Mindler/CDA CCSP

Helping/Coaching Skills Case

Nisha is 40 years old and a schoolteacher with a Bachelor’s degree in Education and
a Master’s degree in Social Studies. Her husband works at a large bank. They have
two children, a 14-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son. They live in a large
apartment in Chennai.
She has come to you to seek career coaching because she feels dissatisfied with
her role as a teacher. She is unhappy because of the low pay, long working hours,
and a lack of intellectual challenge. Recently, due to administrative changes, she is
required to do a lot more paperwork. This makes her feel that her role as a
teacher is diminished. She also feels that she is not given the respect which she
thinks deserves. She is not sure whether she would like to continue teaching, move
into administration, or explore an entirely new field.

Questions
1. How would you begin your first coaching session with Nisha?

2. What skills would you employ to support your coaching work with
Nisha? Please explain each of your choices and how you believe that skill
would help her?

3. How would you go about helping Nisha to explore and choose a new
career path? What would you do first? What would you do next—
and why?
Some of the known facts about Nisha are-

a/ Age- 40 years
b/ Gender-Female
c/ Work Experience- Yes (High School Teacher)
d/ Academic History – Bachelor’s degree in Education and a Master’s degree in Social Studies
e/ Married- Yes, Spouse working for a large bank
f/ Children-Yes (14-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son)
g/ Place of Residence-Chennai, India

e/ Query- Needs Help since-

 Dissatisfied with teaching role

 Dissatisfied with Low Pay

 Dissatisfied with Long working hours

 Lack of Intellectual challenge

 Also engaged with Paper Work

 Feels lack of external respect at work

 Confused with her decisions of continuing same job role as a teacher or in school
admin or explore a completely new field altogether

1. How would you begin your first coaching session with Nisha?
2. What skills would you employ to support your coaching work with
Nisha? Please explain each of your choices and how you believe that skill
would help her?

Making Nisha comfortable and forming a baseline for myself to know Nisha better I initiated
the conversation by asking her some general questions about her on topics like
Extracurricular Activities, her family background in details, Hobbies, etc.

The details about Nisha after the conversation are as follows-

 Extracurricular Activities- Painting and cooking.

 Like to watch movies such as Chef (family drama), Burnt (life story of a Michelin
winning chef)

 Hobbies- Playing Volleyball, Travelling

  Family Background in detail-

a/ Husband working at a large bank is mostly busy and occupied with his work. He
isn’t able to give much time to kids and Nisha herself.

b/ Her 14-year-old daughter is quite mature as she takes care of her younger brother
when both the parents aren’t at home and also supports her mother at household
work sometimes.
c/ Her 12 yrs. old son is a trouble maker at home and gives his mom and sister a hard
time many a times.

Now, as her query is to know more about what she should do next in her career, I as a career
coach decided to switch the interacting session to a coaching session with Nisha. But before
the session I gave a brief info about coaching and how it works. The following information
was shared by me to Nisha about Coaching-

 Coaching Focuses on Listening to the client, asking relevant questions to help them
explore and understand themselves better, and provide solution which the coach &
coachee both agreed upon.
 Coaching is based and grown out of positive psychology movement. It focuses more on
what is possible, what is right with the person, what are their strengths, what are they
already doing well. It focuses more on leveraging these skills to tackle what is going
on in their lives.
 Coaches believe that their clients have the internal resources to deal with whatever
they are facing. Furthermore, Coaching is action and task oriented. It is based on the
insight of the client’s present situation which coaches termed as “Awareness” of the
client.
 It is a process from being stuck in a situation and getting unstuck thereafter.
 A typical Coaching session is generally divided into 3 parts-
a/ Agreement-Coach & Client establishes mutual goal/goals
b/ Awareness- The client explores where they are now and where they intend to
arrive (the goal)
c/ Action- Client implements the new found idea/ideas into their life.

P.S- The following helping skills (under coaching) were used my me (the coach) to move the
conversation forward with the client and bring awareness to the client in accordance to the
competencies mentioned by the ICF-
a/ Attending- Giving importance to the client, making them comfortable and letting them
aware of the fact that we are listening to them and they are important to us.
b/ Paraphrasing & Reflecting-Taking all that the client have mentioned into account and
sending it back to them in a way which would make them aware of what they said about
themselves.
c/ Listening- Listening attentively to what the client is saying and also trying to figure out
what they are not saying/hesitance by noticing their facial expressions, body language, etc.
d/ Encouraging- Making the client believe that they are not alone in this and they have the
“factor” inside them which would help them to push themselves get unstuck.
e/ Questioning- Asking relevant questions to the client, which would make them aware of
inspecting where they are now and where they intend to reach (individualistic goal).
f/ Summarizing- Packing all the layers from the session and throwing it back to the client for
re-confirmation and action.
I also informed Nisha about ICF code of ethics and the strict confidentiality of the session
which I as a Career Coach adhere to maintain at all times.
Nisha agreed and I started with the coaching session. The following is the conversation script
which was noted from the coaching session –

Agreement-
Me (Coach)- “Hey Nisha! Thanks for letting me know so much about yourself.” It was so
nice to know about you. So, tell me more, what else is in your mind today “? –
(Attending)

Nisha- “Well thanks for having me! So, as you know I am facing all these issues at work like I
am really dissatisfied with my job role at school, my monthly pay, the long working hours, no
external respect of being a teacher and now on top of that now the paper works. Itz just
making me more and more frustrated. And now I am really confused as in how should I move
forward with my career and life.

Me (Coach) “Ya sure Nisha…good to see someone showing so much compassion towards
her career. So, I heard a couple of things- First that you are facing a lot frustration at
work and your confusion with moving your life and career forward.
So, may I ask you why speaking about this topic is so important for you today? And
could you also let me know, what does – “more and more frustrated “means to Nisha
now? - (Attending & listening)

Nisha “Ya sure. I mean I need to follow a passion of my own now and that’s why it is so
important for me to talk about this now. I am really tired of pursuing my job as a teacher now.
By more and more frustrated means that I get angry and feel very low wondering about my
life decisions and career choices.

Me (Coach)- Wow! That’s great, Nisha! So, what I heard from you are- You wanted to
follow your passion and also it makes Nisha worry thinking about her life and career
decisions right? – (Attending & listening)

Nisha- Yes, that’s exactly what I want right now

Me (Coach)- So Nisha, after speaking to me for so long and sharing so much about
yourself, what outcome are you expecting from this session today? -(Attending &
Reflecting)

Nisha- Well as I mentioned I need to rediscover myself and I need a clarity for myself as in
what career should I choose next that would be best for my career, not only for now, but for
the later years also. I am 40 right now. I don’t feel, I can change my job roles after 5 or 10
years from now again.

Me (Coach)- Thank you so much for stating your desired outcome for today. And may I
ask Nisha, what would be the impact of this outcome in your Life? - (Attending &
reflecting)
Nisha- I would be so happy and fulfilled that I am able to pursue what I always dreamt off.

Awareness-
Me (Coach)- So Nisha, you mentioned your outcome for today’s session is to rediscover
yourself and have some clarity on what you should pursue as a career for your future
right? So where do you want to begin? – (Attending, Listening, Questioning)

Nisha- Lets begin with the things I like to do …For e.g. Cooking, watching YouTube videos,
reading a good book.

Me (Coach)- Well Sure! So, Nisha, since you mention about your interest area, what do
you mean by this? -(Listening ,Questioning)

Nisha-Well I always wanted to open my own restaurant like a small cozy place, since I love to
cook different varieties of food items and all.

Me (Coach)- Well, nice to hear all that! So, Nisha, is all into practical stuff and she also
likes to cook various dishes, right? - (Listening, paraphrasing & reflecting)

Nisha - yup…you are right. See I have little idea on how to start my own restaurant but I have
budget issues as well. Can’t afford to open a new restaurant now. I need something alternative
here.

Me (Coach)- Well that’s interesting! So, what do you think you can do to think a good
alternative to opening a restaurant for Nisha looks right now?

Nisha- Well, I can surf the internet to more on this. Maybe …a YouTube channel on cooking
various Indian dishes could be done by me for now, considering my budget issue in hand.

Me (Coach)- True! So apart from the internet, what different could Nisha do to fulfil her
need on opening a YouTube channel ? - (Attending, Questioning, Encouraging)

Nisha- (After a long pause) … Well……you know Rohit, my maternal cousin who is now settled
in Germany called me that day to wish me on my birthday. While we were speaking, I recall
him telling me about this new trending filed in cooking – Food -the Indian way. He also
mentioned to me about how YouTube is the key to the social media world. Sounds like an
interesting concept to me.

Me (Coach)-Seems quite interesting to me! So, how would Nisha make sure to know
more and much more on “Cooking, and YouTube”? – (Questioning, Paraphrasing &
Reflecting)

Nisha- That’s a good question! I can refer to my favorate YouTube channels! And apart from
searching on google, I also have to call Rohit and take some notes from him as well.

Me (Coach)- Anything else that is coming to your mind now? (Encouraging)

Nisha- Yes, since I stay in Delhi, maybe I can search for some local institutes where food and
culinary studies are being taught! Yes, I can do that too! (She smiles)

Me (Coach)- Well done Nisha! I am so glad that you finally found something to start
with, isn’t so? (Encouraging)
Nisha- Yes, indeed! All thanks to you!

Action-
Me (Coach)- You’re most welcome Nisha. Happy I could Help! So, before we end this
session today, could you mention me your key takeways from today’s session?
(attending & summarizing)
Nisha- Ya sure. So, I found out that I should something with my cooking skills while moving
forward with my career.
Me (Coach)- That’s Fantastic Nisha.
Me (Coach)- Thank you Nisha so much for your time and hope to meet you soon again.
Bye
Nisha- Thanks and bye

3. How would you go about helping Nisha to explore and choose a new
career path? What would you do first? What would you do next—
and why?

As a Career Coach I feel that inducing the VIA (Values in Action) Personality
Assessment would be apt and fit to use this case. The reason for me choosing the
VIA Assessment are as follows-

a/ Nisha is already in her 40’s and with a lot of responsibilities. She now cannot
afford to play trial and error with her career anymore. And because of this
she needs to be sure about her values and how she could use this to work
upon her interest areas.

b/ She also needs to find her true strengths according to her values so that she
could harness her strengths and bring them to work at her full potential.

Before we move further and apply the VIA assessment in Nisha’s Life, let us first
understand the VIA assessment in brief.

Highlights of VIA (Values in Action) Assessment

a/ Revelation of signature strengths

b/ Revelation of middle strengths
c/ Revelation of Lesser Strengths

Nisha’s VIA Results-

Now, after Inducing VIA Assessment on Nisha, her results came out to be the
following-

Signature strengths
Humour, Spirituality, Perspective, Social intelligence, Kindness
Middle strengths
Fairness, Curiosity, Love, Love of Learning, Hope
Lesser strengths
Bravery, Leadership, zest, self-regulation, prudence.

As I shared the test results with Nisha, she was very fascinated and surprised to know and
learn that some the values were never on her list and she never thought those would be
applicable with her personality.
So, after sharing the test results with Nisha and explaining her the values type and having
considering that she wants to pursue something meaningful in her life, I as her Career Coach
would suggest her the following –

i/ PLAN A- Pursuing YouTube as a career option displaying her cooking skills.

ii / PLAN B- Pursuing cooking or culinary studies online or offline
 
iii / PLAN C- start small as of now with YouTube and as she grows with her channel, she could
think of opening her own restaurant in the near future.

Conclusion-
From the above mention conversation, we can see that Nisha (the client) came to me (the
coach) to know on what she should pursue in her career and she took with herself with a
roadmap of not only what she wants to do (cooking, YouTube channel, etc.) but also a plan
how to move forward in her life. (Nisha’s takeaways).