Clare Norman is the author of the new book Cultivating Coachability: How to Leverage Coaching Readiness So Thinkers Can Optimise Value. Her other books include The Transformational Coach. She is the founder of Clare Norman Coaching Associates.
Q: What inspired you to write Cultivating Coachability?
A: At my last book launch, for The Transformational Coach, one of my guests suggested I should write a book for the thinker (that’s the person being coached) to help them to get the most out of coaching. After all, no matter how competent the coach is, if the thinker is not prepared to do the hard work of thinking, that coach’s competence will be for nothing.
I got to wondering how to position a book like that and realised that it’s still in the coach’s gift to influence coaching readiness and coachability, so set to work on putting my experience down on paper in that regard.
The more I wrote, the more I realised that there are multiple stakeholders here, so I covered the coach’s role in adding value to all of those stakeholders, not just the thinker.
Q: What do you see as the relationship between a coach and a client?
A: Coaching is a joint endeavour to discover new thinking. It’s a partnership, where the coach creates the space within which the thinker can do their best thinking.
This has historically been about tasks and performance (as sports coaching has always been), but in the last few years, this has become more about who the thinker is becoming.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book?
A: When I write, I find out what I think. The pure act of writing gives me clarity as I tap into the unknown knowns, things that are in my unconscious because I have been doing them for so long and they have become second nature.
The writing also gets me to question whether the way I have always done things is really the best way. As I rediscovered what I know, I could also experiment with new ways of being and doing. So the book is a write-up of my experiments in this field.
It’s by no means the finished article – there is always more to discover as I get back into a beginner’s mindset and get curious about what works and what doesn’t.
Q: Who do you see as the audience for the book, and what do you hope they take away from it?
A: The book is written for professional coaches. It is about shifting where value is created in coaching – shifting the responsibility for value creation to the thinker.
The responsibility of the coach is to take care of the process so that the thinker can create that value themselves, enabling them to access their inner wisdom, connect their own dots and find answers that match their personality, context, motivations, beliefs, and values.
Therefore, the thinker needs to be ready and willing to take that responsibility for creating value. In other words, they need to be “coaching ready.” They need to have some agency, some self-efficacy – although, of course, coaching can also support them to build agency and self-efficacy along the way.
The book supports the coach to cultivate coaching readiness and coachability, with the upfront input of coaching custodians.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Related to the book, I’m pulling together a programme for coaches that is part supervision, part working group, part book-club, to enable coaches to collectively implement what they learn in the book.
And I’m working with the International Coaching Federation to identify how to educate coaching custodians on their role in setting up coaching for success.
In other aspects of my work, I am a coach supervisor, mentor coach for International Coaching Federation credentialing and retreat leader. And of course, I coach! Currently mostly in professional services organisations and the NHS.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: For those who are not coaches, here’s how you can tell whether you are coaching-ready:
https://clarenormancoachingassociates.com/how-do-you-show-up-to-coaching/
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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