I had lunch on Thursday with my friend, the great Steve Jones, aka ‘Jonesie’ – check him out: http://www.skillsforbusinesstraining.co.uk/ – and as usual there was something, apart from the food (Chinese actually) to delight me. Steve always has something interesting to say, but Thursday he was on especially good form. As regular readers of my Blog will know, innovation is a pretty important concept to Motivational Maps Ltd: how can we improve what we do? It is therefore particularly pleasant when someone else comes up with the idea.
Steve has been training coaches in London for a major coaching organisation and casually told me about one of his processes. Steve is a Business Practitioner of Motivational Maps – which means he is one of our most senior, level 3 exponents of the product. As he proceeded to explain to me what he was doing, my eyes popped open, and I garbled something like – Tell me that again, Steve – that’s brilliant!
What he’d done was to dovetail two widely differing ‘products’ into one seamless process. Basically combining the Map technology with the T-GROW coaching model. As I said to him after I realised the scope of what he’d done – well, Steve, perhaps we need another level within Motivational Maps – the Coaching Practitioners!
For those who don’t know the T-GROW model it is basically a non-directional coaching process (first, I think, outlined by John Whitmore in his book, Performance Coaching) that follows five simple stages:
T – what is the Topic to be discussed?
G – where does the client want to be? Agree a Goal they want to achieve by the end of the session
R – what is the Reality of the situation? Get as much background information as possible
O – generate some Options – be creative, brainstorm, mindstorm, use thinking hats and try to get fresh ideas about solutions
W – When is it going to happen or Work out your action plan
Given that the client has done a Motivational Map, the coach can then identify which motivator, based on the information provided by the Map, is the key one to work on with them. Then, treat that motivator as T: the Topic. For example, the motivator that the client needs working on is the Searcher: the need for meaning, purpose, and desire to make a difference. So, beginning the process: our Topic is how you can make more of a difference (in your work, your relationships, your self-development, your …).
With that clearly established we can now run through the GROW process of goal setting, unpicking the reality, creating options, and setting deadlines.
The beauty is, of course, not only does the coaching tap into the motivational energy of the client, but better still, provides not just one motivator to focus on, but two more. In other words, whilst adding value to the client in a highly defined way, it also potentially adds work to the coach. And all coaches want more work, don’t they?
So, well done, Steve – a brilliant innovation and I look forward to developing this further with you.
James Sale
The Mapping Motivation Series 