研究论文: 研究论文: Coaching Inspires Creativity
The goal of coaching is to help clients to achieve a clearer sense of life purpose, meaning, and direction or professional career advancement, what are those challenges and innovative solutions and actions together based on the clients’ beliefs, values and commitment (6). Sometimes, coach will use different kinds of tools or techniques to facilitate the imagination and stimulate new ideas. Through coaching, the clients will understand the creativity skill and how to explore the wonderful possibility. The clients will seek new ways to internal motivation, learn and develop with creativity in work/ life balance which are varied and changing along the life journey.
How to develop setting for creativity coaching?
- Make sure the client feels they are in a safe and trusting space.
- Explain what may occur and how come up with creative ideas leads to possibility and new perspectives.
- Help client to inspires and motivate self discovery, clarify the goals, overcome what kinds of thinking blocked the creative process and encourage self generated solutions.
- Though powerful questioning, coach help clients to clear the blockages and move to a space of creativity.
Powerful Questioning in creativity coaching
In order to enhance the creative abilities and enable the client to see the different ways, this is a series of powerful questions which probe into who they are as person with regards to creativity：
- What was the first thing that made you feel creative?
- What’s the first thing you do in the morning and what makes you feel inspired?
- What was the first thing that made you feel creative as a child?
- When was your worst idea and when’s your best idea?
- What that makes you like a creative person and why you do certain things？
- If you have a magic pole or full of energy, any different ideas that you can imagine?
Coaching Process for Creativity
A 7-Step Process to unleash creativity potential. The role of a coach acts like the catalyst supporting this process.
- Clarify confusing issues and puzzling problems
- Discover new possibilities and hidden opportunities
- Stimulate novel ideas, communicate ideas and possibilities for creative solutions
- Reframing new perspectives with creative thinking skills
- Define a goal. Figure out what areas need to be targeted, improved upon or strengthened in order to make this happen for yourself within your time frame
- Action plan and commitment to enable creative changes in life
- Acknowledge and celebrate the success
Tools and techniques for creativity aspirations
One of the greatest difficulties is creating novel ideas and picturing the future. So, creative tools/techniques often use to think differently about a situation, find a solution or clarity around an issue, to help overcome a challenge or to shift their perceptions to help the clients make different decisions with new information and insight during coaching process.
Introductions to some practical tools/techniques (adopted from different websites, 10&11)
- Lateral Thinking: This technique will shift the perceptions by thinking sideways to create new ideas (12).
- Mindmapping: A tool that will help to re-organize our thoughts, shape the new ideas, prioritize and get things done.
- Brainstorming: Generating new ideas and finding solutions with free flow of ideas under open mind sharing environment. It is the classic creative method for group couching.
- Changing Lenses. Examine a problem from many different points of view. E.g. “How would you perceive /solve the problem?”
- Problem Reversal: Looking at the problem backwards
- Attribute Listing: Listing attributes of objects and then challenging them(13)
- Thinking Metaphorically: Make unusual connections between seemingly unrelated things (14). A metaphor based on something tangible and familiar can help describe something that is intangible and unfamiliar to expand their ideas about the problem or opportunity. E.g. the blind leading the blind.
- Role-play: Become other people. Let them solve the problem.
- Visualization: A technique and tool that creating a motivating view of the future.
- Meditation: Creative thinking to bring about a feeling of euphoria.