Building a Good Rapport with Coaches

The purpose of the Case Assignment is to create a “live case” by experiencing the process of coaching and developing your skills as a coach. Because this case is designed around experiential learning, we can go beyond the conceptual knowledge covered in the reading materials to actual skills building. This requires putting what you are learning into immediate practice.
Although the Case Assignments involve a coaching experience, the focus is on you as the coach. You will be learning how to prepare for a coaching session, what questions you should ask, and what behaviors are most effective. The case involves a coaching relationship with one person and is continued in stages across all four modules, so be sure to focus on the exact stage covered in each module and do not get ahead of yourself.
The goal of the coaching process is to expedite the growth of the coachee’s understanding of his or her strengths and weaknesses. Through the coaching process, the coachee gains an appreciation of his capabilities for growth and builds self-confidence. Thus, before you begin this exercise in coaching, you must first find someone who is willing to go through this exercise with you as a coachee. This can be a friend, a colleague, or a co-worker. It does not have to be a situation tied to your job. The only requirement is that you must be able to identify a contracted piece of work based on a shared concern (if no shared concern can be found, find another coachee).
In MGT501, you were introduced to the Johari window as a tool for increasing awareness of how one is perceived by others and to improve communication. This case is designed to enlarge your “open” area and reduce your “blind” area, so you can be more effective as a coach. At the same time, you will learn to use coaching techniques as a way to correct problem behaviors ("blind area") and help coachees realize they have untapped potential and open the possibility for growth through unused capacities (their “hidden” areas”).
In case you have forgotten, a leader’s blind area in their Johari window occurs when said leader does not know there is a blind area. This happens when a leader’s subordinates do not want to provide them feedback as well as when a leader does not care to receive it (Albuquerque, de Melo, Xavier, & Medeiros, 2021). Either situation is intolerable to this particular leader’s subordinates because they know nothing will ever change and they will not learn from the leader until that leader is coached on how to accept feedback from subordinates.
Albuquerque, A. P., de Melo, J. C., Xavier, L., & Medeiros, D. D. (2022). Analyzing the profile of the manager from the perspective of the employees: A case study. Brazilian Journal of Operations & Production Management, 19(1), 1-9, e2022930. https://doi(dot)org/10.14488/BJOPM.2021.032
In this course’s assignments, you must find a person willing to be coached in an area you and that person agree upon. It is helpful to use the same person for each coaching assignment so that you build a sense of trust and professionalism with them over the duration of the course. You can select any person with whom you are comfortable and have frequent contact including a friend, family member, or coworker.
Each module will follow this cycle: Plan, execute, report
Before the coaching session, write up a plan using course readings or additional research as a resource (1-2 pages)
Then meet with the coachee and use your plan as a guide for the session
The bulk of the report is on how it went: successes and failures. What would you do differently next time? (3 to 4 pages).
The first step in the coaching process is to build rapport with the person you are coaching. This is where you establish a trusting relationship by demonstrating your credibility, helpfulness, and honesty. To build genuine rapport, you must believe in the potential of the person you are coaching—this cannot be faked.
Some excellent methods for building rapport can be found in the following readings:
Arrow Coaching+. (2020, November 30). Building rapport in coaching [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu(dot)be/vveOvk4xjvk
van Coller-Peter, S., & Manzini, L. (2020). Strategies to establish rapport during online management coaching. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 18(2), e1-e9. https://doi(dot)org/10.4102/sajhrm.v18i0.1298 Available in the Trident Online Library.
Remember: Shared success is the key to great coaching!
Shared success means that the outcome works for both the individual and the organization, because it meets both individual and organizational needs. Coaching is a tool where we are able to create that connection between the person and the organization.
Your task in this module is to identify a partner who is willing to be coached by you over the course of the term. Set up an initial meeting and establish rapport. Do not attempt to get into the later stages of coaching; we will get to them in later modules. Focus on the process of establishing rapport only. Write up this meeting as indicated in the Keys to the Assignment, below.
After reading the background materials for this module and doing additional research if needed, prepare your pre-coaching plan for a 45- to 50-minute session. Remember that your focus for this case is on the process of building rapport with the coachee.
What are your goals for this session? How will you know if you are successful?
What skills will you use?
How will you go about doing this?
What questions will you ask?
Conduct your coaching session (45 to 50 minutes).
Write up your post-coaching reflection.
Report the facts of the coaching session.
What went well and what did not?
What did you learn about coaching from this session?
What would you do differently next time?
Coaching Skills ( Background Reading)
Listening. Active listening is arguably the most basic of the skills. If the coach does not know how to listen, none of the other skills will matter. Read Part 2 (pp. 19-36) related to effective listening in the following text. You can find this book in the Trident Online Library – EBSCO eBook Collection.
Anonymous. (2021). Effective listening is key to building trust. Journal of Financial Planning, 34(3), 18. Available in the Trident Online Library, ProQuest database.
The following article defines “active listening,” and what it means to be an empathetic listener:
Rebora, A. (2020). Better listening, better teaching. Educational Leadership, 77(7), 9. Available in the Trident Online Library.
Setting Goals. A coach must be able to help the protégé set goals. The ability to set SMART goals means setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time sensitive.
These videos will teach you how to set SMART goals:
Marr, B. (2021, August 31). How to set SMART goals and objectives [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu(dot)be/pdPtuhZiSq4
Parsons, L. (2019). SMART goals or mindfulness? How happiness leads to success.Teachers Matter, 43, 54–57. Available in the Trident Online Library.
Questioning. A coach has to learn how to ask the right kinds of questions. Throughout the course you will read a lot about these types of questions and have the chance to practice asking them. Essentially, these types of questions seek to understand, not to judge. When the coach asks questions, she is trying to elicit ideas about how to best frame a problem instead of imposing her own interpretation. By doing this, the coach is trying to stimulate the protégé's imagination and creativity.
You will get the most meaningful answers if you use open questions. Instead of asking questions that begin with "Will you" or "Can you," for instance, ask questions that begin with "How," "Tell me," "What," or "Why."
Read the full Hills (2018) article “Staff coaching: Using active listening and powerful questions to unleash your staff's potential.” Save it for future use. See page 307 for an excellent list of the right type of questions to ask in a broad variety of coaching situations:
Hills, L. (2018). Staff coaching: Using active listening and powerful questions to unleash your staff's potential. The Journal of Medical Practice Management, 33(5), 302-308. Available in the Trident Online Library.
Here are some examples of effective open-ended coaching questions:
What questions: Focus
What do you want to achieve?
What results do you anticipate?
What are the possibilities?
Why questions: Ownership, purpose
Why is this important?
What impact will this have on the organization?
What really matters to you and others about this situation?
Why not? Barriers
What is the likelihood of this not working?
What is the worst case scenario?
What has gone wrong with similar situations in the past?
How? Plan
What steps have you taken so far?
What is the next step?
Who needs to be involved?
Albuquerque, A. P., de Melo, J. C., Xavier, L., & Medeiros, D. D. (2022). Analyzing the profile of the manager from the perspective of the employees: A case study. Brazilian Journal of Operations & Production Management, 19(1), 1-9, e2022930. https://doi(dot)org/10.14488/BJOPM.2021.032 Available in the Trident Online Library.
Arrow Coaching+. (2020, November 30). Building rapport in coaching [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu(dot)be/vveOvk4xjvk
Bourda, F. H. (n.d.). Coaching and mentoring [Video]. Skillsoft. Available in the Trident Online Library.
Global Coaching Lab. (2020, August 20). Why does leading and coaching across cultures make more sense now? [Video]. https://youtu(dot)be/cjCQh4pbyTU. (Use with discussion assignment)
Hertz, T. (2021, February 21). Creating a leadership development plan [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu(dot)be/lZdzOgS5cQU
Hills, L. (2018). Staff coaching: Using active listening and powerful questions to unleash your staff's potential. The Journal of Medical Practice Management, 33(5), 302-308. Available in the Trident Online Library.
Klein, R. J., & Robinson, M. D. (2019). The negative feedback dysregulation effect: Losses of motor control in response to negative feedback. Cognition and Emotion, 33(3), 536-547. https://doi(dot)org/10.1080/02699931.2018.1463197 Available in the Trident Online Library.
Lamm, M. (2020, January 9). Creating leadership development plans for Gen Z. Property & Casualty 360. Available in the Trident Online Library.
LeanVlog. (2020, October 13). Coaching vs mentoring: A definition to understand what you need [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu(dot)be/0Qy0P65kMIM