From Erickson Professional Coach to Erickson Certified Professional Coach...

I became an Erickson Certified Professional Coach in Dec 2019, i.e.., I completed the ICF (International Coaches Federation) accredited coach training program successfully. Though it took only a moment to type the first line out, my journey towards the certification was not that easy. I would like to appreciate the learning process and say thank you to the numerous people who helped me along this path.

I have been practicing as an SAP Coach from 2018 and was rather happy doing what I was doing. I had few clients from different parts of the globe and I really enjoyed the time I spent in coaching. I wanted to attempt the certification since I thought it will give me more tools and ways to solve the client’s problem. Looking back at my understanding now, I can find multiple errors in the previous sentence. More about it later.

At the core of the certification is the one-to-one sessions you get with a mentor coach from Erickson. These mentors are senior coaches who are either MCC (Master Certified Coach) or PCC (Professional Certified Coach) with a lot of years of experience. The format of these mentor sessions is simple. You can record the coaching conversation with a client and then you listen to it with your mentor who gives you comments to make your skill better. Here are some learnings which I took away:

1.      Be comfortable with your own voice

The first time I started coaching after turning on the voice-recorder, I found myself very tense. I was under anxiety as to what to ask next. And my client caught the signals and clammed up.

It took me several tries to record and forget that I was recording. The next big thing was listening to my own recording. Since we hear our voices differently in our head, this was a surprise to me. The first mentor session was painful for me on many counts, but the worst was listening to myself making mistakes. My mentor was patient and spent even more time than we booked to make me understand that voice is your ally if you are coach. And to realize and use it powerfully, you need to listen to yourself frequently, so that you know your shortcomings and perfect your art.

2.      Partnering and suspending judgement

As a coach, we trust the resourcefulness of the clients to find their solutions. Why should the coaching process be any different? This was a new learning for me. Prior to this, I took the decision on what experience to create during the session, how should it flow, etc.. When I got a feedback that I am not partnering with my client, I tried to remedy that and asked, “how would you like to proceed, in order to get to that goal?”. My client said, “I don’t know”, and I chose the next question based on what I thought was best. This is where I got my next feedback – somewhere, I asked a partnering question and did not follow through on the response. I could have asked again, “what would help you to know how to proceed?” or something similar to get my client decide.

3.      Global Listening

When you listen to the voice, the tone, the change in tone, the pauses and several other nuances of conversation, this becomes possible. Each change signifies a discovery made by the client. And asking them, “I heard joy in your voice now. Can you please share what changed for you?” opens deeper levels of exploration. 

4.      Success of the session is not the responsibility of the coach

When you really partner with the client and do not have the “performance-anxiety” the conversations flow as it should. Client is the leader and coach follow the client respectfully. Hence the success of the session or getting to that outcome is the combined responsibility of both the coach and the client. Just trust the process and trust that the client has all the resources.

These might look simple but going through the “conscious incompetence” to “conscious competence” phases of the learning were time consuming, tough, involved a lot of self-doubt, and also humbling.

I would like to thank my clients and learning partners and mentors who made this journey worthwhile for me.

What’s wrong with this sentence?

I wanted to attempt the certification since I thought it will give me more tools and ways to solve the client’s problem.

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