Beyond The Techniques

What if the most powerful thing you bring to a coaching session isn’t a technique, a question or a process — but yourself?

And what if the most profound changes your clients make are changes neither of you could have anticipated?

I have been coaching for most of my working life. Coaching is woven into everything I do, whether I am working with one person, a group, or indeed myself. And the more I learn about coaching, the more fascinated I become by what makes the difference between a conversation that is helpful and one that changes someone’s life.

It isn’t necessarily the questions you ask.

It certainly isn’t how faithfully you follow a coaching model.

And it isn’t how many NLP techniques you know.

It is something much more subtle, demanding and exciting.

It is your ability to notice what is happening, to recognise patterns that may be invisible to the person you are coaching, to respond to what emerges rather than what you expected, and to engage so completely that you are learning and changing as much as the person you are coaching.

This is coaching as a way of life.

There are plenty of coaching models that offer a sequence of steps, a set of questions, a reassuring structure.

They have their place.

But what happens when your client doesn’t respond as expected? When their words say one thing and everything else about them says another? When what they say they want is not what they really want? When the most important thing happening in the coaching session is something neither of you has yet recognised?

Do you continue with the next question on your list?

Or do you become curious?

This programme is about developing the awareness, flexibility and courage to work with what is actually happening.
We will explore coaching that is provocative, sometimes surprising, occasionally uncomfortable, often playful, and capable of bringing about changes that go far beyond the issue that originally brought someone to coaching.

And yes, we will use NLP techniques. But we will go beyond simply learning how to apply them. We will explore the principles that make them work, so that you can respond creatively and spontaneously rather than depend on a prescribed process.

You will be coaching. You will be coached. You will be observing, experimenting, modelling, discovering and testing.

And you will be learning to notice things that you may never have noticed before.

You will explore:

• The patterns beneath the problem. How people create and maintain their experience, often without realising it, and how those same patterns can become resources for change.

• What your client isn’t telling you. Not because they are withholding anything, but because some of the most important aspects of our experience are outside conscious awareness.

• The authentic and the counterfeit self. How to recognise the difference, in yourself and in others, and how that recognition can open up entirely new choices.

• The quality of your presence. What happens when you are completely engaged, without needing to prove yourself, be right, rescue someone or demonstrate your expertise?

• The art of provocative coaching. How humour, challenge, surprise, metaphor and the unexpected can create possibilities that conventional questioning may never reach.

• When to question, when to share, when to challenge — and when to say nothing. Learning to recognise what makes a difference in the moment.

• Transformational feedback. How to offer observations that enable people to discover something about themselves rather than simply accept your interpretation.

• Congruence and incongruence. How to recognise when someone’s experience is aligned with what matters to them, and when it isn’t.

• The different levels of change. Why resolving the immediate issue is sometimes only the beginning.

• How to make yourself redundant. Coaching that gives people ownership of their learning and the ability to continue changing long after the coaching relationship has ended.

And throughout all of this, you will be modelling not only your clients but also yourself.

What are you paying attention to? What are you missing? What assumptions are you making? What happens to you when a client doesn’t respond as you expect? How do you know when something is working? And how do you know when it is time to do something completely different?

Here is something I consider fundamental.

You cannot separate the coach from the coaching.

The way you respond to uncertainty, challenge, silence, emotion, disagreement and the unexpected is part of the process.

So this programme is as much about discovering yourself as it is about learning to coach others.

You will have opportunities to recognise your own patterns, question your own assumptions, experience your own changes and discover how your increasing awareness of yourself influences the difference you make with others.

You will also explore what it means to be an example of what you are inviting your clients to discover — not an example of perfection, but of curiosity, congruence, flexibility and the willingness to learn.

Not simply because you can demonstrate a technique.

Not because you have completed a number of coaching sessions.

And certainly not because your clients tell you how wonderful you are!

We will be looking for evidence of change.

Clients who begin to make different choices in situations where previously they felt stuck. People who surprise themselves with what they discover and what becomes possible. People whose learning extends beyond the issue they originally brought to coaching.

And, perhaps most importantly, people who no longer need you.

My aspiration is that your clients become self-sufficient, often in fewer than eight sessions, with the resources to continue their own learning and change.

We will also look for evidence of how you have changed through the experience of coaching.

Because if you are not learning, what are you modelling?

This is an experiential programme with coaching practice, observation, feedback and reflection at its heart.

There are two ways to participate.

The Core Coaching Programme

For those who want to deepen their understanding and practice of NLP-based coaching, whether for professional coaching, leadership, training, personal development or simply as a way of life.

The Full Coaching Programme with Accreditation Pathway

For those who also wish to work towards eligibility for accreditation as an NLP Coach with ANLP (the International Association for NLP).

This includes additional independent coaching practice, recommended reading, written assignments, recorded coaching sessions and review of your developing coaching competence.

The accreditation pathway will involve evidence from coaching at least ten clients, including the changes they experience, the way they become increasingly self-sufficient, and how you have integrated the learning yourself.

Your coaching will be reviewed through a support and reviewing group, with final assessment by me. Successful completion of the full programme and its requirements makes you eligible to apply for ANLP NLP Coach accreditation, subject to ANLP’s current criteria.

The fees differ according to which pathway you choose.

Entry requirement: You will already have completed NLP Practitioner training as a minimum.

I have learned from some extraordinary people over the years, and one of the things that continues to fascinate me is how often the most profound learning comes from something unexpected.

A moment of silence. A seemingly inappropriate question. A change in someone’s expression. Something that doesn’t go according to plan.

The difference is in what we notice, what we do with what we notice, and what we are prepared to discover about ourselves in the process.

I want this programme to be an opportunity to explore all of that.

Not just to learn how to coach.

But to discover what becomes possible when coaching is no longer something you do — it is a way of being.