Continuing our series looking at coaching tools and techniques, Coaching at Work road-tests Firework Career Coaching

1 The tool: What is it?

Firework Career Coaching is a flexible programme for coaches developed by Marianne Craig and Kate Edmonds. It consists of a one-day training module and a compendium of tools and exercises to help clients work out what they really want to do – and take action accordingly.

The tools can be used either in a linear way, guiding clients through a 12-week programme with homework and 12 coaching sessions. Or it can be used as a reservoir of great tools that coaches can dip into to satisfy clients’ individual needs.

The programme comes with printed material and a CD full of templates and suggestions.

How does it work?

The programme is made up of a series of key building blocks – EXPLORE, DREAM and DISCOVER – which, when complete, create for the client a self-audit, culminating in an individual career action plan. As the client works through the programme, they are encouraged to build up an Ideas Bank of possible jobs and careers, without any attempt to be realistic or to analyse – that stage comes later.

The programme seeks to draw on and reflect who the client is at their very core, focusing on their passions, buried aspirations and life-long yearnings. The basis of the programme involves the client being encouraged to focus on who they truly are, helping them identify a career, or portfolio, which honours their inner-most values.

In the first phase, EXPLORE, the coach works with their client to help them gain clarity on what they really want by acknowledging what they have achieved to date, to be used in the context of their future lives.

The aim is for the client to become clear on what they need for fulfilment and success in their lives and work.

In the DREAM phase, the client is led through a series of exercises as well as blue sky thinking, to help create possibilities. These will then be pinned down to actual choices from which the client can create and identify the career they are most passionate about.

In the final building block, the DISCOVER phase, the coach leads the client to deeply investigate the top possibilities created in the DREAM phase. The empowering processes provided by Firework need to be combined with the skills of the coach to help the client move the vision of their chosen career into an action plan.

For more information, visit www.fireworkcoaching.com

2 The administrator: Using the tool

Firework Career Coaching finds its niche in today’s challenging environment where news of people being made redundant is almost commonplace. Creating that next step, having overcome the trauma of being made redundant, is very important.

Joanna had recently been made redundant from a large blue chip where she had worked for many years. She’d never considered another career until this enforced change.

Joanne was one of the fortunate ones who’d been given outplacement support, but somehow she felt that because so many people from her company were availing themselves of this support, the outplacement agency would not have the right level of involvement to help her create her new career from scratch.

Once coaching was given to Joanna, she became open to trying the Firework programme over 12 weeks in order to address some of the long overdue wants that had gone unheard. She has children and she now wanted to build her new career around being more available to her family.

Joanna was just one client who helped demonstrate the programme’s value. Its flexibility means coaches could potentially use it in any situation where someone requires a framework to change their career, or next steps.

I’ve also been using it, with a good measure of success, with people with disabilities and clients who are over 50, who have forgotten the amazing skills they have amassed over the years, and who are not ready to go into retirement or give up working, but who are wishing to design something new for the next phase of their lives.

The verdict

Firework Career Coaching allowed me to build on my coaching skills and bring my own style, personality and brand to bear on what I offered my client.

It’s highly flexible – there are many ways in which you can apply it in your practice and it can be used alongside any base coaching programme.

It’s definitely a set of tools worth adding to your toolkit in service of addressing your clients’ needs in these challenging times.

Christine Alexander-Smith is founder of the Diversity Coaching Initiative

3 The client: The experience

The initial components of the programme – looking at my achievements – were challenging because I’d never looked at these important elements. But the coaching helped me tackle and articulate what my needs were in my career. It also helped me obtain clarity on what was needed to be present for the future.

Going through the Firework programme helped me define and investigate what I truly wanted to do, based on my skills, values and passions. I was also able to accommodate my family’s needs and respond to my desire to continue my education.

I was given a step-by-step action plan that I could work on. My perspective has now changed – it is more spacious.

The client is now working as a virtual assistant

The pros and cons of Firework Career Coaching

UPSIDE

  • Builds on original coaching experience/training
  • Flexible toolset that allows you to take out what you need for your clients
  • Helps the client assess who they are and what they truly need to be present in their future career and life
  • Allows the coach to brand the programme and make it their own

DOWNSIDE

  • Coaches need to ensure the client is in the right space to explore their options. Clients who have recently been made redundant may need support before starting it
  • To get the most out of the programme it has to be at least eight weeks long
  • The client must complete the homework and fully participate for the programme to work well

Coaching at Work, Volume 6, Issue 1