Coaching Corner by Able Coach
By Dr Shan Narayanan
Having 30 years of experience in the medical field at various levels including management. I have now ventured into the novel area of coaching in the healthcare industry.
After having worked with young doctors, which I wrote in my article “Coaching Youth”, we have now moved to Coaching Nurses.
Coaching can be of benefit at all levels of nursing.
Coaches facilitate the integration of coaching competencies into any area of nursing practice to bring about a process of change that leads to actualising their potential in work and personal life.
Coach Dr Shan with the nurses going through the reasons why they chose to be nurses
To be more specific, coaching can be of benefit to nurses in the following situations:
1. Nurses beginning their career.
Coaching helps in:
- navigating the work environment
- clarifying their priorities
- learning how to adapt to new situations.
2. Nurse leaders.
Coaching helps in:
- Leadership
- Managing difficult situations, colleagues and junior staff
- Achieving role-specific professional goals.
3. Nurses not performing.
Coaching helps in:
- Creating awareness that they are not performing
- Eliciting understanding why they are not performing
- Enlightening strategies to perform better.
4. Nurses experiencing stress in their career/life
Coaching helps in:
- Understanding the causes of stress.
- Facilitating a discussion in helping them to move forward.
Coaches with the Director of Nursing, Hospital Fatimah and participating junior nurses.
On 5 January 2019, ABLE COACH together with the Malaysian Association of Certified Coaches conducted a half-day coaching session for 40 junior nurses at Hospital Fatimah, Ipoh.
The session was conducted by ABLE COACH and 10 other Certified Coaches from the Malaysian Association of Certified Coaches. The lead Coaches were Dr Shan and Ms Helen Teh.
The objectives of the session were:
- To discover the purpose of your job.
- To become aware of habits required to achieve that purpose.
We started with a fun ice-breaking session. The participants were then taken through a sharing session why they chose to be nurses and what they wanted to achieve as a nurse.
Almost 85 per cent wanted to be nurses, as they wanted to care for and help others. We emphasised to the participants having different reasons to do what they do, is their right.
Having gone through “Why am I doing what I do” we then had a fun activity to emphasize the importance of purpose.
All participants had to move from point A to Point B, however, they cannot follow the same movement as other participants. We saw from Catwalk to Monkey jumping…. Lots of Laughter and cheering ……. emphasising the point when you have a purpose, you will work out a way.
This was followed by a breakout session with individual coaches for coaching on habits required to achieve the purpose.
One of the nurses said, “Thanks for the opportunity that made me think and open up to realise my strength and areas I need to improve to achieve my purpose”….that was really heartwarming for the coaches.
