What is Coaching?

Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives.

Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach's job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has.

Corporate coaching and coaching for individuals empowers people to achieve desired goals in different areas of their professional or personal lives.

• Coaches assist people to identify specific goals and then reach those goals faster and with ease.
• Coaches provide clients with the tools, perspective and structure to accomplish more through a process of accountability.
• Coaches reframe beliefs and create a point of focus for clients to reflect upon

Coaching is different from consulting, therapy, sports coaching or having a supportive friend. Coaching is similar to consulting. However, consulting provides temporary or intermittent solutions. Coaching involves consistent, on-going relationship where the coach stays with the client to help implement new skills, changes goals, and monitor progress. Another distinction is that consulting often involves dispensing advice and telling people what they should do. Coaching differs in that it focuses on assisting the client to grow by discovering the solution on their own.

Coaching is NOT therapy. Where therapy brings understanding and awareness of a client's past, coaching provides the support and strategy to make changes based on the awareness a client holds. Coaching is movement-oriented and action based.

Coaching includes several principles from sports coaching like teamwork, meeting and exceeding expectations, and working to do one's best. However, unlike sports coaching, which often focus on a zero-sum game, which is either won or lost, coaches focus on strengthening client's skills from the first session forward. Any amount of coaching will benefit a client in this regard.

A supportive friend is wonderful to have in life, yet does not hold the objectivity and distance that a coach does. A coach is a professional who is trusted to work with you on the most important aspects of your life and/or business. A coach offers a different perspective of the truth because of the emotional distance the relationship offers.

Corporate Coach vs Personal Coach

Before starting your search for a coach, you may wish to learn more about the primary types of professional coaches.

Personal or Life Coaching. Personal coaching is a unique and powerful form of human interaction. The agreed purpose of the interaction is the development of one individual, the coachee. The coach is focused on relating with and developing the coachee, while taking positive steps toward realizing the coachee's vision.

Small Business Coaching. In business coaching, we are referring to the small business with a few employees or offices. In this environment, the needs of the business often drive the priority of the coachee. The primary beneficiary of the coaching is the business, although the individual benefits as he/she learns how his or her development impacts the success of the business. The coaching success is often measured by increased performance and contribution.

Executive Coaching. Executive coaching is a subset of corporate coaching, focused specifically on executives and management. The focus is remedial or developmental and includes issues such as effective leadership, empowerment and delegation. And, just like corporate or organizational coaching, there is a benefit to the individual but within the context of the agreed-upon development for the good of the organization.

Corporate Coaching/Organizational Coaching. Corporate coaching is focused on larger organizations where there can be a matrix of relationships to consider. The ultimate benefactor is the corporation, which will experience increased competitive advantage because of the realized potential of the individuals. The individual also benefits, but often times the value gained from the coaching relationship is directly related to the extent of the corporate initiative.

Corporations and businesses use professional coaches in two main ways. The first, most common functions of a contracted coach would be:

• to lead a series of motivational classes
• give a 30 - 60 minute talk on a specific topic
• speak at a meeting
• conduct a group coaching program for a specific team
• assist executives in developing goals and objectives for employees and teams
• assist in structuring or re-structuring for new goals or projects
• diagnosis, analysis of a specific problem, and assist with solutions
• development of performance measuring and monitoring systems
• training on motivation, incentive, and increased productivity
• create performance "evaluations" and assessments of employee achievement

Coaches can assist corporations and businesses in reorganization by development of teams. Coaches are often hired to walk alongside project teams, leaders, and executive sponsors, helping them to achieve greater results than they might have on their own. The coach helps team members to define their needs, to generate innovative solutions, and provides structure, support, and focus to keep them moving toward their goals. Organizations using coaches find that project teams more effectively design, plan and implement solutions aligned with organizational goals.

The second way corporations and businesses use contract coaches is to actually come in and teach them how to coach team members themselves.