Is the New Year squeezing you?
Having weathered the holidays and now facing the New Year even the calmest among us will likely feel squeezed at times. What with the challenges of paying the bills from the holidays, having to possibly mend strained relationships damaged over the holidays and facing the New Year with its challenges and opportunities; you might be starting 2013 off on an exhausted and less than stellar foot!
What does this all have to do with knowing the importance of diagnosing before you prescribe? Everything! When we are not at our best the tendency is to be less patient and quicker to jump to conclusions, more likely to be judgemental and critical rather than curious and supportive.
IDARE – Intention, Desire, Action, Result and Evaluation
The following 5 simple steps will help you diagnose before you prescribe. These steps come out of a very powerful coaching framework: IDARE- Intention, Desire, Action, Result and Evaluation. When we operate from this framework we are able to ask questions that will truly help us diagnose before we prescribe.
ACDA – Awareness, Change, Discovery and Action
Out of IDARE comes ACDA, this acronym stands for Awareness, Change, Discovery and Action. It guides you on how to ask powerful questions that will help you gather the facts; remove the emotions and better able to move the person forward to prescribing solutions that will work for them!
Here’s how to use ACDA:
1. Ask questions that will help you and the other person become AWARE of the ‘real issue’ at hand
2. Ask questions that will help you both Change current view that is not serving them well
3. Ask questions that will help you both DISCOVER new more supportive ACTIONS that can be taken.
Notice, using ACDA does not involve telling or prescribing first. Instead it encourages and prepares you to ask questions of the other person so they can release the facts first, this helps them diagnose the issue and better able to prescribe a solution that will work for them. ACDA when practiced will help you make 2013 a banner year!
