Focus areas in connection with a personal coaching course at AmikiGroup
AmikiGroup has many years’ experience in coaching individuals and groups. We coach by taking as our starting point the way our customers speak and act in relation to their challenges, problems, successes and what is in between. This means that we take a special interest in the dimensions described below.
At AmikiGroup we are of the opinion that there are no limits as to how much a person’s personality can be formed. It is only a question of the right investments in the form of persons who are willing to make an effort. This attitude means that it possible to really move another person, but it is the one being coached who must make the decision as to the how much s/he is moved and the speed at which it is happening.
A personal coaching course will be about the following 6 items:
1. The personal story:
We cannot change our past. Our behaviour and feelings from earlier on in life have often been stored so deeply that we are not aware of their backgrounds but experience them as a part of ourselves that cannot be changed. We have a tendency to say that it is our nature. If, however, we could understand our lives in a grown-up perspective and be able to use the feelings from then to understand ourselves and our actions in the present, it will be possible to bring about the change that might make a difference. This means that behavior and feelings from earlier on in life which are not constructive lose their importance and thus cease guiding our actions.
We work with the following points within the personal story:
- Self-perception and the energy of feelings
- The burden of proof whether ”I am good enough”
- Surmounting strategy and psycho regulation (the ability to come again)
2. Relations:
We are social beings. None of us is unaffected by others’ views on us. Isolation is the hardest punishment that can befall a human being because we lose ourselves and our own identities when we are isolated from our surroundings. The strongest sense of stimulation comes from other human beings. We all need to be seen, heard, understood and felt in the relations we are part of. We do not shrink from being confirmed. If we do not get recognition (are seen, heard, understood or felt) we want attention, and if we do not get attention, we are bound to feel fear. We shrink from the empty room and seek a relation at any price. Within this area we work with the following:
- How we achieve a suitable degree of intimacy in a relation (at work it is about professional intimacy)
- The establishment of a fellowship/place of belonging. The ability to be interesting through a suitable degree of disturbance
- Ensure that the realm of understanding is in place
- Hierarchy and roles
- Conflict resolution
- The attunement of expectations and context
3. Everyday Life:
Everyday life is what we have most of and this is where we can make the biggest and most important difference. It may seem very confusing but by focusing on everyday life both through the way we speak about it, think of it and act, it becomes possible to create meaning in it in a new way.
- Analyse your everyday life (what is important and what is problematic)
- Share your thoughts about everyday life with important people
- Create good habits
- Work with the thought of the day
- Adjust your everyday life (Limit your greed for information. When is enough, enough - Learn to say no in order to say yes somewhere else)
4. Yourself:
You are your thought’s thought and your feeling’s feeling. This means that it is a personal choice which feeling you attach to a given situation. Of course it is expedient – in some situations (in the moment) – to work with sorrow, anger etc., but over a longer period of time joy is the only constructive feeling.
You are subjected to a number of limitations set by yourself, but we must accept that all of us cannot get equally far unless there are people who are willing to dedicate their lives to our development. This development is about:
- Understanding yourself, your thoughts, your feelings and your actions
- Recognising yourself (the biggest recognition comes from within)
- Direction and understanding
- Decision patterns and dependences
- Self help and positive thinking
- Circularity (we are each other’s prerequisites)
- The 2-meter man (Highest and lowest expectation/the personal margin
- Personal robustness (The performance triangle (posture, language and own conviction)
- Adequate willingness to take risks
5. The signals of the body:
Movements speak as clearly as words. Coaching in connection with movements is about how movements become gestures and about what gestures tell. We often concentrate on what we say and tend to forget that our more or less consciously made movements, postures and expressions often say something else than our words. By also focusing on the body (movements and expressions) communicating with other people simply becomes more exciting as the observation of their behavior makes it easier to understand it. This focus on movements and expressions increases our awareness of how movements become gestures and how gestures transfer messages. Furthermore, this awareness increases our possibility of influencing the everyday situations we are part of and of seeing new dimensions in the relations we are part of.
6. The power of Language:
What we say may easily be misunderstood because language is so powerful. With language we can lift another human being to undreamt-of heights (build identity) or we can make another human being disintegrate (the identity disintegrates). We work intensively with the power and significance of language.
One of our focus areas is context (realm of understanding) as it is the framework that gives meaning to what is perceived, said, happens or is going on. We focus on the fact that no message is a message in itself. A message – a linguistic action – gives no meaning in itself, it can only be understood in a context (a connection). This means that we pay special attention to speech acts (what is said) and the way in which an episode is established (an episode may be an insult, an act of recognition, confusion etc.). The aim is to make the person being coaching aware that s/he must be alert when responding whereby it will become possible – to a much higher degree – to have a say as to how the episode is formed. The context helps us understand what is meaningful to do/say.
Output from the course:
The course will increase your awareness and options in connection with the following points:
- Relational responsibility and how to establish it
- The establishment of professional intimacy in the group you are part of
- The establishment of robustness in the situation
- Cooling-down techniques after a stress situation
- Signals, gestures and posture and their meaning
- How to increase one’s own conviction positively
- How to handle conflicts
- How to use the power of language
- Clarification of own spaces of action (highest and lowest self expectation)
- Personal robustness (where do I get it from)
- Good habits
- Psycho regulation (Increasing the ability to come again)
- How to handle stress situations
- How to handle the energy of feelings
The Duration of the Course:
- A full course is 5 whole days’ sparring with 1 whole day every month for 5 months
- An alternative course is half a day every month for 5 months. Here we may decide together to leave out some of the above points.
Organisational Course:
An organisational course will especially be about relations and interplay and the focus will be on the following:
- The communication sequence (the building of a suitable degree of professional intimacy) - Rituals, language, body language, gestures, roles, shared third experiences and professional intimacy
- Contributions, identification of needs at the social, personal and professional level
- Attunement of expectations between parties and groups
- Robust work processes (understanding, acceptance and responsibility)
- The establishment/anchoring of a robust feedback culture - Targets, frameworks, roles and code of practice
To maximise the output, it is extremely relevant to couple an organisational and a personal course. Working with the personal and the organisational at the same time means that the speed at which the organisation can develop accelerates markedly.