What are the most popular personal coaching tools used in business today?

Not sure of its popularity but I recently participated in a webinar given by Thasunda Brown Duckett, CEO of TIAA. She shared how she used the Investment portfolio concept to manage her life and business activities. You define a portfolio for a specific objective and as you progress in life, you rebalance the portfolio to ensure you hit your life target, whatever that is. Key concepts that matter from that perspective are Diversification, risk tolerance, goals, research, patience, discipline, liquidity, review, adapt, long-term. If you apply this in coaching, it is easy for the client to relate and apply it to their personal and professional endeavors. You just need to swap investment vehicles for time, energy or any other critical variable

It is an acronym for Goal, Reality, Options, and Will. The first step is to identify your goal by clarifying what you want to achieve. Next, assess the reality of your current situation. Understand where you are now. Then explore your options for achieving the goal by considering different strategies. Finally, determine whether you have the will or commitment to take specific actions. For example, if you want to start a small business, GROW will help you define your goal, like launching a website; understand your current reality, like having limited technical skills; explore options, like taking online courses or hiring a web developer; and commit to taking action.

With linear problems, GROW can be really powerful in reaching a way forward. However, coaching isn’t always about hammering straight to the solution. When was the last time you were truly listened to? Did it help? Facilitating a space for reflection and consideration without the accountability of a perfect solution can be a tricky thing to do. But this might be the approach that’s needed! Whether you use GROW, SWOT, Circle of control, Wheel of Life, NLP methods or Acceptance and Commitment Coaching, it’s vital to create a space that is coachee focused and coachee lead.

In my experience I have found the GROW model easy to incorporate into coaching / development conversations in such a natural way. Asking questions in each stage easily draws out self discovery and commitment to the solution. Most of the time when used effectively, they don't realize that the Model was followed.

Gosto muito do Modelo GROW, na verdade, utilizo um aperfeiçoamento que é o W-GROW onde há uma revisão do plano de ação no início de todas as sessões. O interessante é que neste modelo, podemos incluir outras ferramentas como SMART, SWOT, 5W2H e Feedback. O GROW é uma excelente opção para desenvolver no coachee a consciência, a responsabilidade e a confiança, gerando nele autoconfiança, autorresponsabilidade e comprometimento para realização do plano de ação.

SWOT analysis is another interesting tool that is used for evaluating Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Weaknesses. This tool enables teams and organizations to understand their strength, that is where they are doing well. Weaknesses: Area where they need improvement on Opportunities: Potential available opportunities they can leverage Threats: what is standing in the way or success eg, competitors, knowledge gap etc

Matriz de perdas e ganhos e análise SWOT são excelentes ferramentas para usarmos em processos de coaching e mentoria. Promovem reflexão e autoconhecimento indispensáveis para a tomada de decisão.

I think of the SWOT analysis like a helpful map. Together, we explore your strengths, sort of like polishing gems. We also look at your weaknesses, but instead of seeing them as problems, we see them as opportunities to grow. We approach new chances with a positive outlook, figuring out how to reach them. Even things that might get in the way become guides, helping us make your path stronger.It's not just a tool it's like a friend on your journey of figuring yourself out. Each time we meet, we peel back layers, slowly uncovering all the different things you can do. SWOT analysis isn't about judging; It's like a mirror reflecting your unique mix of strengths, things you're working on, dreams, and things to be careful about.

Johari Window can help a person to know what others see as strength in him/her. One definitely has to play with his strengths and convert take upon the opportunities.

What I like about a SWOT Analysis is this tool/strategy can be applied to other business applications outside of personal coaching. This helps to reenforce the practice and keeps it simple.

I love the wheel of life! And the reason I love it, is its versatility when using the tool. You can surely have a wheel of "Life" and look at your areas of focus across all important elements of life, but you can have a wheel of "Leadership", a wheel of "Finances", a wheel of "Personal Development" and suddenly it becomes an extremely powerful tool for growth and for setting goals that will motivated you and that you will be committed to. And on top of that, I love the visual aspect of it. Being able to remind ourselves regularly of where we are and where we want to be. Keep it on your desktop or on the fridge, and give yourself that boost of confidence when you move forward with your goals!

The Wheel of Life is often my go-to tool when working with mentees. Its versatility is remarkable. It allows us to take a holistic view of various facets of both career and life. By breaking down our lives into segments important to us, we gain valuable insights. It helps us see where we're thriving and where there might be room for improvement. It's not just a tool; it's a compass guiding us toward balance and fulfillment in our personal and professional journey.

In the business context, the Wheel of Life can be applied as a personal coaching tool by the coach to assess the work-life balance of the coachee. A business professional/ coachee scores aspects like career/ work, relationships, and well-being on the wheel. Each segment has different scores. If a segment, such as work, scores low, the coach helps identify strategies for improvement in that area. By evaluating and understanding the areas that need attention, professionals can prioritize and make required changes. This leads to enhanced overall fulfilment and effectiveness in personal and professional lives.

Wheel of life is a nice visual representation of present condition & it helps to measure progress holistically. Advantage is, it can be used as a focused tool for anything, say career transformation coaching in my case. Career satisfaction, skill, work-life balance, finance, Networking, leadership opportunities etc., can be included in it, and boom the initial condition is established. Quarterly evaluation helps to track progress after coaching.

The advantage of the 'wheel of life' tool for professionals is getting the overall balance of elements that sustain us - work, health, family and friends, and adequate resources. There are different versions. I use one that splits the income section into savings versus salary - a helpful differentiation and helps people see the potential in financial planning - in work and in life. My clients often find one of the segments gives them insight into something that may have been avoiding or neglecting - often holidays or reflection time. The tool can be used at various intervals to check back on progress. We don't need to tackle all of the segments at the same time. We can prioritise what matters now and return to the less critical gaps later.

My preference for coaching or mentoring is the feedback model. It requires a fairly well-developed Emotional Intelligence. Granted, it needs a a good rapport to be built between the two parties before you see the benefits. But isn't that the whole point of having a mentor/mentee relationship? I have used this with my mentees in the past for some great results. This model also aligns itself really well with the AGILE mindset - Propose, execute, reflect, and iterate. That said, it is important to have regular touchpoints to build a rapport. If time is a resource that one cannot afford, as it usually is, I would rethink the use of this model.

Encuentro realmente interesante esta herramienta, en el ámbito profesional tanto como en el personal. Entender la apertura que genera el expresar una situación que fue detectada como oportunidad de mejora, la responsabilidad de quien está sugiriendo haciéndose cargo de sus palabras y el compromiso de quien acepta el acuerdo, es VALIOSISIMO. Un trabajo en equipo con todo para ganar!

I believe that constructive criticism or feedback is needed to improve in any job role. The four steps describe, express, suggest, agree allows for a situation which needs to be improved to be raised professionally by the coach or manager. This leads to an overall agreement between the parties to ensure that the individual is aware of which actions they need to take in future to fulfil expectations.

There are many feedback models I have both experienced (as a more junior employee) and that I have used as a senior leader. Done well, this is useful. But there are some prerequisites: * You need to really know your employees - it's not useful if you or they are fairly new to the role * This model works more effectively, if you know deeply how your employee thinks and their level of emotional intelligence. The main disadvantage of the feedback model, is that it is usually only used 1 way - i.e The leader gives the feedback and there is no 360 feedback used.

The SMART framework is used often in business and employee objective setting. Whilst it's not a method limited to coaching, it is very useful to ensure objectives are appropriate.

SMART Goals provide a good guide for developing goals; however, to truly be SMART, they need to be Motivational. Therefore, change the M to Motivational and the T to Trackable. Then involve the performer in setting goals and determining accomplishments that serve as leading and lagging indicators of progress toward them. This will help to make them smarter!

Tomarse el tiempo para definir los objetivos específicos es una responsabilidad del coach. Puede que haga falta más de una reunión para definir los objetivos.

One thing I learned while studying through the Health Coaches Academy which I've found really helpful is adding an E and an R to the end of SMART Goals so the acronym reads SMARTER Goals. (HTCModule2coachingmodels Workbook 300120-200203-070448). The E stands for Exciting: the Goal must be enticing and inspiring for the Coachee. The R stands for Rewarded, the Goal must offer a clear reward (intrinsic or extrinsic) in return for the Coachee achieving it. The SMARTER Goals tool allows for the Coach to check with their Coachee that their Goals are really SMART and that the Coachee is confident, inspired, motivated and committed to achieving their Goals.

As Mentoring touches the personal aspect of the person, every goal cannot be SMART. Based on what the person expects from the mentor and how the gaps are identified, there is a possibility that some aspects are explored with open mind and no absolute objective.

5 Whys is a simple and effective tool to find root cause of a problem. This can be applied to uncover real reasons, deeper motivations or real obstacles thus easing the path to solutions. It makes no assumption and is a great reflection tool that can be used for self-coaching too. How 5 whys work? 👉Start with a statement; a problem or a goal. Ex."I want to improve my communication skills" 👉Ask why? 👉Listen to the answer. Ex."Because I want to present my ideas better" 👉Ask why? Ex."Because I want to influence decisions on my team" 👉Keep asking why until you can identify real motivation. In this ex, we may identify that coachee might be looking for skills for negotiation or influence. This was difficult to get from original statement.

It may sound philosophical, simplistic or whatever yet i would share that the tool is not as much important as how and for what it is used. The 2 most important tools in my opinion are THE HEART and THE MIND. I do use in my Empowerment Coaching practice all the tools mentioned in this article and the in the valuable contributions, yet my first and last to go are my heart and my mind. I use also values assessment tools as part of the self-knowledge jouney. Recently i shifted to the one used by the International Academy of Values-Inspired Coaching. Yet again, the most important is to understand that most of us coaches, do not come with one size fits all ready to plug and play solution. It depends on the specific challenges of each coachee

Personal knowledge management (PKM) plays a vital role alongside organizational knowledge management (OKM). The integration through the OAPI process creates a dynamic relationship, allowing the transformation of organizational knowledge into a personalized context and vice versa, enhancing the overall knowledge ecosystem within a business. This reciprocal flow contributes to effective knowledge utilization and innovation.

I encourage people to lead a meaningful way of life by loving who they are, loving what they do, and striving to make a difference in the lives of others each day. By serving the needs of others first, we serve our own needs.

Not sure if this is the space for it, but I highly recommend BetterUp for all things coaching. It changed the trajectory of my career.