Organizational Psychology

My article is essentially a reflection of an experience I shared with an audience of around 80 Russian coaches in Moscow, in March this year. I was a guest of the Association of Russian Coaches, who had invited me to demonstrate a 30-minute coaching session at one of their weekly competence-based coaching supervision events. These events are organized by a volunteer working group, who have tasked themselves to develop the “Standard for the Russian Coaching Profession”.These particular events are designed to help Russian coaches develop their awareness, understanding and practice of the Russian "coach professional standard" competences. The article presents reflective writing approach, within the same structured framework that I offer to my coaching clients, to encourage and develop their own reflective practice and enrich their personal learning. The framework comprises these four questions: What happened and what caused it to happen that way? How did I behave, think and feel as it was happening? What were the main learning points from this experience? How will I apply that learning to my future behaviour? My main finding from this experience was the powerful role of compassion in a coaching conversation– even a short conversation between two people meeting for the first time – to generate a space of mutual trust and safety. By focussing on my “being” rather than “doing”, I was able to be fullypresent. My client felt safe to share and explore and this helped him generate the internal shift hewas looking for.