James Hayes and Max Young, with Martin Shervington
| Creating Motivational Energy for Change – The Coaching Room Community |
There exists a model of change that anyone can use to grow and change some aspect of their personal or professional life. It’s a generative model that makes it easier for the coach and the client. Contrarily to therapy based models, it’s not based on dysfunctions. This model of change is relevant for anyone who wants to look forward.
Going Through A Change Is A Journey
Change works systemically and this model represents change across different axes. It goes in a specific order. First, there’s going to be an arousal of energy, the motivation to change. It’s basically building motivational energy. Then comes commitment. It’s making a decision, being clear about it and being ready to go through it. Then you create. It’s all about finding out what you need to do and put into place to get what you want. This is what we call creating and actualizing. The final part is integration. You celebrate and reinforce what’s working and improve what’s not working. Those are the general steps that people go through to change their lives.
What The Axes Stand For
There are 8 axes in this model of change.
The first two are the motivational axes, which are “the awakener” and the “challenger”. It’s all about awakening the person (your client) to the possibility. The “challenger” part is building the motivational energy. Let’s say you give up not achieving what you want, what is the cost going to be? The coach challenges the pain of not making this change. Going through these steps successfully, you are going to be clear about what you’re moving towards. You’ll also know the cost of not making this change, and be ready to accept it.
Then, we move to the “prober” and “provoker” axes. Probing is starting to explore the decisions you actually need to make to change. It is asking yourself (or your client, if you’re the coach) these questions: What are the advantages and disadvantages of making this change? Is this decision well thought out? Do we have clarity of what we’re moving toward?
Then the provoking is asking: Are you ready to make this change? Are you bold enough? Is there any kind of perfectionism holding you back? Are you ready to commit?
Shifting to provoking comes after the person is clear on what they need to do to get the result. They know they are committed to do it no matter the stakes.
Then, it’s time to create, which is when we move to the “co-creator” and “actualizer” axes.
Again, you should ask yourself some questions: What psychology and mindset are you going to need to change? Do you have this mindset now? What is the inner game that’s going to facilitate getting this outcome? What is the outer strategy are we going to create to get this happening?
When you have the answers to these questions, it’s time to take action. You will start creating on the outside what you have already implemented on the inside. It’s completing the steps and bringing the game plan to fruition. You will have succeeded when you’ll be clear about what you need to do.
The final axes are “reinforcer” and “tester”. Reinforcement is looking at what works, acknowledging it and reinforcing it. But you’ll also have to ask the question: What’s not working? What could be better? What is not going the way that we expected? And what new moves could we put in plan to reinforce this change and make this even more effective?
About Change:
This is a full and complete model of change. Following these steps, you’re going to grow and change whatever you’re thinking of changing. If you’re a coach, this is the best way you can facilitate change for your client.
This model is a great compass point, since it brought structure to coaching and turned it into a process. For example, you’re a coach having a conversation with a client. That person hasn’t taken any action about all the things you have discussed, so you can simply check the model and find the resistance in the system. That way, you’ll be able to know where the obstacle is. This is a great tool to know exactly where it is to be working with the client.
