The Psychology of Coaching, Mentoring and Learning, 2nd Edition

7

Techniques and Tools

Introduction

This chapter provides you with a set of tools and techniques that are appropriate for the psychology of learning and the universal integrated framework elaborated in the previous chapters. Some of the practical exercises related to these techniques are described in Chapter 8; they can be used as an aid in coaching, mentoring and self-learning.

Different practitioners would have different approach orientations depending on their background, experience, perspectives and training. Broadly speaking, there are two types of technique. Techniques that emphasize outcome are task-focused or goal-oriented; the others emphasize psychological intervention and transpersonal quality. The two types are culturally bound. Western cultures tend to be goal-oriented, while Eastern cultures tend to adopt transpersonal approaches (e.g. gestalt psychology and storytelling). So, apart from the fact that the two criteria of being general and cross-cultural are met, specific techniques have been selected in the search for the appropriate approaches for inclusion. These techniques are designed to help you

• identify the sources of barriers along the coaching journey;
• build your own meta-model;
• combine multiple techniques and apply them in appropriate situations;
• structure a coaching conversation;
• conduct coaching in one-to-one as well as one-to-many group situations.

I shall structure these techniques according to the components of the integrative learning system (ILS) described in ...