In my speaking engagements, I have often compared coaching today to the psychotherapy of the 1920s. The level of public understanding of coaching, outside of people in a certain sociodemographic category, is still in its infancy. We are all so saturated with the language of psychoanalysis – it is difficult to read a book or watch a film that is not based on this shared language – that we probably do not consider that there was a time when practitioners were asked:
“Now you do what, exactly?”
“And I would tell you my dream because it would reveal what?”
“So there’s this free association thing, which apparently still costs something, and I give you the first thing that comes to mind because there are these subconscious urges that I have.”
For those who are not yet initiated, coaching may sound like this. What is it and why would you want to do it?
Coaching, whether for career or business, existential issues or relationships, begins with alignment.
Coaches align you, your actions and thoughts, and your very lifestyle with who you say you are or want to be.
In other words, we will ensure that your way of living, thinking, acting and working is integrated with the fundamental values and objectives that you say you have. If you don’t know what your ultimate values and goals are, then that too can be trained.
It’s not by magic that coaches help clients achieve their goals. From the practical and action-oriented to the big questions, coaches tap into the best of management consulting, best business practices, motivational and cognitive psychology, sports performance, ethics and spirituality, Socratic dialogue and philosophy.
Essentially, coaches help clients get out of their own way.
COACHING BRIEFLY DEFINED
Here is a definition of coaching, from the International Coach Federation:
“Professional Coaching is a professional partnership between a qualified coach and an individual or team that supports the achievement of extraordinary results, based on goals set by the individual or team. Through the coaching process, individuals focus on the skills and actions necessary to successfully produce your personally relevant results”.
“The individual or team chooses the focus of the conversation, while the coach listens and contributes observations and questions, as well as concepts and principles that can help generate possibilities and identify actions… Coaching accelerates individual or team progress. team by providing increased focus and awareness of possibilities leading to more effective choices. . . . . [R]Results are a matter of individual or team intentions, choices and actions, supported by the efforts of the coach and the application of coaching skills, approaches and methods.”
If your definition of coach is borrowed from high school or college athletics, where the athlete is below the coach and may even be fired by him, then the term “coach” may be a bit misleading for you. A personal or executive trainer is more like the trainer of a professional track star or tennis player: in these professional relationships, the trainer and the client are two equals and partners, and it is really the client who decides how long the client remains. coach. the team.
THE PROCESS
A coach begins, from a place of generosity of will and spirit, by getting to know you as a person and formally identifying your goals and values, using a variety of internal or standardized assessments. The coach then analyzes the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
A coach will then work with you to close that gap by eradicating your self-limiting thinking, reducing your stress and improving your efficiency, and getting you to stretch and try new things and ways of being. A coach will help you implement strategies to reach your goals, tactical steps to carry out your strategy, and the day-to-day to keep you focused on responsibility, strategy, goal, all while staying explicitly true to your values.
Coaching basically consists of expanding your awareness and taking responsibility for yourself. The coaches expand clients’ self-awareness and then help them take responsibility for what they have learned. It can be a sophisticated form of teaching, mentoring, and partnering in a company with only one focus: your personal, professional, and even spiritual development. The coaches show you ways to find clarity, guide you to be aware of your real situations (including how you’re getting in your own way), and show you how to act based on what you know.
To be mentored, then, is to get experienced, committed, and insightful help to (1) find clarity on issues big and small, (2) deepen your understanding of what’s holding you back, and most importantly, (3) be guided toward acting on your knowledge to make the desired and lasting change in your life.
WHO IS TRAINED?
Coaching clients are clear that they want something, virtually anything, sooner and with more certainty of getting it than they could on their own. It could be learning, career advancement, satisfaction, higher performance, better relationships, or quality of life. Clients do not attempt, through coaching, to address emotional pain or psychological distress. This is one of the key differences between coaching and counselling. See more at http://www.ferocacoaching.com/coaching-and-counseling.html.
Empowered clients are functioning well and are able to take action in the direction of their goals. The coaches look to the present and to the future; they discuss the past primarily to clarify where the client is today. Critically, coaching does not need to solve problems from the past in order to move forward.
THE RELATIONSHIP, IN A FEW WORDS
The coaching relationship is the key to your success. The trainer and the client are partners. Mutual appreciation and respect are not just a byproduct of the time you spend together, but the engine of training success. A rarity in relationships, coach and client are collaborators in a joint venture: the client. At my coaching firm, our philosophy is that clients already have many of the answers within them, and to the extent that is the case, it is the coach’s job to bring them out.
Trainers are often not presented as experts or authorities on the subject so much as on the process. The client and her trainer jointly choose the topics of their work, the format, and the results the client desires. Coaches are for the emotionally mature. Those who imagine that a coach can change their lives are still not fit for coaching under the ethic of most coaches. A coach is someone you keep only when you’re ready. To take with you that next elusive step.
FUNDAMENTAL SKILLS, NOT SUBJECT EXPERIENCE
There is rarely such a thing as a “type” or “field” of coaching, in which life coaches could be considered in any way different from relationship coaches.
The reason why there is normally no difference between, for example, life or personal coaching, on the one hand, and executive
coaching on the other, is that these titles describe only the client, not the coaching itself. That is, the words describe the buyer of the services and perhaps even how that customer perceives himself.
But the coaching techniques and methods are very similar, because all coaching boils down to the process of guiding human beings through the discovery of their full humanity, insight and greater responsibility towards themselves. Even if you are an executive who wants “executive” coaching, you know that there are no skills, attitudes, and behaviors that are used and useful only in the boardroom or office. You are on a mission to improve your effective personality, not your, shall we say, executive ability.
What is the consequence of coaching being the same no matter who the client is? Well, it means that subject matter expertise is often irrelevant. To be a career coach, it can be helpful to have some knowledge of career resources, of course. The same is true of specialized aspects of business coaching, business coaching, or leadership coaching. But in general, you should go for a trainer with excellent coaching skills and chemistry rather than a trainer with subject matter experience.