal action plan and review process in pursuit of their goal

Various coaching models exist that utilise this kind of process. Two well established coaching models are GROW and OSCAR which both follow similar patterns.

GROW:

Goal – what do you really want?

Reality – based upon where you are now is it realistic? 

Options – what can you do to make it happen and what are the merits of each? 

Will/Way forward – what will you do to make sure it happens? What is the way forward?

OSCAR:

Outcome – what goals do you want to set?

Situation – how does your current situation impact on this?

Choices – what choices are open to you and what would the consequences of each of these choices?

Action – what action will you take?

Review – how will you make sure it happens?

Both follow a similar pattern of questioning and discovery.

The coach should not hint or suggest a course of action or solution of their own as part of this process – it is essential that this comes from the coachee. This is where the coaching role is very distinctive from the mentor, advisor, teacher or instructor roles – you shouldn’t offer advice and you certainly shouldn’t tell them what they need to do. 

Coaching is a very powerful process as it helps the person being coached to realise they have the answers and by engaging in a coaching process/conversation they can uncover/unlock those answers themselves and as such become masters of their own destiny. Therefore coaching is the ultimate client-centred learning approach as everything comes from the client. If you like it is – getting the learning out of the client, rather than putting it in.

Lesson planning, delivery and evaluation (the process in action)

The aim of this section is to help you compare how you might undertake lesson planning, delivery and evaluation in the coaching role rather than in the role of advisor or teacher. 

Following a flexible course programme could be utilised in the coaching role but only if the learner had chosen to follow it in the first place as part of their solution to learning to drive. Therefore, at the start of the course you might use a coaching process (e.g. GROW, OSCAR) combined with your questioning and active listening skills to help the learner determine how they might best go about learning to drive. 

The likely obstacles would probably be their lack of ability, experience, money and/or time and the options would be the way they might go about gaining those abilities and experience following either your learning programme or indeed one of their own. Indeed for coaching to be utilised the learner need only consider what the first lesson goal should be with future lessons goals being decided as they went along trusting the coach to make them aware of when they had reached their destination. 

The pure coaching approach would be to have no formal programme of activities and have the coachee work it all out, but time is money, so we have some loose structures to help in this regard. It means we can place lessons into a hierarchy and have the coachee choose from various options. Basically splitting things into beginner, intermediate and advanced topics or subjects.

Another problem with not having a programme is the learner cannot track their progress as easily or know where they are in relation to the end of the process. Without programme to follow the learner would need to rely on you as the coach to tell them when they were ready for the test. 

Irrespective of whether you followed a programme or not every lesson would start with a coaching conversation to determine what they would like to do next. In particular, you would use one of the coaching models previously mentioned to help the learner 

• select a new goal(s) for the lesson, 
• recognise if the goal(s) where realistic taking into account the current situation (i.e. where they are now and other practicalities)
• discover what obstacles they would have to overcome or new capabilities they would need to develop
• establish what type of locations, training areas or routes or other resources would be useful assess what options are available to develop the necessary capabilities and or overcome the obstacles identified 
• agree a plan of action to follow and a way to assess success

If the learner is very familiar with the training areas at your disposal they may be able to finalise a plan without your suggestions. Similarly, if they have a good idea about the activities they would want to perform your experience in this regard may also not be required. However, this would probably be unlikely in most cases. We can utilise short repetitive routes that lead to the learner developing their ability to input at an earlier stage.

The key is to encourage the learner to see you as a resource as well as a coach and thus save themselves the trouble of becoming an expert in these matters. In this instance you would revert to advisor mode presenting any possibilities as suggestions or choices. 

Naturally if the learner knows the area well and can formulate a development plan of their own this would be fantastic. This might especially be possible if the learner reflects on the last lesson before you meet with a view to formulating a goal and developing a plan of action having checked out the practicalities first. In effect the learner would be developing their own lesson plan as a learning exercise in advance of each lesson.

Lesson beginning

At the start of each session you should encourage the learner to think about what they would like to do, what they would like to achieve, how you might work with them to achieve this and what might the risks to safety of any action plan agreed? 

The best instructors know their training areas really well and know the importance of breaking the learning down into small manageable bite sized chunks. To utilise coaching effectively this instructor experience is still very important, if for no other reason than to recognise whether a learner’s suggestions in this regard are viable. If not you would try to help raise the learner’s awareness of what would be viable using coaching questions rather then giving advice in this regard. 

Therefore the type of questions that you might ask before you start any session could include

• what would you like to work on today?
• what would you like to be able to do or feel better about by the end of this lesson? 
• do you think you can realistically achieve this?
• what type of tasks/activities, areas or routes do we need? 
• what might be a reasonable plan of action to follow?
• what might be the risks attached to this plan that we need to factor in?
• Who will be responsible for what?

As you can see these questions are identical to the questions of the traditional instructor role, however, you would just resist giving advice and be more faithful to following a coaching model (e.g. GROW or OSCAR etc) wherever this would be safe. These questions should ideally follow a reflective discussion about the last lesson/session/activity with a view to helping them finalise what they wanted to do this lesson, or this would be covered as part of the Reality phase of GROW or the Situation phase of OSCAR. When the reflective aspect is discussed first it might better be represented by another coaching model TGROW where the coaching conversation starts with a general discussion around the Topic of the session. 

This dialogue will also help you to establish if they are truly ready to undertake the proposed learning goals.  When we say ready, there are three kinds of readiness we wish for. Do they have the necessary ability knowledge, understanding and skills in place to effectively undertake the proposed activities. If not, is there a sub-set of these that we should tackle first? 

Do they feel confident they can tackle the activities they feel up to undertaking the proposed activities physically, mentally and emotionally. In coaching the readiness check would likely be posed as a set of questions which would help them to consider this readiness for themselves. We have the opportunity at this stage to help them with self belief by drawing attention to similar activities they have undertaken that involve the same skills set.

Lesson middle

Where you should be able to apply a coaching approach consistently is as part of a structured experience by helping the learner to determine an activity and thus a goal for which they can take full responsibility allowing them to benefit from the power of self-directed natural learning. You would avoid any directive support, especially during the activity (unless necessary for safety), and wait to be invited in if the learner clearly wants you to engage in a coaching conversation (e.g. GROW, OSCAR, TGROW etc) to follow their interests with a view to helping them figure out what is holding them back or what they would like to move on to next. 

Ongoing support should ideally be restricted to

• inspiring self-trust
• increasing non-judgemental awareness of what is

As the coach you should resist any invitation during the activity to give directive support and push any learner’s questions back to them – “What should I do?”…”What do you think?”. Even in the advisor role you would resist this if you felt the learner could figure it out but it is especially important in the coaching role. Naturally, if you felt a brief coaching conversation would help them discover this then you would help the learner explore this using coaching questions.

In the coaching role the learner should ideally be the one who decides when to pull up to have a review, unlike in the instructor role. It is helpful to have short repetitive routes agreed and also agree stopping points for review (perhaps one lap). These reviews are for the benefit of the learner to either sit in silence or to ask you questions or just to make a comment as the case may be.  In these circumstances the learner may want to stop but may feel they cannot do this without your permission – thus if you see this in their behaviour you might offer the opportunity by making a suggestion – “Would it help to stop and have a review?”. 

The learner may wish to give some feedback but it is more likely that they will be seeking feedback from you but be careful about offering your views or opinions, it can lead to the learner short circuiting their need to reflect. Try to be neutral and objective if you do input, and always ask permission “would you like me to feedback on what i observed?” then explain what you saw without any hint of judgement. Again see this as an opportunity to inspire self-trust to encourage them to evaluate things for themselves and express their own view in light of that process using a coaching conversation rather than giving feedback.

Lesson end

The learner should be encouraged to assess their own progress overall, as well as any individual goals from the session. They should then be encouraged  to look forward to the next lesson and to perhaps set provisional goals for that lesson with a view to having a provisional plan for the next lesson either within the framework of a formal programme or based on the potential activities they identified. 

Lesson evaluation

After the lesson you should immediately update your instructor’s reflective diary about how you felt the lesson went noting any key things you need to remember in respect to the learner for the next time. As part of this reflection you would also consider how effectively you used or applied your coaching skills. If you feel you need to make any changes to your delivery of the lesson make a quick note now and refer to it when you have more time to evaluate your performance in some detail. 

The learner should also be encourage to write a reflective log, or perhaps record their thoughts as an audio file. But at the very least we should be discussing their thoughts about the last session before the commencement of the next.

Main responsibilities

As a coach it is your responsibility to;

• develop your ability to build rapport and empathy, ask questions, actively listen, remain detached and non-judgemental to such a level that you can effective apply a coaching process such as GROW,  OSCAR or TGROW to follow the learner’s interests 
• learner-directed natural learning through structured experiences 
• know the training areas in which you work to such a degree that you can help the learner to develop a lesson or activity plan to suit their preferences and needs (within the boundaries of safety and practicality) 
• maintain progress records to enable you to have a good understanding of what your learner is capable of at any point in the programme and what remains outstanding help the learner review their progress at the end of the lesson, set a provisional plan for the next lesson including any useful pre-lesson preparation and encourage further lesson reflection using a reflective diary with the purpose of developing a plan for the next lesson
• help the learner structure any lesson or part thereof into a clear beginning, middle and end by discussing with the learner what they would like to learn, how they might like to go about learning it and how they would review that learning.
• inspire self-trust and increase non-judgemental awareness of what is 
• reflect on your own performance and any lesson you facilitate

Conclusion 

Coaching is the ultimate client-centred learning approach but it is also the most difficult to master. Therefore, while you should always try to lead with this role don’t hesitate to fall back on the instructor role as necessary until you become proficient in the coaching role. The more you use this role the less you will use the instructor role but it is unlikely to ever completely replace the need for the instructor role if for no other reason than you will need to move between these two roles until the learner totally buys into the full coaching process, which may take several lessons to achieve.