How to Blend Cognitive Coaching and Transformational Coaching

It was in September in Minneapolis (a truly wonderful time to visit if you’re thinking about it!) at one of my in-person The Art of Transformational Coaching workshops.

The protagonist in our story was part of a school group attending together, drawn to the workshop because they were mandated to use Cognitive Coaching but weren’t seeing the types of results they wanted. They had shared that they read Arise and were invested in Transformational Coaching, but this participant was struggling to see how the two methods could work together. 
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Cognitive Coaching and Transformational Coaching Work Together

On day two, it clicked. It was like a lightbulb went off above her head. I watched as a participant, who I could tell had been struggling to put the pieces together, made a breakthrough. If we were in the movies, a triumphant song would have played. 

Here’s what she realized: 
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💡Transformational Coaching includes approaches that address cognition, and so the strategies she used in Cognitive Coaching could be incorporated into this model.

💡Cognitive Coaching has limits: when a client experiences strong emotions (which everyone does, at some point) a coach needs to employ strategies that go beyond addressing cognition – a coach needs to address emotions. 

💡Because Transformational Coaching addresses ways of being, and core values and core human needs, clients are more easily and quickly bought into it. This means that the coach often experiences less resistance.

These are my absolute favorite facilitation experiences because I know powerful learning occurs when there is some cognitive dissonance involved. 

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This is also why patience and trusting the process is essential as a coach and facilitator! 

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