The School of Coaching Blog Archive

Conversation with Myles Downey and Debbie Hallett from Integral Leadership Review.

Myles Downey was interviewed by Debbie Hallett from Integral Leadership Review about what coaching is and how it works in a line management context? Debbie asked Myles a number of questions around the subject of coaching from defining what coaching is to how coaching contributes to leadership development. Myles also talks about the Integral Approach and the Four Quadrants of Coaching.

To find out more read the whole conversation with Myles Downey by clicking on the link below.
http://www.integralleadershipreview.com/archives-2010/2010-06/2010-06-interview-hallett.php

Below are some of the questions asked in the interview:

1. How do you define coaching, especially in the context of leadership and the work place, where you do most of your work?
2. How you see the role of coaching contributing to leadership development?
3. What motivates people, their values and beliefs and how that affects their commitment or their energy, or if they’re doing the right thing at the right time? Is that something that you’ve discovered as well or has your experience been different from that?
4. How does The School of Coaching then attempt to bridge this gap between creating the ideal coaching culture where the leadership team is au fait with all of this, and the reality that what you’re likely to get is a team of maybe self-selected, interested people, sponsored by HR, to learn coaching skills.
5. We see how Ken Wilber’s work and the four quadrant approach have influenced what you do. But I don’t know very much about how Tim Galway’s work in the inner game has defined The School of Coaching and Myles Downey’s approach to coaching. I wonder if you could share a little bit about that.
6. Can we talk about The School of Coaching and your expansion and the change that you’re undergoing now? Could you summarize for our readers about where you started and what you’ve been through and where you’re headed now?

For us, coaching is about the set of skills that are about enabling another to perform to their best, deliver business results, to learn and develop, and finally to enjoy themselves in doing that. It’s our experience that if the enjoyment isn’t there, then the performance isn’t there and then the learning begins to erode. So, those three: performance, learning, and enjoyment, all need to be present.

What makes a good coach and what makes an incompetent coach? 
Liz Scott interviewed Myles Downey at The School of Coaching.

As you will probably remember from the blog in July, Myles Downey was interviewed by Liz Scott and her husband from Coaching Connect. They cycled from Devon to Edinburgh and back interviewing esteemed coaches on their journey. Liz travelled to The School of Coaching in Chiswick to ask Myles his views on what makes a good/bad coach. As promised you can read and watch the interview with Myles on the below link.

You can also read/watch interviews of other esteemed coaches such as Nancy Kline.

http://coachingconnect.co.uk/

The thing about coaching is that the coach’s actual coaching is invisible to all but the player (coachee), it happens behind closed doors.  So it's almost impossible to know what actually happens or what works and to get objective feedback.  Add to that the fact that few coaches practice. In the world of sport pro’s practice: for every hour of competitive play there are tens of hours of practice, under the scrutiny of their peers and trainers. I and my Faculty colleagues are fortunate that as trainers of coaches our skills are open to scrutiny.  Pro’s practice.