Distractions are excluded from consciousness. If an individual is finding it difficult to focus on his/her work, you can use coaching as a forum for resolving the distracting issues. If there are perceived conflicting priorities, you can negotiate or explain the real priorities. If the individual is being held back by a lack of confidence or personal problems, you may be able to help by coaching them, or referring them to an appropriate specialist. If there is interpersonal conflict, you can address it by coaching the people involved and mediating between them. As a manager or director, you may have the authority to minimise external distractions such noise or demands from other workers.
There is no worry of failure. Coaching works on the assumption that it’s OK to make mistakes - as long as you learn from them. By delivering accurate feedback about performance and demanding that people learn from their mistakes, you ensure that failures become less frequent and less damaging. By creating an accountable but supportive environment, you help your people to spend less time worrying about failure and more time pursuing excellence.
Self-consciousness disappears. All artists and creatives have had the experience of being fully absorbed in a creative task, and entering the altered state of consciousness called ‘flow’. As a coach, you can raise the individual’s awareness of the flow state - such as the elements of visualisation, auditory imagination and physical sensation - and help identify the actions, environments and other triggers that lead to flow.
The sense of time becomes distorted. Although it is possible for a coach trained in hypnosis to use suggestion to create an altered sense of time, this is not necessary or desirable in a business context! For practical purposes, it’s best to regard this element of creative flow as a by-product of the other elements, and to simply notice the signs in others. For instance, are people clock-watching and eager to leave, or do they seem absorbed in their work and oblivious to the passing of time? Remember, this is not about monitoring their ‘timekeeping’, but noticing how absorbed and self-motivated they are.
