SHADOW COACHING

On the surface, when you watch someone engaged in Shadow Coaching, you may get the impression that whatever it is, it is not coaching. That’s because at the heart of this kind of coaching, and its first stage, is observing. That’s how shadow coaching works: first you intensely observe an individual or group, and then you report your observations. Yet these observations are not ordinary observations and not everyone has the skill to do this kind of observing. Similarly, the reporting of the observations also is not something people can just naturally do, they need to be trained.

First, the Observations When it comes to observing, the first question that arises is, “What are you observing?” You can’t attempt to observe everything; that’s impossible. Accordingly, you have a conversation with the person or group you are shadowing to identify an objective, then a criteria list, and then the specific behaviors to be observed.