The Power of Coaching

"Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their growth.” - John Whitmore

Coaching is a partnership
Coaching is a partnership with a client. It’s a partnership in a creative and thought-provoking process that inspires them to be all that they can be—to live up to their full personal and professional potential.

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

Coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Their goal is to help clients improve their performance and enhance the quality of their lives.

What exactly do coaches do? They...

• Provide clients with a framework for accountability.
• Help clients identify goals and achieve them.
• Help clients reframe their beliefs in ways that are consonant with their goals.

How does coaching differ from therapy, consulting, sports coaching, or having a supportive friend?

• Coaching is not therapy. Therapy seeks to bring awareness and understanding of the past to a client. Coaching provides the support and strategy to make changes based on the awareness a client holds in the present, and their desires for the future.
• There are many approaches to coaching. In general, coaching is not unlike consulting. However, consulting addresses specific problems by offering solutions. Coaching, on the other hand, is an ongoing relationship, where the coach stays with the client to help them implement new skills, changes, and goals.

Consulting often involves dispensing advice, telling people what they should do. Coaching is different in that it focuses on assisting a client to discover a solution.

• Coaching employs several principles from sports coaching— excellent teamwork, monitoring and encouraging performance in order to be one’s best. However, unlike sports coaching, the desired results are not “win or lose.” Coaches focus instead on strengthening their clients’ skills.
• A supportive friend is wonderful to have, yet can seldom provide 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 or business. A coach offers a different perspective because of the emotional distance the professional relationship offers.

Who hires a coach?
Corporations, for coaching related to

• Organizations/teams
• Leadership and executives
• Small businesses and entrepreneurs

Individuals, for coaching related to:

• Relationships
• Career and transitions
• Lifestyle
• Fitness

Coaches are hired by corporations and individuals because:

• l They want more—more satisfaction, more balance, more money, more peace, better relationships.
• They want to grow in all aspects of their lives and be productive.
• They want to discover innovative ways to do things effortlessly.

Does the coach work on personal goals,
or on business & professional goals?
Both! Coaching inevitably works with all aspects of personal, business, and professional goals relating to whom the client is and what they want.

What is the focus of coaching?
Coaches focus where their clients need them most.

Questions a coach might help a client address include:

• What are your goals? Are they based in your values?
• Where are you now in relation to where you want to be?
• In order to get what you want from any situation, what are the areas of strength and what are the areas for improvement and focus?

By creating the focus of coaching around what a client wants to achieve, coaches help their clients maintain momentum on that which will make them most successful.

Why does coaching work?
Coaching works for several reasons:

• Synergy between the coach and client creates impetus.
• Well-defined goals support a client to move toward them expeditiously.
• The client develops new skills, which translate into more success and a balanced life.

Why is coaching becoming so popular?
Several reasons:

• Many people are tired of doing what they think they “should” do and are ready to do what they want to do, understanding that they have the choice.
• People are realizing how simple it can be to accomplish something that several years ago might have felt out of reach. More people are creating the time and resources to invest in themselves for this kind of growth.
• Spirituality. People are seeking deeper meaning in their lives and work. Companies are seeking innovative ways to grow themselves from the inside out, so that their goals and their employees’ goals can harmonize.