Initial Ideas on my Research Paper

I sent a brief summary of my research paper to Laurene Vaughan and she answered saying that it seemed like a very interesting subject, but asking me what references will I use to support me in this…. and it is not a bad question.

My proposal reads like this:

Changing your Mind — A survey

One of the main difficulties for SME owners, professionals and solo-preneurs is to actually awaken their entrepreneur’s mind, stop thinking like the professional they were before going into business, and start thinking like the entrepreneur they now are

Developing this perspective requires changes, both small and large, in how the entrepreneur approaches his or her business, and him or herself. Besides lack of experience, an important hurdle is that their professional comfort zone tends to be completely enclosed in their previous perspective, so while their stated objective is one of acquiring sills and control, there are other factors at play which prolong or make the change difficult (UAC’s).

This paper aims to explore different change models, specially those implying a change of perspective and an increase in complexity, and how coaching can benefit by taking them into account when helping a client that, literally has to change her mind.

I have thought to rely mainly on Robert Kegan and his idea of “orders of consciousness”, and also Watzlawick with his idea that a problem cannot be solved at the same level of complexity that created it. I started to read “In Over Our Heads” again (3rd time in my life!); this time more specifically the latter part, where it talks about learning, healing and leading — although I think that I will really be wanting to read the whole thing again. It is actually quite a complex book. Or rather, as it progresses and describes more complex orders of consciousness, the text itself becomes more and more complex.

In what I have read so far, there are many, many, felicitous comments, metaphors and analogies that I think can be really helpful to orient the paper. The thing to do is to focus on coaching, and perhaps on business coaching, or developing the Entrepreneur’s Mind.

Very important to keep in mind what I want to say, since there are many, many secondary ideas que keep coming to mind. The most important idea is: how does this difficulty in changing a perspective affect the coach? Does the coach need to have gone through this change in order to be able to facilitate it?

Just before Supervised Coaching

I managed to find a client for my first supervised coach class: DF has agreed to do it. I am really glad because it is providing me with the opportunity to pickup on the relationship we just created during our course in Ohio.

I really looks like things turn out for the best, after all. I had a conversation with her and it served to get my sensation of not having spoken up about buddy coaching out in the open. My conversations with her leave me energized, but at times a bit wound up… but in a “positive” sort of way, as if I was saying: I wish I had had more time to talk to her. It’s peculiar, with both of us being high D in the DISC assessment, I would think we would tend to clash, and perhaps we would have, at a younger age.

I mentioned to her that I felt challenged by V. being my buddy coach, and she says she feels that it is not  a good match, that he will not provide me with the challenge I need. I know what she means, and in a way I agree with her. But I do believe that I will be challenged in one particular way: the way I have least worked on myself. And that is, in being patient around people that need a lot of comforting, hand-holding and that come across as particularly emontionally needy.

I think this is the thing for me right now, or at least, this is the way I think that I have the greatest room to grow. I am not sure I can grow much more on being intellectually centered or rational. But I have a lot to learn about bonding and creating rapport with people.

There is an underlying judgement being made by me, when I meet people that I consider that belong to that category, or that go around in circles, etc. And it is something that gets in the way of my coaching: I am not listening but having opinions, judgements, and taking a stand a bit off the playing field. So perhaps V has been sent my way to teach me something. Whether it is how to adequately interact with people just like him, or learn that there are some people with whom I do not do well, it remains to be seen.

What does this have to do with ICA and Supervised Coach? Well, by meeting the people  I met at the Ohio course, I realised how much I need to develop my way of relating to others, not to be abrasive or grating, and this is something I can incorporate into my coaching (and hopefully into my Supervised Coach).  I will go to bed with the ICF core competencies… and wait for tomorrow!