Coaching for Results
Coaches of all types are in the business of driving behavior change, because enhanced performance or effectiveness generally requires some change in behavior. If this were not true, coaches would not be needed.
In order to successfully initiate and maintain behavior change, people move through three specific stages we call Enlighten, Encourage and Enable. Each stage represents a milestone for your clients to move through; and if successful, they will be able to transition from successful adopters to successful maintainers of new behaviors.
Enlighten, Encourage and Enable is a powerful model of behavior change, based on strong theoretical models coming from the leadership, health psychology, and behavioral medicine literatures. It has been developed and perfected by Dr. Ken Nowack in over 20 years of work with thousands of leaders and soon-to-be leaders.
We think you will find this individual behavioral change model useful, intuitive, and valuable as you work with your clients along each critical stage from an initial readiness to change to the unconscious competence of the most effective performers in any field.
Enlighten
Before anyone begins to change, they must first be aware of what they want to change. During the Enlighten phase, clients become more enlightened and aware of signature strengths to leverage further and become more aware of development areas to focus more time and attention on. Feedback methods such as 360-degree assessments are helpful in this stage.
Encourage
Not all people who are more aware of how they are perceived or experienced by others are equally motivated to want to change their behavior. Clients must be motivated and feel confident in order for change efforts to be successful. Coaches can help in this stage by using motivational interviewing techniques and skill building to facilitate clients’ readiness to take action toward change.
Enable
Unfortunately, not all enlighten and truly motivated individuals are successful at lasting behavior change. In order for behavioral change to be sustained over time, clients need to track their progress, reward success and built a support system to help sustain their motivation over time. In this stage, coaches help clients build relapse prevention plans, and cultivate factors that support sustained change with colleagues, family members, partners and friends.
Change is not a linear process
Successful behavioral change is often NOT linear but can be progressive, regressive, or even static. Clients may pass back and forth through each of the three stages due to a number of contributing elements. The major contributing elements that affect coaching progress – including coach factors, client factors and environmental factors – along with actions to take and tools to use in each of the three stages of behavior change are presented in great detail in our book Clueless.
