The latest Coaching CPD session offered by the East of England Local Govt.Association and facilitated by Jane Cox (Master Coach & Supervisor) may have come as a bit of a surprise to some of the attendees who hadn’t experienced a session quite like this before. Did that put them off? Far from it, it would seem, as all said they would recommend the session to their colleagues, having found it a stimulating and insightful experience.

The overall objective was to offer attendees a chance to experience a collaborative approach to coaching during which they would gain an appreciation of the variety of perspectives that might emerge from a single coaching issue.  By challenging their own beliefs about the ‘right’ path to take they would also learn something new.

This is what happened.. 

In a short introduction, Jane, explained that she had positioned 2 concentric circles of chairs around a coaching pair – the inner circle formed a ‘fishbowl’, and the outer circle was the audience. Jane started off a coaching session with the first volunteer coachee, watched by four coaches sitting in the fishbowl. After a few minutes she paused and asked those in the fishbowl for their observations and ideas “What is going on here?” “Where would you take this session next?” The coachee listened to their ideas and then chose a coach she would like to continue with. This coach stepped in to the middle and took over  whilst Jane stepped out of the circle and continued to facilitate the session from the side lines, intermittently swapping coaches in and out to progress the coaching.

If someone in the audience wanted to join the action, they could come forward and replace a member of the fishbowl, allowing them to take a back seat.

When the Coachee felt she had fully explored her issue from different perspectives and had come up with some actions to take forward, the facilitator asked for a coach to wrap up the session.  Jane facilitated a discussion with the whole group about the process and their learning from it and then started off the process again with a new coachee and coach

A key aspect of the Fishbowl approach that many named, was that the supportive environment and interactive style of the session allowed attendees to get involved and practice their coaching if they wanted to – or if not, to simply observe others and learn from what they were doing