Photo by Joyce Adams on Unsplash
Recently I listened to a webinar by McKinsey in which they shared their recent research into ‘Building Workforce Skills at Scale to Thrive During and After the Covid 19 Crisis’₁. A key message was the need for capability building and investment in talent on an unprecedented scale to move forward successfully in the new world. According to McKinsey, key skills needed include advanced cognitive skills and critical thinking. A range of strategies were identified to achieve this reskilling including ‘fast coaching’. These elements very much reflect our newly emerging approach to coaching. Over the past year we have been designing, testing and promoting what we call DESIGN Coaching. Early results from our testing phase suggest that not only can DESIGN Coaching help to support the development of these skills, it is also a more flexible process with the potential to deliver tangible results within a less protracted timescale than some more traditional coaching approaches.
At Level 7 we know from our experience as practising coaches and our work in educating and training new coaches that there are core skills, models and philosophies that most coaches seek to adopt as a basis for their coaching careers. Whilst we appreciate the value of an eclectic approach as coaches mature in their practice, at the heart of coaching for many still remain core elements – e.g. robust and powerful questions and an underpinning model. As we observe the world emerging from Covid, we believe that there is value in adopting a less prescriptive but nevertheless robust coaching approach. An approach that is more flexible, in tune with a less predictable and structured working world and ultimately an approach that encourages and supports creative thinking.
As passionate advocates of both coaching and design thinking, it was only natural for us to look to these fields for our solution. So we decided to synthesise the principles of design thinking and coaching into an integrated process that at the same time encourages discovery and fun. If we can grow awareness, develop intuition and enhance creativity then we can ultimately help create change and transformation for individuals and also for those around them. We believe that our DESIGN Coaching approach can achieve richer data collection, deeper insighting, and energise experimentation to address client and organisation coaching challenges.
Look out for our next blog in which we will explain the key elements of DESIGN coaching. Our testing phase is ongoing, so if you’d like to be part of it just drop us a line at info@level7live.com.
