This article forms part 1 of a 5 part series on Bongi’s coaching experience.
Business Methodology is about using a formalised guide and framework through which the business matures and is developed. Bongi was educated and experienced in Human resources, the concept of Business Methodology was slightly overwhelming for her, and one of the main reasons why she engaged with her Business Coach, Margi, to assist her in navigating this uncharted territory.
Margi explained to Bongi that Business Methodology was a process, like all others in a business:
Figure 1: A Generic Model of Business Methodology
Once Bongi could see the structure, she felt far more confident to work with this type of model. She immediately drew a correlation between this model and the Business Coaching that she was involved in. A framework like this could be used to assist her coaches achieve their well-formed outcomes with clarity. Most importantly, before they considered their business units or departments, they needed to understand themselves.
Working with the Coachee
Within the business environment, the coachee works and lives within a framework called B.O.P.
This acronym stands for:
- Business
- Other People
- Personal
Understanding this human methodology enabled Bongi to coach each person on all aspects of their working life. When she learnt about business methodologies, she wanted to apply her knowledge into the ‘Personal’ space of each coachee. She maintained that it is the person who drives the business or department, and the person who establishes, maintains, and builds relationships with other people. Therefore, it was logical to begin in the personal space.
Bongi consulted with Margi to gain guidance on her path ahead. Margi presented Bong with the following ‘Personal Methodology’:
Bongi used these 6 steppingstones as her approach to understand her coaches and coachees better – and for them to understand themselves better.
Behaviour
Behaviour refers to the action that you take, usually in response to a specific stimulus. How you conduct yourself in various situations, with other people, and when you are alone. Bongi worked with this as the cornerstone of the triad, namely ‘Personal’, because she saw that her coachees often do not consider how they come across to others, nor how their behaviour may change with certain people or circumstances. Behaviour is enacted and it is watched, sometimes the two perceptions intertwine, and sometimes they are worlds apart!
Bongi discovered the following study on human behaviour which identifies 4 basic personality types: Optimistic, Pessimistic, Trusting, and Envious. She found this to be very useful because she believed that her coachee’s colleagues should be easy to identify these traits in the individual’s actions, and the coachee should resonate with one of the types more than with others:
Figure 2: The 4 personality types of human behaviour →
Emotions
Our emotions are fluid and dependant on our state of mind at a specific point in time. We have emotional reactions to events which are happening, may happen, or may have happened. As a Human Resource Specialist, Bongi understood some people are naturally more emotional than others, and some people display their emotions more freely than others.
Bongi struggled with her coaches on both ends on the continuum: Those who expressed their emotions too freely, and those who did not display them at all. The coaches who were in touch with how they felt, and their triggers were perceived to have a higher level of Emotional Intelligence →. This is because those who are aware of their feelings, seemed to be more in control. Bongi knew that just because a coachee had self-awareness and self-control, this did not mean that they were able to understand others or run healthy relationships.
Through experience Bongi had seen that emotions often made or broke a career as some people were unaware on their impact on their own self sabotaging or how they affected others.
There have been numerous studies considering a variety of emotions, Bongi found one that pinpointed 27 states of emotion → to be quite interesting:
Figure 3: The Emotion and Feeling Wheel →
Thinking
Different coaches adopt different approaches to reasoning and reaching decisions. Thinking includes how judgements are made, problems solved, and how people contemplate situations. Bongi knew which of her coaches would mull over their actions or decisions for some time, and who would act almost before thinking. There isn’t a right or wrong approach, once again, the coachee’s manner of thinking affected his or her behaviour and career.
Some people are very set in their way of thinking and others are more open-minded. Bongi worked hard to ensure that she herself was aware of her thoughts, she tried to remain positive, and recognise her thinking patterns so that she became aware of when she was getting ‘stuck in a rut’ or needed a different perspective. Understanding her thoughts facilitated her working with her coachee’s thoughts and mindsets.
Beliefs
We all have certain beliefs which direct our lives. Yet beliefs are things that we think are true, usually assumptions, of which there is little or no proof. This was difficult for Bongi because she liked to work with solid facts. She had to control her own judgments and belief system so that she was present in her coaching session, and able to facilitate her coachee’s process, without damaging it with her own thoughts.
Bongi realised that some of her coachees were confused about the difference between values and beliefs, in order to assist them when discussing these topics, she used the following table as a guide:
When working with a coachee their belief system governed their perceptions of life, he paradigm that they held, and their attitudes towards situations, other people, and their own work tasks and career path. Bongi would try to uncover individual needs in order to ensure that she knew her coachee well enough to bring the best out of them.
Values
Based on certain beliefs, when something is of value to someone it is very meaningful to them. The coach and coachee’s value system are important and help them to decide what action to take. Bongi was aware that values work on a multileveled system. People have certain assumptions which affect and influence their values. For instance, a coachee may feel that integrity is vital to their work environment, this assumes that work cannot be done professionally without honesty and veracity as a base. The coachee will then surround him or herself with people who they feel hold the same values as they do. This applies to a range of values. To gain an understanding of what values are, Soul Salt have given an explanation of values → with 102 examples to clarify what values are.
Bongi’s interest in values is that they motivate people to work and behave in a certain manner. On the one hand core values form her coachee’s identity and inform their spirituality, and on the others, their values drive them to seek out an develop certain skills and knowledge, resulting is their behaviour, and how they see and impact on the environment.
Bongi felt that it would be imperative to understand each person’s core values as they will define how each coach and coachee behave, and not harm their S.C.A.R.F. model →
Habits
Bongi was fascinated by the routines that her coachees repeated. She watched how they sat in the same seats in the boardroom, or unpacked their lunch in the same way, or even how they tended to open conversations. To affect positive change, Bongi needed to help some of her coachee’s habits. Not all, just those that did not serve them. She also made her coachee’s aware of some of their own habit by working with their blind spot and asking colleagues to give them feedback in a positive and constructive manner.
Most coachees were unaware of their own habits and enjoyed the process. This process of gaining awareness and insight into their own actions enabled the coachees to be aware of their thoughts, emotions, values, beliefs, and behaviour. It was a meaningful and useful exercise through which the coachees grew and developed an in-depth understanding of themselves, and those with whom they worked. Under standing Habits and why they matter can be explored further in the following article →.
Bongi felt satisfied that she had explored the ‘Personal’ side of her coachees, and herself. It gave her a basis on which she was able to guide and bring motivation for positive transformations and the achievement of the original well-formed outcomes.
To work with a coach who uses this Business Methodology, please visit our Coaching Services Page →.