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DEVELOPED BY:
Branding and Marketing Subcommittee
(Jan Austin, MCC, Val
Williams, MCC, Nora Klaver, MCC and Ariane Cherbuliez, PCC),
http://www.coachfederation.org/aboutcoaching/about.asp, July 23, 2005.
1. What Is Coaching?
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 process of coaching, individuals
focus on the skills and actions needed to successfully produce their
personally relevant results.
The individual or team chooses the focus of conversation, while the
coach listens and contributes observations and questions as well as
concepts and principles which can assist in generating possibilities
and identifying actions. Through the coaching process the clarity
that is needed to support the most effective actions is achieved.
Coaching accelerates the individual's or team’s progress by
providing greater focus and awareness of possibilities leading to
more effective choices. Coaching concentrates on where individuals
are now and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be
in the future. ICF member coaches recognize that results are a
matter of the individual's or team’s intentions, choices and
actions, supported by the coach's efforts and application of
coaching skills, approaches and methods.
2.
What are the benefits of coaching?
Individuals who engage in a coaching relationship can expect to
experience fresh perspectives on personal challenges and
opportunities, enhanced thinking and decision making skills,
enhanced interpersonal effectiveness, and increased confidence in
carrying out their chosen work and life roles. Consistent with a
commitment to enhancing their personal effectiveness, they can also
expect to see appreciable results in the areas of productivity,
personal satisfaction with life and work, and the achievement of
personally relevant goals.
3. How
can you determine if coaching is right for you?
To determine if you could benefit from coaching, start by
summarizing what you would expect to accomplish in coaching. When
someone has a fairly clear idea of the desired outcome, a coaching
partnership can be a useful tool for developing a strategy for how
to achieve that outcome with greater ease.
Since
coaching is a partnership, also ask yourself if you find it valuable
to collaborate, to have another viewpoint and to be asked to
consider new perspectives. Also, ask yourself if you are ready to
devote the time and the energy to making real changes in your work
or life. If the answer to these questions is yes, then coaching may
be a beneficial way for you to grow and develop.
4.
What are some typical reasons someone might work with a coach?
There are many reasons that an individual or team
might choose to work with a coach, including but not limited to the
following:
 | There is something at stake (a challenge,
stretch goal or opportunity), and it is urgent, compelling or
exciting or all of the above |
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| There is a gap in knowledge, skills, confidence, or
resources |
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| A big stretch is being asked or required, and it is time
sensitive |
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| There is a desire to accelerate results |
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| There is a need for a course correction in work or life
due to a setback |
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| An individual has a style of relating that is ineffective
or is not supporting the achievement of one’s personally
relevant goals |
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| There is a lack of clarity, and there are choices to be
made |
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| The individual is extremely successful, and success has
started to become problematic |
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| Work and life are out of balance, and this is creating
unwanted consequences |
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| One has not identified his or her core strengths and how
best to leverage them |
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| The individual desires work and life to be simpler, less
complicated |
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| There is a need and a desire to better organized and more
self-managing
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5. How
is coaching delivered? What does the process look like?
The Coaching Process—Coaching typically begins with a personal
interview (either face-to-face or by teleconference call) to assess
the individual’s current opportunities and challenges, define the
scope of the relationship, identify priorities for action, and
establish specific desired outcomes. Subsequent coaching sessions
may be conducted in person or over the telephone, with each session
lasting a previously established length of time. Between scheduled
coaching sessions, the individual may be asked to complete specific
actions that support the achievement of one’s personally prioritized
goals. The coach may provide additional resources in the form of
relevant articles, checklists, assessments, or models, to support
the individual’s thinking and actions. The duration of the coaching
relationship varies depending on the individual’s personal needs and
preferences.
Assessments—A variety of assessments are available to
support the coaching process, depending upon the needs and
circumstances of the individual. Assessments provide objective
information which can enhance the individual’s self-awareness as
well as awareness of others and their circumstances, provide a
benchmark for creating coaching goals and actionable strategies, and
offer a method for evaluating progress.
Concepts, models and principles—A variety of concepts, models and principles
drawn from the behavioral sciences, management literature, spiritual
traditions and/or the arts and humanities, may be incorporated into
the coaching conversation in order to increase the individual’s
self-awareness and awareness of others, foster shifts in
perspective, promote fresh insights, provide new frameworks for
looking at opportunities and challenges, and energize and inspire
the individual’s forward actions.
Appreciative approach—Coaching
incorporates an appreciative approach. The appreciative approach is
grounded in what’s right, what’s working, what’s wanted, and what’s
needed to get there. Using an appreciative approach, the coach
models constructive communication skills and methods the individual
or team can utilize to enhance personal communication effectiveness.
The appreciative approach incorporates discovery-based inquiry,
proactive (as opposed to reactive) ways of managing personal
opportunities and challenges, constructive framing of observations
and feedback in order to elicit the most positive responses from
others, and envisioning success as contrasted with focusing on
problems. The appreciative approach is simple to understand and
employ, but its effects in harnessing possibility thinking and
goal-oriented action can be profound.
6. How long does a coach work with
an individual?
The length of a coaching partnership varies depending on the
individual's or team’s needs and preferences. For certain types of
focused coaching, 3 to 6 months of working with a coach may work.
For other types of coaching, people may find it beneficial to work
with a coach for a longer period. Factors that may impact the length
of time include: the types of goals, the ways individuals or teams
like to work, the frequency of coaching meetings, and financial
resources available to support coaching.
7. How
do you ensure a compatible partnership?
Overall, be prepared to design the coaching partnership with the
coach. For example, think of a strong partnership that you currently
have in your work or life. Look at how you built that relationship
and what is important to you about partnership. You will want to
build those same things into a coaching relationship. Here are a few
other tips:
| Have a personal interview with one or more
coaches to determine “what feels right” in terms of the
chemistry. Coaches are accustomed to being interviewed, and
there is generally no charge for an introductory conversation
of this type |
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| Look for stylistic similarities and
differences between the coach and you and how these might
support your growth as an individual or the growth of your
team |
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| Discuss your goals for coaching within the context of the
coach’s specialty or the coach’s preferred way of working with
a individual or team |
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| Talk with the coach about what to do if you ever feel
things are not going well; make some agreements up front on
how to handle questions or problems |
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| Remember that coaching is a partnership, so be assertive
about talking with the coach about anything that is of concern
at any time |
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8. Within the partnership, what
does the coach do? The individual?
The role of the coach is to provide objective assessment and
observations that foster the individual’s or team members’ enhanced
self-awareness and awareness of others, practice astute listening in
order to garner a full understanding of the individual’s or team’s
circumstances, be a sounding board in support of possibility
thinking and thoughtful planning and decision making, champion
opportunities and potential, encourage stretch and challenge
commensurate with personal strengths and aspirations, foster the
shifts in thinking that reveal fresh perspectives, challenge blind
spots in order to illuminate new possibilities, and support the
creation of alternative scenarios. Finally, the coach maintains
professional boundaries in the coaching relationship, including
confidentiality, and adheres to the coaching profession’s code of
ethics.
The role of the individual or team is to create the coaching agenda based
on personally meaningful coaching goals, utilize assessment and
observations to enhance self-awareness and awareness of others,
envision personal and/or organizational success, assume full
responsibility for personal decisions and actions, utilize the
coaching process to promote possibility thinking and fresh
perspectives, take courageous action in alignment with personal
goals and aspirations, engage big picture thinking and problem
solving skills, and utilize the tools, concepts, models and
principles provided by the coach to engage effective forward
actions.
What does coaching ask of an individual?
To be successful, coaching asks certain things of the individual,
all of which begin with intention….
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Focus—on one’s
self, the tough questions, the hard truths--and one’s success |
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Observation—the
behaviors and communications of others |
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Listening—to one’s
intuition, assumptions, judgments, and to the way one sounds when
one speaks |
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Self discipline—to
challenge existing attitudes, beliefs and behaviors and to develop
new ones which serve one’s goals in a superior way |
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Style—leveraging
personal strengths and overcoming limitations in order to develop
a winning style |
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Decisive actions—however
uncomfortable, and in spite of personal insecurities, in order to
reach for the extraordinary |
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Compassion—for
one’s self as he or she experiments with new behaviors,
experiences setbacks—and for others as they do the same |
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Humor—committing
to not take one’s self so seriously, using humor to lighten and
brighten any situation |
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Personal control—maintaining
composure in the face of disappointment and unmet expectations,
avoiding emotional reactivity |
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Courage—to reach
for more than before, to shift out of being fear based in to being
in abundance as a core strategy for success, to engage in
continual self examination, to overcome internal and external
obstacles
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9. How
can the success of the coaching process be measured?
Measurement may be thought of in two distinct ways. First, there are
the external
indicators of performance:
measures which can be seen and measured in the individual’s or
team’s environment. Second, there are
internal indicators of success: measures which are inherent within
the individual or team members being coached and can be measured by
the individual or team being coached with the support of the coach.
Ideally, both external and internal metrics are incorporated.
Examples of external
measures include achievement
of coaching goals established at the outset of the coaching
relationship, increased income/revenue, obtaining a promotion,
performance feedback which is obtained from a sample of the
individual’s
constituents (e.g., direct reports, colleagues, customers, boss, the
manager him/herself), personal and/or business performance data
(e.g., productivity, efficiency measures). The external measures
selected should ideally be things the individual is already
measuring and are things the individual has some ability to directly
influence.
Examples of internal
measures include
self-scoring/self-validating assessments that can be administered
initially and at regular intervals in the coaching process, changes
in the individual’s self-awareness and awareness of others, shifts
in thinking which inform more effective actions, and shifts in one’s
emotional state which inspire confidence.
10.
How is coaching distinct from other service professions?
Professional coaching is a distinct service which focuses on an
individual’s life as it relates to goal setting, outcome creation
and personal change management. In an effort to understand what a
coach is, it can be helpful to distinguish coaching from other
professions that provide personal or organizational support.
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Therapy. Coaching
can be distinguished from therapy in a number of ways. First,
coaching is a profession that supports personal and professional
growth and development based on individual-initiated change in
pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked
to personal or professional success. Coaching is forward moving
and future focused. Therapy, on the other hand, deals with healing
pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or a
relationship between two or more individuals. The focus is often
on resolving difficulties arising from the past which hamper an
individual's emotional functioning in the present, improving
overall psychological functioning, and dealing with present life
and work circumstances in more emotionally healthy ways. Therapy
outcomes often include improved emotional/feeling states. While
positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching,
the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for
achieving specific goals in one's work or personal life. The
emphasis in a coaching relationship is on action, accountability
and follow through. |
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Consulting.
Consultants may be retained by individuals or organizations for
the purpose of accessing specialized expertise. While consulting
approaches vary widely, there is often an assumption that the
consultant diagnoses problems and prescribes and sometimes
implements solutions. In general, the assumption with coaching is
that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own
solutions, with the coach supplying supportive, discovery-based
approaches and frameworks. |
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Mentoring.
Mentoring, which can be thought of as guiding from one’s own
experience or sharing of experience in a specific area of industry
or career development, is sometimes confused with coaching.
Although some coaches provide mentoring as part of their coaching,
such as in mentor coaching new coaches, coaches are not typically
mentors to those they coach. |
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Training. Training
programs are based on the acquisition of certain learning
objectives as set out by the trainer or instructor. Though
objectives are clarified in the coaching process, they are set by
the individual or team being coached with guidance provided by the
coach. Training also assumes a linear learning path which
coincides with an established curriculum. Coaching is less linear
without a set curriculum plan. |
Athletic Development. Though sports
metaphors are often used, professional coaching is different from
the traditional sports coach. The athletic coach is often seen as an
expert who guides and directs the behavior of individuals or teams
based on his or her greater experience and knowledge. Professional
coaches possess these qualities, but it is the experience and
knowledge of the individual or team that determines the direction.
Additionally, professional coaching, unlike athletic development,
does not focus on behaviors that are being executed poorly or
incorrectly. Instead, the focus is on identifying opportunity for
development based on individual strengths and capabilities.
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