(Friedrich Nietzsche)
(Naomi Weight)
Additional information about Coaching
What's coaching?
What's coaching?
What positive effects does coaching have?
Which are the main subject areas for coaching?
What philosophy stands behind coaching?
What can you expect from me as your coach?
What is expected from you as a client?
How does a typical coaching session look like?
How long does coaching last?
How can you identify quality in coaching?
How do I find out whether coaching is the right thing for me?
What tools and techniques are used?
What's our first conversation about?
How do we measure success?
What is Coaching?
Coaching is derived from the word ´coach‘ and summarises the process of movement towards a defined destination. In coaching, the client or coachee is effectively accompanied and supported on his/her way towards identified goals. Coaching is defined as a process that provides learning opportunities, encourages creativity and improves individual performance on the basis of commitment to and responsibility for chosen decisions, goals and actions (Mike Downey). The coach supports the coachee on the path to a more successful life both personally and professionally via active listening, targeted questioning and tools that encourage self reflexion and learning. The coach challenges limited and rigid thinking and facilitates the development of new cognitive and behavioural patterns. In sum, coaching strives to help people discover, recognize and fully make use of their potentials.
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What coaching isn't?
Despite many similarities in terms of tools and aims with other forms of consultancy, coaching is clearly distinguished from Counselling, Consulting, Training and Mentoring.
Coaching and Counselling
Other than counselling, coaching exclusively addresses healthy individuals who want to change important areas of their life. Mental illnesses, addiction and other disruptions of self control are clearly beyond the scope of coaching and need to be treated by experienced specialists. It is the responsibility of the coach to clearly respect those professional boundaries in order to give best possible support to the client.
Coaching and Consulting
A consultant offers advice and recommendations for actions on the basis of professional expertise. In contrast, a coach supports the coachee in finding and using own resources to develop best solutions. Therefore, the coach facilitates sustainable and effective learning. However, the coach may be asked for personal views and recommendations which can be part of the coaching process provided the coach does own the necessary knowledge, skills and competence in the subject area.
Coaching and Training
Training targets the improvement of predefined knowledge, skills and attitudes on the basis of previously identified training gaps. As coaching identifies areas of development it might well be the reason for subsequent training that is needed in order to pursuit chosen goals. In addition, transfer of training contents into routine is distinctly improved when accompanied by coaching.
Coaching and Mentoring
Mentoring means a partnership between a new employee in an organisation and an experienced leader on a higher hierarchical level.Task of the mentor is to share organisational knowledge and experience, increase organisational commitment in the new colleague and to be a competent partner in all questions of organisational performance, behaviour and career advancement. Mentoring is designed for the development of high potentials, the reduction of fluctuation and the facilitation of new company employees. Coaching is a valuable supplement to mentoring as a relationship between equals on eye level.
What positive effects does coaching have?
Clients who benefited from coaching report positive effects on the individual, team and organisational level:
- Increase in motivation
- Increase in efficiency and effectiveness
- Increase in customer and employee satisfaction
- Personal development in employees
- Improvement of employee well-being
- Improvement of leadership behaviour
- Clarity in career goals
- Improvement of training transfers
- Improvement of team composition
- Clear definition of team goals
- Reduction in team conflicts
- Improvement of team cooperation
- Improvement of team identity and cohesion
- Improvement of team work
- Increase in productivity
- Positive implementation of change processes
- Improvement of communication
- Effective Personnel selection
- Targeted talent management
- Decrease in absenteism
- Improvement of employee retention
Which are the main subject areas for coaching?
- Change of work-related requirements
- Leadership role and behaviour
- Desire for personal change and development
- Social conflicts
- Career planning
- Organisational change
- Problem solving strategies
- Time management
- Teamwork
- Stress and Burn-out
- Work-life balance
- Health
- Personal subjects that impact on performance at work
What philosophy stands behind coaching?
The philosphy behind coaching is that people are seen as capable individuals who own all the necessary resources in terms of experience, knowledge, wisdom, connections, energy and ability to cope with the challenges of work and life. The coach supports coachees in reaching their goals more quickly and effectively as if they were on their own by activating all available resources that enable change and development.
What can you expect from me as your coach?
- Strict compliance with professional and ethical standards
- Strict confidentiality if not agreed otherwise and if there is no danger of harm for individuals and organisations involved.
- Appreciation of your values, thoughts and behaviours
- Support in identifying your goals and in moving towards goal attainment
- You will be kept responsible for all actions chosen
- Support in finding individual strategies and solutions
- Encouragement and motivation throughout the whole coaching process.
- Improvement of self reflexion
- Constrructive feedback
- Challenge of limiting beliefs and attitudes that stand in your way to success.
What is expected from you as a client?
- Genuine desire for and commitment to change
- Full responsibility for own decisions and chosen actions
- Openness and honesty
- Punctuality in order to make best use of our time
- Cancellations at least 24 hours beforehand
How does a typical coaching session look like?
Coaching is delivered either face to face or via telephone. The coach guides the client through a process that initially defines a clear goal for the session. Subsequently, the current reality is explored in detail followed by possible options to change this reality and finally, the client decides and commits to actions in the pursuit of goal achievement. The whole process is structured by targeted questions that stimulate new thinking and keep the focus on the agreed goal. The coach is responsible for the efficiency of the process whereas the client takes full responsibility for content and result of the chosen actions.If applicable and supportive, the coach uses tools that elicit self reflexion and stimulate growth.
How long does coaching last?
One coaching session lasts up to 60 min and you can book either individual coaching sessions or whole coaching packages according to your needs.
The length of the coaching relationship will be previously agreed between coach and client. Some clients opt for punctual inputs whereas other clients prefer a more intensive process over weeks or even months. If you have a feeling that you don’t benefit from coaching you can end the coaching relationship at any time. On the other hand side, I will take the liberty of ending a coaching relationship if I cannot see real commitment to change.
How can you identify quality in coaching?
‘Coaching’ is not a protected professional title which makes it difficult to evaluate the quality of offered services. Here are some variables you might want to consider when choosing your coach.
What personal attributes does the coach demonstrate? The most fundamental prerequisite for successful coaching is a trusting relationship between coach and coachee. Trust your gut feeling when you decide whether you want to work with a particular coach.
What qualifications does your coach have? Ask for the professional background, experiences and qualifications of your coach. A professional coach can communicate theoretical foundations of his/her work and show relevant references and qualification records. In my opinion, sound psychological knowledge in combination with profound theoretical and methodical coaching skills are indispensable to best support individuals on their way forward and to clearly identify potential therapeutic need beyond the scope of coaching.
How does your coach work? There is a variety of effective coaching approaches on the market such as Behavioural Coaching, Cognitive-behavioural Coaching, Neurolinguistic Programming and Systemic Coaching. Ask for the approach your coach uses and also ask for a description of a typical coaching session. Ask for clear information about scope and length of the coaching relationship, alle services included, costs, payment methods and cancellation policies. A written coaching contract should contain all those aspects.
How do I find out whether coaching is the right thing for me?
Use a first telephone call or face to face conversation to find out. Sometimes, training (in order to obtain specific knowledge or skills) or therapy (if past traumatic experiences dominate present and future behaviour in a very limiting way) might be the better option. POTENTIAL Coaching & Consulting is happy to provide professional advice.
What coaching tools and techniques are used?
Coaching by POTENTIAL Coaching & Consulting is strictly solution and goal oriented on the basis of humanistic psychology (A. Maslow, C. Rogers) and positive psychology (M. Seligman) integrating tools and methods from a variety of approaches such as Behavioural Coaching (Graham Alexander), Cognitive-behavioural Coaching (Michael Neenan) and Solution-focused Coaching (Anthony M. Grant). Appropriate questioning techniques lead to sophisticated goal setting, reality checking, recognizing available resources and obstacles, evaluating possible actions and developing an action plan to which the coachee fully commits. In addition, tools and exercises that enrich perception and facilitate sustainable learning are integrated.
What's our first conversation about?
Our first conversation is about getting to know each other and about clarifying what you’re looking for. The first 30 minutes are free of charge and after this time we both decide whether we want to work together.
How do we measure success?
POTENTIAL Coaching & Consulting takes great care with the evaluation of delivered services. At the beginning of our partnership, criteria of success are mutually agreed and after the intervention is completed, the success is evaluated against those criteria. Scope and intensity of the evaluation procedure are designed according to customer demands.