Interview with Cheryl Meredith, Instructor of The Coaching Pathway Course

We sat down with Cheryl to learn more about why she teaches this course and what’s important in being a coach. 

Find more info and sign up here.

Tell us about your background as a coach.

As far as being a coach, I’ve done it for more than 20 years. Dear friends introduced me to coaching, and I completed my certification through Corporate Coach U. I began using it informally and then more formally, both here in North America but also working with people around the globe. I’ve coached and trained coaches both for internal organizations as well as for other organizations.

And, I have loved the Coach Approach. It puts the power for movement into the hands of the person being coached.

The opportunity to walk with another person, helping them from where they are to where they long to be and do it in practical ways where they can own their forward movement, is just something I love doing.

What’s your background with PAIRIN’s technology?

I first used the amazing PAIRIN Readiness Management System(tm) as it was being developed and was so impressed with the power of the PAIRIN system to identify the specific areas where a person wants to grow and then to be able to demonstrate over time how coaching has helped them.

I don’t know of any more powerful tool to see that change that comes from being coached, and I’m certified in most of them.

For most of us as coaches, we are motivated to see people experience the change they desire and the PAIRIN system allows you to see it and to measure it, on 105 attributes. That’s radical. There are very few things out there today that can offer you that. So, as a coach, I love using the PAIRIN system.

Why do you teach this course?

I love giving people a simple, practical way they can get their arms around what it means to be a coach and to use a Coach Approach to powerfully help people get to their goals.

In the course, I will give you The Coaching Pathway, which identifies the steps in a coaching process for both individual conversations and the broader coaching relationship.

I will help you identify and learn the seven core skills. We call them the PAIRIN Backpack of Coaching Skills and you’ll get practical help to understand when and how to use these skills and help you grow so that you can powerfully use them in coming alongside another person and coaching them.

Why did PAIRIN decide to create The Coaching Pathway course?

I realized that the PAIRIN system is incredibly powerful. And, I have wanted to use the power of PAIRIN to make the broadest impact possible and impact as many people as possible.

I believe that a Coach Approach respectfully honors the individual and allows them to choose the focus of where they want to make the applications from the PAIRIN system and to identify where they want to grow and develop.

So, a Coach Approach naturally fits hand in glove with the PAIRIN system to be able to practically help a people grow and develop.

Coaching can be the X factor in helping a person breakthrough to success. It is all about closing the gap between a person’s present reality and their desired future. Coaching helps you get where you want to be, and, I want to help you coach in the most helpful and dynamic way.

What will coaches learn from this course?

You’ll get a mental framework, called The Coaching Pathway, for how you engage with another person to coach them, closing and bridging that space between their present reality and the possible future they desire.

I will help you grow in both listening deeply and asking great questions to identify where and how a person wants to grow and come up with practical steps forward to get to that future they desire.

As I mentioned, I’ll give you the Seven Skills of Coaching and develop you in how and when to use them.

I will also help you identify when a Coach Approach is the best way to help a person.

What is the mental framework of The Coaching Pathway?

The Coaching Pathway you get will help you know what you do in your overall coaching of an individual. That might be over multiple conversations and will address the structure of going where they are — their present reality — to their desired possible future. The Coaching Pathway will help you address the key steps for the person you are coaching, including: How do we help them consider what could be possible for them? How do we brainstorm and work with them around possibilities of action? How do we plan specifically around what they will do, both in the short term — in the next week or two? How that plan will play out in weeks, months, and beyond?

The Coaching Pathway gives you the way you will walk with that person to get them to that desired future.

And, the exciting thing is that it’s not only the structure of the long-term relationship or the coaching relationship with the person, but it’s also the pattern we follow in each individual conversation. Each time we’re together, we want to practically help the person we’re coaching to bridge that gap and get close to the future they’re wanting.

So, we will use The Coaching Pathway to come up with practical steps and practical plans that they can implement, that they own, and that they want to move on from when you spoke with them to when you speak with them again.

How does this course help individuals better use PAIRIN?

The coaching course will give you a practical approach to take the vast amount of knowledge and understanding you will gain from The PAIRIN Survey and bring it to the individual so that they can make actionable change. You’ll find with the PAIRIN system, there are many different directions that a person could grow in their desired future.

But, with a Coach Approach, we help them focus not only on the meta goal they have — the big goal they have into the future — but how that will translate practically into what they can do today and in the next few days to get to that future. They do the work, we engage and support them.

Coaching very naturally marries with the PAIRIN system to bring it in a way that helps them digest it, and be able to make application to their life, right where they are, so they can experience the greatest impact of coaching.

What makes The Coaching Pathway unique?

The Coaching Pathway is the one of the clearest, simplest models of coaching for a person to get their arms around the big ideas of how a coach can powerfully help another person.

In five weeks, I will help you become comfortable with a Coach Approach and begin your journey to apply the skills to many context in your life.

When we use that in conjugation with The PAIRIN Survey and the PAIRIN system, you have a dynamite combination and vast array of areas that can be identified and focused on, where growth and change can be measured.

It allows the coach to practically come alongside and help the person get to the future they hope for — maybe it’s the next job, or maybe it’s a change in their life that they’ve been struggling with. This combination of The Coaching Pathway and PAIRIN system is a powerful way to see change happen.

Who should take this course?

Anyone who desires to help the people in their lives get to the future that they desire — teachers, business leaders, managers, friends, parents — really anyone with a heart to encourage someone to grow and become the very best they can be.

I’ve seen coaching powerfully used in many formal contexts, business both in large corporate and small family owned businesses, sole propriety businesses even use this with customers when they don’t have a lot of employees. I’ve seen it be very useful with families and with informal settings like adult teenage kids within community service groups and volunteer organizations.

The Coach Approach helps the person being coached to discover and own the pathway forward to their desired future. As coaches, we come alongside and support their desired movement.

What’s a sneak peek of one thing attendees will lean?

One of the things people have been more surprised about is the power of great questions and learning to listen deeply.

So, for some of us, we have to learn to not talk, ask that great question, and pause and listen well. I will help you link great questions to go deep in your understanding of where that person is that you’re coaching and asking the kinds of questions that are practical and help them see possible ways forward and then evaluate what might be the best so that they come up with a plan.

You will be awed, I believe, by how much learning to ask great questions — and I’ll give you a few to get you started — can radically make a difference in your ability to help another person.

Final thoughts?

Come and try it! You will find coaching can help in more contexts than you have ever imagined. Coaching is a tool you’ll find that can help in so many areas of your life. Come and join me!