What is coaching?
Coaching is the individual support provided by a competent and experienced coach to an individual for the purpose of furthering the latter’s personal development. Coaching should not be equated with training or consulting as both a trainer and consultant are tasked with direct steering of an individual’s or group’s activity and behaviour through concrete advice. While a trainer and consultant provide recipes that treat the symptoms, a coach works with their client in order for them to arrive at a diagnosis together and discover solutions, which are tailored to the individual and which treat the causes of the problem.
Coaching objectives
Successful coaching leads to sustainable personal changes. A client’s behavioural pattern is changed because a person is a complete personality so the changed modes of thinking and action are transferred from the business sphere to the private sphere or the other way around. Coaching can be conducted at a company either for a group of select employees or for individuals. For further information, please call us (see our contact details) or send us your enquiry in writing.
How is coaching conducted?
Coaching requires a lot of independent work as the client undergoes comprehensive change while life goes on both before and after the meeting with a coach. A coach helps their client plan the required changes, presents him or her with a mirror or feedback, and monitors their attempts and achievements. However, it is the client’s responsibility in their everyday life to do their homework. Solutions will only stand the test of time if they are adapted to the individual’s personality, their needs and way of life. We could say that this is a joint search for the road that leads to a suitable solution for a particular challenge. The solutions as well as the responsibility they entail are in the end accepted by the client themselves.
Coaching methods
There is no universal path in coaching; the methods selected vary and the rule is that they must suit both the coach and client. Coaching basically involves regular meetings between the coach and client where they shed light on the various aspects of the problem in question and indicate potential directions for arriving at a solution. In order to accomplish this, some will find a story to be helpful, while others will prefer thinking out loud, and others still will feel better if they talk to the coach in similes or even role play.
Trust and rules of the game
At the very first meeting, the coach and client agree on the rules of the game as they represent the core of mutual trust. This category certainly includes a confidentiality agreement. A coach never communicates the information entrusted to him or her to the client’s superiors or HR department. Instead, they communicate their indirect observations or, even better, the guidelines for cooperation or the improvement of relations. A part of the mentioned agreement is also an agreement on the method of communication between the coach and client on the one hand and the manager or HR department on the other, whereby the coach also monitors feedback from the environment. Another possibility is the compilation of a joint report.
It is important that the first contact is warm and pleasant, and for a suitable relationship to start to develop between the coach and the client. This is the responsibility of the coach, while the client needs only to remain open and willing to cooperate.
How to go about selecting a suitable coach?
Coaches are usually specialised for individual areas, which is why it is important to consider their profile and eventual references. Choose the one who has experience and who has expressed an interest in the field you wish to progress in. Before you decide, meet with the coach in person and be attentive to how you get along. Sometimes, people are not compatible with one other and it is better in such cases to look around a bit more. Be careful not to select a coach according to your area of expertise. If you are a salesperson, this does not mean that the coach need necessarily have direct experience in sales in order to be a suitable discussion partner.
BB Coach
Ksenija Špiler Božič