COACHING: THE NEXT STEP FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
- Robert A. Isaacson, M.A., M.S.S.
A coach is someone who tells you what you dont want to hear, who has you see what you dont want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.
-Tom Landry
Katelyn is a remodeling contractor, relatively new to her business. She is disorganized and unfocused. When overwhelmed, she thinks she will not be successful. In this state of mind, Katelyn has difficulties completing projects and generating new business, despite being a fine craftsperson.
Overcoming poverty, Julianna has built a thriving business. She is highly charismatic, a role model for others as well as a very powerful leader. Sometimes she doubts herself, particularly her ability to make the kind of sales contacts to propel her business into the stratosphere. Juliannas management team needs assistance in working more cooperatively and collaboratively as a team and improving their supervisory skills.
John is about to take over his familys manufacturing business. A former military man with strong leadership skills, John says he needs to relax, become more empathic and communicative with staff, and sell more.
What do these 3 business people have in common? They all are successful individuals with varying skills. They are striving for a balance between their work and personal lives, working less yet improving their productivity. They want to create robust businesses.
Also, they are coaching clients.
Perhaps you have heard about coaching. While a relatively new professional service, coaching has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 20 years.
Life or personal coaching was created by financial planner Thomas Leonard in the early 1980s when he found his clients wanting more than financial advice. They were asking questions about how to lead their lives in better ways and Leonard wanted to oblige. He would later (in 1992) form Coach University, the first and today the largest coach training program in the world.
Large, Fortune 500 businesses brought coaches into the corporate world during the 1990s. These coaches continue to work with chief executive officers, top managers, and salespeople, helping to improve leadership skills, build more productive work teams, and sell more products and services.
Today, there are thousands of business and personal coaches throughout the world working with clients in hundreds of niche markets. The International Coach Federation alone (www.coachfederation.org), a non-profit standards and credentialing body for coaches, has over 6000 members (as of 2002) and 177 chapters in 31 countries. It has been estimated that since 1996, over 200 articles and television segments have featured coaches and the work they do.
In terms of clients, business coaches may focus on working with small business owners, corporate executives, or in specific industries such as real estate or manufacturing. These coaches work with individuals or an entire team of people. The number of niche markets for personal or life coaches is even larger, as many as you might imagine. There are coaches for parents, for individuals with attention deficit disorder, for people making career transitions, and the list goes on.
SOME DEFINITIONS
So what is coaching anyway? The best place to start is with the International Coach Federation or ICF definition. Coaching is...
...an ongoing relationship or partnership between you and a coach that focuses on your taking action toward the realization of your visions, goals and/or desires. Coaching uses a process of questioning and personal discovery to build your level of awareness and responsibility. It provides you with structure, support, feedback, and accountability. The coaching process helps define and achieve (business), professional, and personal goals faster and with more ease than would be possible otherwise.
Note the highlighted words in the ICF definition. Coaching is a partnership or trusting relationship between equals, an individual (or work team or business) and a coach. There is no stigma attached to coaching. Clients are seen as wanting to achieve, grow, develop, and change and not as having problems. Some see this as a critical distinction between coaching and psychotherapy.
Coaching is an action-oriented process that empowers you to do several things:
- generate a vision of success as you define it,
- clarify your work and personal needs,
- set goals, and
- develop unique, out-of-the-box strategies yielding measurable results that guarantee a concrete return on the time and money you invest in them.
Business coaches see your companys success rising or falling based on how you manage the motivation, performance, and productivity of your greatest resource, your people. The Hudson Institutes Workforce 2000 report rings true for coaches when it states:
The foundation of national wealth is really people - human capital - represented by its knowledge skills, attitudes, and motivations. The primary assets of a modern corporation leave the workplace each night to go home to dinner.
HOW DOES COACHING WORK?
Initially, a coach will assist you and/or your business in completing a self-assessment. As an individual, you might discuss with your coach the challenges you face, goals you want to reach, as well as ways to track your progress in reaching them. Most coaches will work holistically with you, urging you to examine your level of satisfaction in all areas of your life and make changes you believe are important.
If you ask a coach to work with you and your business associates, she may ask you to convene a meeting of your management team in order to assess their barriers to performance and the causes of these. Then she will help you develop collectively a plan of action to improve your team and your companys performance. It is common for a coach to work in parallel fashion both with a group of businesspeople and individually with an owner.
After one or more assessment sessions, many coaches work with clients on the telephone. Some coaches prefer face-to-face meetings at your site or their offices. Often a combination of telephone sessions and in-person meetings are used during the coaching process.
Coaching can last from about one month to one or 2 years or longer. This depends on several factors, including the complexity of the challenges you and your company face as well as your own pace of change. It is wise to make at least a three-month commitment to coaching. This will allow you to develop a good feel for the process and determine if coaching can be a valuable and helpful experience for you.
WHAT DO COACHES SAY AND HOW DO I GET THE MOST VALUE FROM COACHING?
Coaches help you develop a vision and reach goals in 4 main ways. They ask powerful questions that encourage introspection. They make compelling observations about what they see and hear, observations that should cause you to think about your life and business in new ways.
Coaches will ask you to complete homework tasks between coaching sessions. These may be challenging and stretch you but should help you learn and change more quickly and effectively. And finally, coaches will support your changing and gently confront you and hold you accountable when needed.
For your part, take control of your coaching sessions. Prepare for them by being clear about your agenda. Be honest with your coach. Tell him how he can best assist you. Confront her if she makes a mistake. Do your homework if you want to accept the challenge. If you are not making at least some progress in 3 months, consider changing coaches.
HOW DO I FIND A COACH? HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
To find a coach, ask around. Talk to business associates and friends. You can search two web sites. The first is a local coach association, the Philadelphia Area Coaches Alliance, PACA (www.philadelphiacoaches.org, click on Find a Coach). The second is the International Coach Federation (www.coachfederation.org, click on Find a Coach).
Most coaches offer a complementary coaching session on the telephone or face-to-face. Take advantage of these. Ask the coach about herself, her style of coaching, her training. Talk to 3 coaches and choose the person with whom you are the most comfortable.
Be assertive in your questioning about credentials. There is concern the field of coaching at this time is an unlicensed and unregulated professional service. There are voluntary certification programs such as the one run by the International Coaching Federation and there are in excess of a dozen coach training schools.
Coaching fees range from $250 to over $1200 per month. Typically, on-site coaching or consulting services range from $1500 to $4000 per day. While not inexpensive, consider them an investment in you and your company.
Happy coaching!
