What is Coaching?

First of all, it’s important to understand what Coaching is NOT:

• Mentoring, which is Guiding
• Consulting, which is Advising
• Training, which is Teaching
• Therapy, which is Healing

Coaching is Empowering. It is about enabling an individual to be the best they can be.

Even the most successful people have blind-spots, unconscious incompetencies, potential sabotage patterns, self-limiting beliefs and untapped potential. Top achievers in sport, business and life generally engage professional coaches to enable them to continually improve their games. Coaching enables them to identify for themselves the things holding them back, unnecessarily consuming their time, energy and focus, and how these could be impacting on their achievements. Once these factors have come to their awareness, through coaching they are able to substitute old thought and behavioural processes with different and more beneficial choices for themselves.

Professional coaching is a co-operative process between the coach and coachee. It allows the individual to fully recognise her potential, and factors inhibiting this. By redefining their thought processes, people are able to achieve astonishing results.

Business coaches work with their clients in a number of ways. These can include Transformational Coaching for Executives, Developmental Coaching for Managers intended for executive positions or other positions of leadership, Performance Coaching and Team Interventions designed to achieve specific outcomes. Companies embracing a culture of effective coaching across all areas of their business demonstrate sustainable levels of high performance, set and achieve better goals, make better decisions and typically have excellent employee retention statistics.

A recent worldwide study conducted on behalf of the International Coaching Federation by Price Waterhouse Coopers and the Association Resource Centre Inc. established that:

• Coaching offers the client an “action plan” to achieve defined outcomes. This is in contrast to counselling and therapy, which is instead considered an opportunity to “explore their issues”
• 99% of Clients were very or somewhat satisfied with the overall coaching experience
• 96% indicated that they would repeat the process
• 80% recorded positive change or higher in the context of primary objectives
• The median company Return on Investment was calculated at 700%

There is also an increasing trend for individuals to take greater responsibility for their own personal and professional development, and even those who are employed in large organisations are no longer relying on employers to provide them with all of their career development needs. There has been an increase in the number of individuals contracting coaches on a private basis. Some are looking for a career change, but many are also seeking to maximise their potential with an existing employer or achieve greater balance with their work and home lives.

Your coach offers you a supportive and motivating environment to explore what you want in life and how you can achieve your aspirations. By assisting you in committing to action and by being a sounding-board to your experiences, coaching allows you the personal space and support needed to grow and develop. Your coach assists you to maintain the motivation and commitment needed to achieve your goals.

What is the Role of the Coach?

Your Coach will:

• Observe, listen and ask questions to understand your situation
• Support you in setting appropriate goals and methods of assessing your progress in relation to these goals
• Facilitate your exploration of needs, motivations, desires, skills and thought processes to assist you in making real, lasting change
• Encourage a commitment to action and the development of lasting personal growth and change
• Use questioning techniques to facilitate your own thought processes in order to identify solutions and actions, rather than take a directive approach
• Maintain unconditional positive regard for you, which means that the coach is at all times supportive and non-judgmental you, your views, lifestyle and aspirations
• Evaluate the outcomes of the process, using objective measures wherever possible to ensure the relationship is successful and you are achieving your personal goals
• Encourage you to continually improve competencies and to develop new developmental alliances where necessary to achieve your goals
• Manage the relationship to ensure you receive the appropriate level of service and that programmes are neither too short, nor too long
• Ensure that you develop personal competencies and do not develop unhealthy dependencies on the coaching relationship

What to look for in a coach:

• A recognised professional qualification, at least equivalent to the International Coaching Federation’s ACC (Associate Certified Coach) Certification
• Membership of an organisation which holds them accountable, such as the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and Coaches & Mentors of South Africa (COMENSA)
• Ability to produce a copy of the Code of Ethics to which they are bound
• Many coaches offer an obligation-free complimentary introductory session. Try a few coaches out before making your final selection.  It’s important that you feel completely comfortable with your coach and her/his coaching methodology and style

Barbara Walsh: Chair of the BWA Johannesburg Branch Coaching & Mentoring Committee
MetaCo Coaching, Consulting & Training (email: Barbara@metaco.co.za)