Description

This is a recording of the complete first-ever meta-Coaching training held in Sydney, Australia, November 8-14, 2002What is meta-Coaching?  Coaching is mobilizing your resources to an agreed upon outcome. It’s about tapping into and awakening your hidden and undeveloped potentials so that you can take your skills and experience to a new level of performance! meta-Coaching takes this further and higher. meta-Coaching is a specific coaching methodology that has a number of processes and models that allows the meta-Coach to work at a level higher than or above your experience. A meta-Coach works with your Outer Game of performance, and works also with your Inner Game of the frames of your mind. S/he also works very little with your actual content, and focuses almost entirely on the form of your thinking, that is, at a higher level. This higher level that we refer to is the structural level of your experience. We use the term “ meta ” to highlight this facet of coaching. Five cutting edge models that are forming the foundation of a Coaching Psychology govern meta-Coaching. This Coaching Psychology is based on the cognitive behavioural sciences, and specifically on the cognitive behavioural science of Neuro-Semantics.  All these models explore how the mind-body-emotion system works, learns and transforms via the way that we feel meanings in our bodies, that is, how we incorporate semantics into our neurology.    Models of meta-Coaching  These 5 models work together to provide a completely comprehensive approach to coaching, and they correspond to the 5 critical aspects of what coaching is. 1. Coaching is Communication Coaching happens through communication, through conversations. The meta-Coach communicates with you, and leads you to communicate more effectively with yourself and with others. For this reason we use the ‘Neuro Linguistic Programming Communication Model’. This model explains how we take information about an external event, and then represent that event on the movie of our mind. Through the way we represent that information, we then have thoughts and feelings (our communication with ourselves). From these thoughts and feelings, we then respond in some way, or transfer our message to others (communication with others). From this model the meta-Coach learns the tools for building rapport, for listening, for supporting and caring. S/he also has the tools to begin to profile and model the structure of any experience. 2. Coaching is working with Self Reflexive AwarenessThis is about the kind of consciousness that is unique to us humans- called reflexivity. This is basically our ability to reflect upon our experiences and ourselves. A meta-Coach deals with all the thoughts and feelings you have about your thoughts and feelings, and about your performances, your states, your sense of self, your thoughts about your future etc. S/he not only deals with the first thoughts and feelings you have about something, but also with the thoughts that are in the back of your mind. Because this self-reflexive awareness is a particular kind of consciousness we humans have, meta-Coaching uses the Neuro-Semantics model of ‘meta-States’. This gives the meta-Coach the tools to really probe and explore the ideas, meanings, intentions, fears, regrets, memories etc that you have about something. 3. Coaching is Change Coaching facilitates change. meta-Coaches are Change Agents. After all, you are taking on a coach in order to change from being good, or even great at something, to being your best – to being the best you can be! meta-Coaching uses the first non-therapeutic model of change: the revolutionary ‘Axes of Change™’ Model. This model is based entirely on coaching premises and contains no premises of resistance or relapse. It is designed for change embracers! This model allows the meta-Coach to help you through the change process regardless of where you are in the process when your coach meets you. The meta-Coach is able to dance with you through the process of making changes and assist you in identifying the most effective leverage points. This process goes from: checking your motivation and energy levels for making a change; to then working through deciding to make the change; to then co-create the change from the frames of mind that you will need (your Inner Game), and how that will translate into actual behaviours and actions in the world (your Outer Game); and then to solidify the change by testing and tweaking it, and then reinforcing it to become your new way of being. 4. Coaching is working Systemically We humans are systemic by nature. We function from our own mind-body-emotion system, and we also experience life from the systems we function within, such as the family system, the work system, the political system etc. Here the Neuro-Semantics ‘Matrix Model’ is introduced as a unifying and systemic model, which brings together all the sub-models and processes of NLP, Neuro-Semantics and developmental psychology for the meta-Coach . A meta-Coach is thus able to track all of your many dimensions at the same time, and is able to work on the many levels of the way you process your thoughts and feelings, simultaneously. The Matrix Model also provides a systemic framework for profiling or diagnosing individuals and organizations, and it highlights the most effective leverage points for change. Thus a meta-Coach knows what to do with you, when and why. 5. Coaching is Self Actualising Coaches facilitate self-actualising human potential, and this makes if very distinct from therapy and also from the other helping modalities of counselling, training, consulting and mentoring. Therapy is about helping someone get over the past so that they are ok in the present. Coaching goes much further. It is about actualising that person’s potential, about making real in that person’s life all that they can be. Thus the ’Neuro-Semantic Self-Actualisation Model’ has provided a number of premises, which guide the way a meta-Coach works. It has been developed from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, where the lower needs are deficiency needs and motivations, and the higher needs are growth and actualisation needs and motivations. The premises that come from this model govern how we as meta-Coaches work, what we do, what our role is in the process and what your role is. They further inform us that every person has the talent to be exceptional at something. We believe that everyone wants to do a good job and will do a good job, if they are given the skills, support and opportunity. We believe that people want to be on the winning team, and that they are driven to be and express all that they can be. Summary meta-Coaching is unique. It is based on a solid framework of theory and practice, and it gives meta-Coaches the structure and reason as to what we do and why. These 5 models give you and your meta-Coach the skills to explore the structure of any experience, especially the structure of excellence. And they give you the ability to run your own brain, to manage your own states, to accelerate your learning and to enrich your life with higher-level meanings.