VALUES Coaching Model©

 

Values

What are your values and beliefs and what are the organisation’s values and beliefs? What do you need to concentrate on to fulfil your and the organisation’s objectives?
How can your values be aligned to the organisations to mutual satisfaction?

 

Attitudes and Behaviours

What are the behaviours and actions which demonstrate your values and beliefs and what behaviours and actions demonstrate the organisation’s beliefs and values? What do you need to change to fulfil your objectives?

 

Learnings

What are the qualifications, training and expertise you have? What learning opportunities are available in the organisation and what learning do you require to move forward?

 

Utilisation

What learnings have you identified to support your personal progression? What learnings have you identified to dovetail with the organisation’s expectations? What are you going to do differently now?

 

Evaluation

The criteria for measuring achievable performance: a realistic, ecological framework for personal evolution.

 

Strategy

Personal Strategy Plan: a strategy for personal progression including a peak performance tool to ensure you deliver your best when needed.

 

VALUES Model© Presuppositions

Beliefs are linguistic utterances – statements about how we view the way world is. They are generalisations, the rules by which we live our lives and are the foundations on which we build our Values.

Values are the things in life that are most important to us: the things we move towards or away from and spend our time, money and resources pursuing.

Behaviours are the manifestations of Beliefs and Values: what we Believe and Value is demonstrated in what we actually Do – our Behaviour.

Our Values are our energisers, motivators and are formed in a hierarchy. To move forward, you need to identify the Values that work for you and exchange them with the ones that do not. What do you need to give up in order to attain your top value? What are you doing when you’re not doing what you want to be doing? What are you currently spending time, money and energy on that you would rather be spending elsewhere?

Values Alignment is reconnecting your ideal, espoused Values and your current Behaviours. What do you want? What are you actually doing? How can they be aligned to the Values and goals of the organisation?

We all have finite time, energy and resources – so how are you going to divide the pie? How are you living your life?

Values are the things that we say that we want, but where do these desires come from? They can often be from childhood, or the voice of others. They need to be upgraded periodically to align with our aspirations.

Changing States Model
Internal State – Feeling – Values – Heart
Internal Process – Thinking – Beliefs – Head
External Behaviour – Do – Behaviour – Body

Jim Collins states that the most successful organisations employ the right people. The right people are the ones aligned with the Values of the leader.

McClelland identified three personality types: Power, Affiliation and Achievement. Each of us has two further motivations: ‘towards’ or ‘away’. Values are critical as they further define what motivates us.

All Behaviour is context related: when and where and under what circumstances. Beliefs and Values change as life changes.

Learnings in this context are experiential, ie, what have I learned from that experience which will cause me to act differently in future?

Coaching Tools

The VALUES Model© Coach works from at least four different models simultaneously to discover and work with the client’s model of the world. These include horizontal and vertical personality-type models, plus an unconscious thought process model and a linguistic model for discovering how the client views the world. These models provide a framework that does not seek to categorise the client, only ascertain their model of the world, specifically in the working environment. The models are tools for the coaches, who are always flexible and context specific in their approach to working with clients.
The four main models are:
Meta Model:
The distortions, generalisations and deletions we use to project how we view the world.
Meta Programs:
These are the unconscious thought processes which indicate how we think.
Enneagram:
The most comprehensive horizontal typology model which indicates how we act under different conditions: ‘normal’, ‘stress’ and ‘intimacy’.
Developmental Model:
The Gravesian developmental vertical model gives an indication of what level we are operating out of: such as personalistic, absolutist, materialistic etc.

Values Model© Coaches have extensive training and expertise in the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and can utilise dozens of interventions to assist the client. Our coaches are also experts in Transformational Coaching, should the coachee need to move logical levels. Whereas 95 per cent of coaching is Translational, whereby the coach assists the client in adapting best to their environment, Transformational coaching can be an essential tool for personal growth and development.

 

Values Model Tools

 

Life Cycles

Life Cycles starts from the Wheel of Life: eight segments of a circle split into priority areas in our life. Each segment is then scored out of 10 in terms of satisfaction in that area. A line can then be traced around the circle denoting how much balance you have currently in your life. Most of the segments should be at least partially concerned with work matters. However, a range of life issues should be included to ensure a balanced perspective is given.

Life Cycles are then added to the first circle. The first denotes a specific outcome that would represent a 10 in that area.

The next Cycle identifies one action to be undertaken in the next 24 hours that would move you closer to 10.

The final Cycle determines why it is important for you to have a 10 for satisfaction in that area.

A ‘Dream List’ is written for everything that you want to Do, Be and Have. You then randomly choose 3-6 different items and circle them. You then take each circled item to the Life Cycles model and ask if that would improve an area – mark one for each segment. Add up the rating for each segment.
The item(s) with the highest score(s) are the one(s) worth focusing on.

The Life Cycles model gives a clear indication of what is really important to the client and what area needs to be prioritised.

It is called Life Cycles as actions and behaviours repeat themselves throughout our lives and only change when we take appropriate action to choose another path. ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.’ The intention here is to break the pattern where it is demonstrably ineffective or holding us back and develop a new strategy for successfully achieving our outcome.

Enneagram

The Enneagram is a nine-pointed star and is based upon an ancient typology that asserts that energy flows within a system. The Enneagram claims that there are nine personality types and three different contexts: normal, stress and intimacy. The types are further split into feeling (emotional), thinking (intellectual) and doing (physical).

At a certain point there is a blockage – stress – and the energy is prevented from flowing freely. Under intimacy the channel is opened up and there is a free flow of energy. The goal is to remove the blockage permanently to permit the free flow of energy around the Enneagram.

It is a powerful guide to self-awareness and evolution, challenging the presuppositions we have about ourselves and encourages us to choose different paths to develop.

It is important to clarify how the Enneagram is used in this coaching context. The specific purpose for using the Enneagram in this context is to provide greater insight and personal understanding which serves to inform the individual how they can break free from limiting boundaries. ‘We are controlled by that with which we identify. We control that with which we do not identify.’

The key to development is therefore to break through self-perpetuating patterns and add to the whole. The coach will provide guidance, and where appropriate, specific interventions to encourage this development.

Like all the models and tools used within the VALUES Model©, the Enneagram has a specific purpose and is a flexible device to encourage growth. The intention is not to categorise or label but to break through these societal and self-imposed limitations to progress.

Keys To An Achievable Outcome

1. Stated in the positive.
What specifically do you want?
2. Specify present situation.
Where are you now?
3. Specify outcome.
What will you see, hear, feel etc when you have it?
4. Specify evidence procedure.
How will you know when you have it?
5. Is it congruently desirable?
What will this outcome get for you or allow you to do?
6. Is it self-initiated and self-maintained?
Is it only for you?
7. Is it appropriately contextualised?
Where, when, how and with whom do you want it?
8. What resources are needed?
What do you have now, and what do you need to get your outcome?
Have you ever had or done this before?
Do you know anyone who has?
Can you act as if you have it?
9. Is it ecological?
For what purpose do you want this?
What will you gain or lose if you have it?

Personal Strategy Plans

A Personal Strategy Plan can include a Strategy Installation. That is, finding out something the client does well and installing that strategy, with amendments, to something to which they want to improve. This is particularly effective for performance-oriented goals such as improving public speaking, presentations or any communications activity. The Strategy Elicitation and Installation follow the TOTE Model – Test, Operate, Test, Exit.

The Personal Strategy Plan works best by working backwards: by identifying the goal and then tracing the steps regressively to the point of departure (the here and now). There are a number of ways to structure this process, including Time Line techniques. The steps are clearly timed, dated and marked when complete from the date of the first to the final session. Incorporated in the live document will be the resources and tasks required to complete each step.

This is a living document that will be flexible to ensure the outcome is obtainable in a number of different ways and will not be derailed by inevitable problems.

 

VALUES Coaching Model – Useful Questions

 

Values

1. What is most important to you? What do you spend your time, money and resources moving towards or away from?

2. Which would be worst: to be forced to live without the thing that is important to you or be forced to live with the opposite?

3. Which of your Values are a ‘means’ or an ‘end’?     

4. What are your most strongly held beliefs? Of those beliefs, which are empowering or disempowering?

5. What are the Core Values of the organisation?

 

Attitude/Behaviour

1. In percentage terms how much time, energy and money do you spend on what is most important to you?

2. How are you living your life? What is your external behaviour, the manifestations of what is important to you?

3. What are you currently spending your time, money and energy on that is not what you want to be doing – so what is it that you’re doing when you’re not doing what you want to be doing?

4. What do you need to give up in order to get your top value?

5. What will you lose by not doing what you are currently doing and doing what you want to do?

 

Learnings

1. List your personal qualities. How do you know that?

2. What training/qualifications/expertise have you got that you do not use?

3. What training and development opportunities are you aware of within the organisation?

4. What training and development opportunities do you need which the organisation could provide?

5. What training and development opportunities do you need which the organisation can not provide?

 

Utilisation

1. What do you need to learn to do differently, the learning of which will allow you to move in the direction you need to progress?

2. What is stopping you from moving forward now?

3. How can the organisation help you and vica versa?

4. What resources do you need that you already have to help you get what you want? What resources do you need that you do not already have that would help you?

5. What course of action, one simple, easy step could you make now, which would be congruently desirable to you and the organisation, that would bring your outcome nearer?

Evaluation

1. What specifically do you want?

2. What will happen if you get it?

3. What won’t happen if you get it?

4. What will happen if you don’t get it?

5. What won’t happen if you don’t get it?

Strategy

1. What is the very last thing that needs to happen so that you know you have got what you really want?

2. What is the next to last thing that happens before the very last thing that makes you finally know that you have got what you really want?

3. What is the first step, the very first thing that has to happen so that you know that you are on your way to attaining your outcome?

4. When are you going to take the first action? What is the time-scale? How do you know this action will help you towards meeting your goal? How long will the action take?

5. What is stopping you starting now? Can you think of an obstacle that might stop you from moving forward? How will you overcome this barrier? What will you do to stop it from stopping you?

 

VALUES Coaching Model© - Overview

The Values Model is a simple coaching tool that allows the client to move forward to attain his or her goals in tune with the organisation’s expectations. It is underpinned by a complex series of tools and models that give the coaches the understanding they need to facilitate the development the client identifies.

The Model has six segments but can be divided into three broader strands.
The first (Values and Attitudes) describes where the individual is, what they are doing, what is most important to them and what they really want to achieve. It applies the 80/20 rule (20 per cent of what you do is effective, 80 per cent not) to identify exactly what you need to concentrate on to develop further. This can then be placed alongside organisational aims and objectives to facilitate alignment where possible and appropriate.

The second (Learnings and Utilisation) is the information collecting stage, providing the background on what the client has and what resources they will need to proceed. (This is where careful consideration is made of how progress aligns with the individual’s role map or personal development programme, whichever is appropriate). The Enneagram Model (see description below) is used to ascertain the personality type to gain greater intrapersonal understanding to facilitate interpersonal growth through identifying how to achieve more balance.

The third section (Evaluation and Strategy) provides the measurement criteria, making sure the outcome is realistic and ecological. A strategy document is produced so the client, coach and organisation can track development and ensure the client stays on track and achieve their outcome.

There are four main tools that are also used within the Values Model.
Firstly, the Life Cycles (an extension of the Wheel of Life) which gives the client the opportunity for greater personal insight to identify what is of paramount importance to them and what they need to concentrate on to progress.

Secondly, the Enneagram is the most sophisticated horizontal personality type model available, plotting the individual’s state in three scenarios: normal, stress and intimacy. The intention is to seek insight so the individual can bring more balance to their approach. It is not to categorise, rather the opposite. ‘We are controlled by that with which we identify. We control that with which we do not identify’.

Thirdly, the Keys To An Achievable Outcome tool provides measurement criteria for attaining the goal or outcome, and also provides a framework for ecological (in this context, meaning the study of consequences) progression.

Fourthly, the Personal Strategy Plan is a unique, live document which provides the steps required to achieve the goal and, where necessary, the tools to produce best possible performance.
It is the only model that clearly identifies the Beliefs and Values of the individual as well as the organisation so greater insight and understanding can occur and, where possible, align goals and expectations.

The Model starts by identifying the Beliefs and Values of the organisation and the individual, and crucially, what area(s) the client needs to focus on to progress. Attitudes and Behaviours are then explored to discover where the client is currently operating from, what tools they need to progress, and how the organisation can help.

Each stage of the Model slips seamlessly from one to the other as the previous learning supports the next. Once Learnings have been identified, the Model then explores how they can be utilised so that personal progression can dovetail with organisational expectations.

The Evaluation process is the most complete and rigorous available – the Well-Formed Outcome criteria from Neuro-Linguistic Programming. This thorough examination of the processes undertaken to ensure a successful, measurable outcome ensures both the organisation and individual have clear Performance Management records from the coaching sessions.

The final stage is to provide a strategy to ensure success. Much of the information already provided will feed into this strategy but it is how it is designed that is challenging, unique and aspirational. If appropriate to the outcome(s) the individual’s strategy for success in a particular area (ie, something they do very well) can be elicited and installed in the area in which they want to progress/develop.

Having identified the final outcome, the client is then encouraged to work backwards, to identify each step in reverse to achieve that outcome. Once identified, a live personal strategy plan is then produced on the steps which need to be taken, when they are taken and what resources will be required.

On successful completion of the goal/outcome a well-documented history of the process is produced by client and coach for inclusion in the organisation’s Performance Management portfolio. The VALUES Model©:

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