WHAT
IS COACHING?
Coaching is the providing of performance advice and the facilitation
of performance improvement or transformation. The goal of
coaching is to bridge the gap between the current level of
performance and the desired level of performance and/or outcome.
In short, coaching offers a new paradigm for change. This
change may be professional and/or involve personal transformation.
Coaching originally begin in sports and fitness. Part of
this training will be based on models of highly successful
Olympic Coaches including the coach who has coached in more
Olympics than any coach in any sport in the entire history
of the Olympics. In the business and professional world coaching
is becoming recognized as a primary path to performance enhancement.
This may involve executive coaching, leadership coaching,
management coaching, team coaching, corporate coaching, public
speaking coaching or coaching on any business or professional
skills. There is a growing recognition in business that coaching
needs to be a tool of every manager.
Often coaching trainings merely focus on how to facilitate
outcomes, because the trainers lack an understanding of hard
business skills. Learn cutting edge coaching techniques modelled over 20 years from the most effective
business leaders
This training is partly based on models developed over 20 years of highly effective
business leaders. It also draws on over 30 years of business coaching and consulting.
Life skills coaching focuses on personal transformation and personal growth.
It may involve life skills, social and relational skills, economic and wealth
acquisition skills, stress management skills, emotional intelligence skills and
any other skill that will help a person to improve the quality of their life.
In this training you will not just be taught process coaching but highly effective
models to improve critical life skills. Coaching differs from and may include
components of other performance enhancement activities. These include training
which is a set of activities that provides the opportunity to acquire and improve
specific skills. Mentoring involves the guidance and development of a protge
by a more experienced or senior person. Counseling is the giving of advice from
a more knowledgeable person to a less experienced person in order
to address specific issues and situations. Consulting is the providing of technical
expertise to diagnose and resolve specific classes of complex issues. And therapy
is a process of assisting a person to resolve issues that make a person dysfunctional
or unable to cope adequately with life situations. Boundaries between these areas
and become blurred and the effective coach may need to engage in any or all of
these activities depending on the circumstances. Performance coaching includes
both process-based coaching which is content free and skill coaching which is
often content intensive. Many coaching trainings only focus on process because
the trainers lack the skill sets to deal with both. Performance enhancement arises
out of a synergy between focusing on both process and content. Performance coaching
may be remedial involving correction and/or competency acquisition or it may
be maintenance only. At the high end performance coaching becomes developmental
and focuses on optimization and performance enhancement.
EXECUTIVE COACHING
This training will cover all aspects of business and life skills coaching. One
area of emphasis will be executive coaching. The following provides a more in
depth description of this area of coaching. Fortune Magazine says that: One to
one performance coaching is the way for both organizations and individuals to
significantly impact the bottom line. Executive coaching is a structured, outcome-led
process whereby a coach guides a manager through business problems and challenges
in order to: clarify issues, challenge limiting beliefs, generate solutions,
evaluate options, and decide on a final course of action. This is accomplished
by utilizing the managers own unique resources in order to create outstanding
performance. In short, the job of the Executive Coach is to facilitate lasting
behavioral change. It is widely acknowledged that the development of non-technical
skills in the workplace best occurs by: (a) working through real world situations,
(b) continually practicing newly acquired skills over the course
of time and (c) using tried and tested models of such skills as: leadership,
management, communication, influence, negotiation, problem-solving, decision
making, motivation, self-esteem, emotional intelligence, etc. Executive Coaching
is recognized as the most effective way of delivering these three critical elements
in the workplace and has been shown in large scale studies to be more effective
than traditional training courses, executive retreats and computer-based programs.
Today, there is an increasing awareness of the critical role of emotional intelligence
in the workplace. Fortunately, emotional intelligence can be acquired and developed
, and the most effective method for this is Executive Coaching. All managers
at some time have been in the situation of knowing what they want to do, being
capable of doing it, but still not being able to do it. In this case, purpose
plus motivation is not enough. In these situations which occur on a daily basis,
Executive Coaching may be the only viable approach in such cases.. The question may be asked as to what the relation is between
Executive Coaching and psychology. Simply put, psychology helps people who are
dysfunctional to function or cope. Executive coaching takes people who are functional
and works to make them into high achievers. Although each situation is unique,
Executive Coaching usually arises from one of two sets of circumstances. The
first is that a manager or senior executive realizes that his/her career could
be enhanced by working with an Executive Coach. He/she will usually have some
specific outcomes and will have already identified some areas on which to initially
focus.. The second situation is where an organization decides to invest in an
Executive Coaching Program for one or more managers, either to develop their
potential or to help overcome some obstacle to their further development. In
this situation, both the organization and the manager to be coached may have
different goals and expectations.
In either case, the Executive Coaching Process begins with a meeting between the Executive Coach and the organization
and/or manager to set outcomes for the process. After an assessment of the manager
and the situation, a program is then developed to fit the specific needs. The
Executive Coach will meet with the manager in person or by phone for a specified
period of time to accomplish the agreed upon objectives. These sessions are focused
on change and involve direct feedback designed to assist the manager in making
behavioral changes. Managers may be resistant to change and the effectiveness
of the process is directly related to the willingness of the manager to modify
his/her behavior.
