Use this when you want to understand how people’s capacity to perform can be affected by internal as well as external influences.
Tim Gallwey used sporting analogies to demonstrate how coaching can be used to unlock a person’s potential to maximise their performance. His main premise was that it was ‘the opponent in one’s head’ that was more formidable than any external obstacle.
His basic philosophy is summed up in the formula:
Performance = Potential − Interference
Gallwey argues that, the main task of the manager as a coach is to reduce or remove the ‘Interferences’ that block the individual from reaching their optimum levels of performance. In order to achieve this, he suggests that a manager must engage in three stages of conversation. These can be summarised as:
Awareness: The stage where the situation is clearly defined and understood by all parties.
Choice: This is the development of conscious perception which involves broadening the vision of how to get to a desired outcome.
Trust: This is where the manager and individual being coached have unshakable faith in each other’s capacity to deliver the goods.
Gallwey was perhaps the first writer to suggest a simple but comprehensive method of coaching that could be applied to almost any coaching situation. His ideas have influenced a number of leading exponents of business coaching. He defines ‘really good coaches’ as those who make the people being coached believe in themselves, their values and their capabilities.
Achieving this level of coaching won’t be easy. You need a mindset that acts as a framework for everything that you do. This includes: a good understanding of how people learn, your methods of communication, your motivational techniques and your value structure. Don’t be fazed by this – these are attributes that you can learn!