PODCAST. Torrey Peace interviews Paulina da Torres on The Impact of Coaching
The Impact of Coaching Used Three Different Ways, with Helen Henderson, Paulina da Torres and Caroline Lunani
From March 2020, the government of Timor-Leste declared a State of Emergency in response to the COVID19 pandemic. During the months that followed, many businesses hibernated or closed their doors completely. It was during this time, we took the opportunity to skill ourselves up by doing courses on business and management coaching.
Torrey Peace, Founder of AidForAidworkers.com, interviews Paulina da Torres (Agora Food Studio CFO and Co-Founder, TimorMie) on the impact of the coaching course, and how coaching techniques gained from it has been used in the Lab and Food Studio with surprising positive effects.
Listen to Paulina speak (12min 30s in).
To read the original post and learn more about Aid For Aidworkers, visit https://www.aidforaidworkers.com/podcast-124
Founder and Director, Mark Peter Notaras also joined the course with Paulina and Elfan Dacosva (entrepreneur, Timor Fixer ).
"You only really learn something until you teach it" is a well known maxim. Related to this, the abilities to coach others and ask powerful questions are essential skills for all leaders” says Mark. “The most critical thing we learnt is, as a coach, we’re only there to ask questions and listen.. to really listen and be a mirror for them; reflecting or reframing what they already know the answers to be. And also that our ego must not play any part in the process. It’s hard but we need to disassociate ourselves from the outcome - what happens after the questioning and reflecting is up to them. These techniques have had profound changes for our team already.”
“Reviving Timor-Leste's tourism industry requires bold investments in its emerging generation of tourism leaders. This is why we nominated two of the country's brightest tourism practitioners to attend an international leadership coaching course along with development leaders from around the world.”
Since 2017, Paula has gathered more than 5,000 hours of tourism experience serving local and international guests, whether as a waitress, finance manager or host of food and coffee workshops. Using her intimate knowledge of what tourists want to eat, drink and experience, Paula recently coached her peers from Timor Lodge, Maddog Adventures, Botir Matak/Suku, Hatobuilico guesthouses, Agora Food Studio and Timor Mie in a Digital Exchange for emerging tourism leaders. Paula received feedback after the exchange from participants that they had not experienced that type of facilitation - they were genuinely surprised to be asked so many powerful questions and be included in so many of the answers to their own challenges.
Paula and Elfan's participation was made possible thanks to USAID Tourism for All's support to Agora Food Studio's business coaching for tourism businesses and entrepreneurs in Timor-Leste.
“I became more confident.
I learnt how to ask the right questions, study people’s body language, also how to listen.
I learnt that I am here to listen,
to guide them to achieve what they want, in the right way”