“Motivation is really about building an environment where people are happy and are able to express themselves. I look at coaching as being about communicating and facilitating, where listening is encouraged and people ask questions as a way to move forward so that both the individual and the corporation can reach their own milestones and thereafter create an environment that is motivating and supporting,” he said.

“Motivation is an energy”, Dave says, adding that it could be about one person supporting another to get them motivated. It’s essentially a one on one process and it creates an environment where the individual is able to articulate and share what they really mean.

But what do you do if you’re unskilled in this area? Should you even begin to imagine trying to coach someone? That’s where Dave makes the distinction between motivating, a fascinating word, which can often be shortlived, and inspiring, which really allows individuals to tap into their potential and express themselves fully. “I guess”, Dave adds, “it often comes down to whether the person is optimistic or pessimistic, whether the person sees the bright side or the dark side.”

“It’s fascinating that you do need both in an enterprise; it’s often the ones who see the gaps in the organisation, who need to improve or change their communication style or find that they are in a situation where they are too negative.”

So how are they supposed to tackle this? Dave reckons the first thing is that there should be some core values or beliefs. All business is people business, and he reckons that, if you’re not too good at developing relationships, or if you’re not very extroverted, you could certainly work on it, by concentrating on your speaking manner, your communication style. The main thing was really about looking for ways to support and encourage as opposed to judge and put down.

Dave authored a book two years ago, called Awesome Coaching. Strategies & Techniques for Impacting the Workplace and in this book, Dave invited his readers to become not just a coach, but an Awesome Impact Coach. In a nutshell, Dave looked at coaching as being about proactively helping people and companies to move from their current state of being to a desired state. It’s a simple technique called matching and mirroring. The truth is that Dave never gets into a coaching session where he gets all excited and motivated and very ra-ra. It’s about sensory acquity. a-cu-i-ty meaning sharpness, keenness.

What does sensory acquity involve? Well, its about the senses, all the important senses. Your sense of sight, hearing and potentially, even taste and smell. It’s about being able to really see what’s going on and feel it too. You’re effectively calibrating with that person you’re speaking with. You’re tuning into that person’s radion station and by doing that one thing, you start to develop rapport. You then use that rapport to ask questions, to inquire and then shift that person to a more empowered, more energised state, if that’s where you’re going with this.

I believe that coaching really involves a high degree of emotional quotient or EQ. To communicate effectively, to listen in a non-judgemental way, to really hear, to pick up on the non-verbal cues. Dave feels that EQ is partially tapping into sensory acuity. Interestingly enough, what’s important is realising that while judgements do occur, it’s about whether we’re energising these judgements or not.

“I have a feeling that one of the key components here is curiosity”, Dave mentioned. “A sincere curiosity. Also supporting that, is sincere interest in people and a sincere feeling that you can make a difference.”

Drawing reference to Dr Martin Seligman, Dave suggests that in some of the research today on authentic happiness, the key to being happy was about having three major components. Firstly, doing simple tasks that make us happy like smiling or dancing. Secondly, an element of growth or learning. With that, you’re looking to become even better - how can I be an even better coach? Naturally, by doing this, your subconscious mind will give you some ideas as to how to go about this. Thirdly, the element of making a difference, because everyone wants to make a difference.Does this work across the board? Surely there will be those upon whom you feel you cant impact, that they cant really make the shift. Ask yourself –can you truly change somebody?

“Well, that’s one of the keys of coaching, it’s a collaborative process,” Dave stresses, “The coach asks the coachee the questions to get feedback from them on the levels of performance that they are comfortable to achieve, and of course, there could be some stretch factors. For this, you really need to have buy-in from the coachee. The question needs to be asked in such a way that it appears as the coachee’s idea. The thing is, it’s always great to have a coaching session where there’s a bit of a stretch but when the coachee doesn’t believe he can stretch to meet those goals, then that’s where that gap is created.”

Short of it, there’s nothing to it but to plunge right in and get started. Are you ready to take on the challenge?