What is coaching?
The IFC defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
Coaching honours the client as the expert in their own life and work and believes that every client is creative, resourceful and whole. Standing on this foundation, it is a coaches responsibility to:
- Discover, clarify and align with what the client wants to achieve,
- Encourage client self-discovery,
- Elicit client generated solutions and strategies, and
- Hold the client responsible and accountable.
What is the IFC?
The International Coaching Federation (IFC) is the leading global organization dedicated to advancing the coaching profession by setting high standards, providing independent certification and building a worldwide network of trained coaching professionals.
ICF Credentials are awarded to professional coaches who have met stringent education and experience requirements and have demonstrated a thorough understanding of the coaching competencies that set the standard in the profession. Achieving credentials through ICF signifies a coach’s commitment to integrity, understanding and mastery of coaching skills, adherence to the code of ethics and dedication to clients.
Why work with a Coach?
As athletes, musicians, writers, and executives already know, partnering with a coach provide the fuel to ignite performance and level up their careers. It makes sense that we all have the advantage of this kind of support even in our personal life. The benefits are as wide-ranging and unique as each individual. Along with positively impacting careers, coaching positively impacts lives through:
- finding clarity on a life’s purpose,
- supporting action towards achieving goals,
- becoming more self-reliant and confident,
- gaining more job and/or life satisfaction,
- enhancing personal relationships and workplace teams,
- relating and being with others more easily, and
- communicating more effectively.
How is coaching distinct from other service professions?
Professional coaching focuses on setting goals, creating outcomes and managing personal change and growth. Sometimes it’s helpful to understand coaching by distinguishing it from other personal or organizational support professions.
THERAPY
Therapy deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or in relationships. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past that hamper an individual’s emotional functioning in the present, improving overall psychological functioning, and dealing with the present in more emotionally healthy ways. Coaching, on the other hand, supports personal and professional growth based on self-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success.
Coaching is future focused. 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 emphases in a coaching relationship are on action, accountability, and follow through.
CONSULTING
Individuals or organizations retain consultants for their expertise. While consulting approaches vary widely, the assumption is the consultant will diagnose problems and prescribe and, sometimes, implement solutions.
With coaching, the assumption is that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own solutions, with the coach supplying supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks.
MENTORING
A mentor is an expert who provides wisdom and guidance based on his or her own experience. Mentoring may include advising, counseling and coaching.
The coaching process does not include advising or counseling, and focuses instead on individuals or groups setting and reaching their own objectives.
TRAINING
Training programs are based on objectives 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 that coincides with an established curriculum.
Coaching is less linear without a set curriculum.
SPORTS COACHING
Though sports metaphors are often used, professional coaching is different from sports coaching. 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 their experience and knowledge of the individual or team determines the direction.
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.
What happens in a coaching session?
The first meeting is a ‘discovery session’ and can last up to an hour. After this initial session, the coach and client will agree on a schedule for meeting going forward. The engagement can be structured by number of sessions and/or a time commitment depending on the desired goals and outcomes desired.
Each session will be organized and shaped by an agenda of client determined goals and the client will be expected to practice new skills, think about and process new ideas and participate in homework assignments between sessions. Clients with questions, triumphs or disappointments between sessions may contact the coach by e-mail (anytime) or by phone (by appointment). Much of the learning and growth happens between coaching sessions. Clients may spend as little or as much time as they like on the coaching process. However, the more time spent, the quicker the results.
How much do coaching sessions cost?
Many individuals feel they can’t afford a personal or professional coach. Coaching is not as expensive as you might think it is. In fact, after considering the real life value they have gained from coaching, clients often wonder what took them so long to participate in a coaching relationship. Before making a decision to have a coach, one might ask themselves what they would be missing if they don’t? What isn’t working in life right now? How might life or my work be different if the challenges and relationships were resolved and replace with productive, meaningful alternatives? Coaching is a perfect vehicle to move towards fulfilling dreams and desires and leaving the undesirable behind.
The typical coach/client relationship last 3 to 6 months. When you come out of the relationship with a joyful hold on life, you will feel this investment in yourself was a very smart move.
How is coaching delivered? What does the process look like?
The coaching process typically begins with a ‘discovery session’ 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 can be held in person, over the phone, Facetime or other electronic means with each session lasting a pre-determined length of time. Between scheduled coaching sessions, individuals 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 related articles, assessments, checklists, 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 on the needs and circumstances of the individuals. Assessments provide objective information that can enhance the individual’s self-awareness as well as the 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: Coaching incorporates an appreciative approach. The appreciative approach is grounded in what is 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. This approach incorporates discovery-based inquiry, pro-active (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 opposed to focusing on problems. The appreciative approach is simple to understand and employ but its effectiveness in harnessing possibility thinking and goal-oriented can be profound.