For the first coaching exchange of this year, we invited Ina Goller as our guest. Ina is the founder and a Managing Director of Skillsgarden and a Professor for Innovation Management at BFH. As she played a major part in the coaching education for many of us, she’s a familiar face among teampact. Ina was also our guest in the very first coaching exchange almost three years ago. We were thrilled to have her once more as our guest.

The topic of this coaching exchange was self-efficacy. Self-efficacy describes a person’s belief in their own competence. Note the difference to self-confidence, which describes a general belief in oneself, not necessarily connected to one’s capabilities to act. Self-efficacy is the link between knowing what to do and actually doing it.

The workshop started with a warm-up exercise where we practised active constructive responding (ACR). ACR is about showing interest and appreciation when someone shares positive experiences or good news, providing a boost for everyone involved in the conversation. Ina then introduced us to the topic of self-efficacy and gave us some theoretical background. This was followed by a gripping example, where we could use our newly gained knowledge to detect the aspects of self-efficacy and get Ina’s feedback on our observations. Afterwards, we spent the remaining time of the workshop (and a bit more) discussing how we can foster our own self-efficacy and how we can improve the self-efficacy of someone else or even a team. For a start, the ability to recognize one’s own successes is crucial. As it turned out, ACR is quite a good tool for that.

It was a fantastic evening with Ina where we got to know a new topic and had the opportunity to share our insights in intriguing discussions. We would like to thank Ina for the engaging coaching exchange and her continuous support for aspiring coaches.