What is Coaching?

Well, who knows?  It's hard to tie it down, right?

From my experience the work is so varied that to try and define it can become so general as to be useless.  Somedays it's just about being there listening and some I have to work very hard to help my client get an outcome.  Depending on the issue, you can be coach, teacher, motivator, counsellor: all of the above.

To break it down I just want to start simply with the relationship itself.

I am normally chosen as a coach by someone who has a motivation for growth or change.  I also choose my clients.  This mutual choice is crucial to a successful coaching partnership, and is one of the reasons I approach corporate coaching programmes with extra care, as the choices of both parties are open to question - and therefore so is the success of the programme.

How am I chosen?

Well, I do promote the service!  Don't get me wrong.  I am not saying you cannot sell in this field.  It seems to me unethical not to sell if you find people who might need your help.  A good doctor has to ask a lot of interesting questions to work out how best to orientate his work, and good questions help the patient express their problem and also can focus their understanding on its seriousness and impact.

So, having promoted I wait to be asked, and spend an hour with a potential client, or more...sometimes a day, with no charge, just working out if we can enter a coaching partnership.

There are a few key things that get established in that time:

Rapport - builds naturally during a conversation, and when it starts to build you know.
Trust - this follows naturally from a deepening of rapport.
Change potential - it is vital to me to assess the client's potential for change as I am not going to be around to shoot for the goals, they have to do that themselves.

My next posts here will dwell on each of these elements in more depth, I will also comment on how to create them.  For now, if you are following, have a think about your own coaching experiences and see what additional elements come to mind.  Share your thoughts if you wish.

Once these are established I will look to help and establish a programme.  Once these things are established, it does not matter what I do to prepare for coaching session, as my client's quietly and often unconsciously prepare as they anticipate, and journey to see me.  They enter the coaching session with their issues already bubbling up to be shared.  

All I have to do is be open to what they are saying, and know how to follow their whole meaning.

Coming next - Rapport, how to establish it and what it can help you achieve.

Nick Mayhew - Coach