What is coaching?
Mahatma Gandhiji,idealized the very root causes in coaching of self, to attain all the excellence in learning.For him,Self-Coaching or Self-Mentoring applies,as keenly seen right through his childhood schooling days wherein,and educational inspector came visiting his class, and he refused to copy his class teacher. Nowadays, Corporate Coaching (with executives or others) is defined by the International Coaching Federation as "an ongoing process driven by the client which focuses on taking action towards the realisation of goals or desires." These goals might include business improvement, leadership, workplace change, career , work/life balance, or personal development. I have coached both clients who wanted unashamedly to focus on themselves and those who were focused on job performance, organizational transformation and team relationships.
Why get a coach?
We live in an era where we are time or resource poor. It is common nowadays to commission external providers of service. Engaging a coach however is not like engaging a domestic cleaner who performs the service for us.
Coaching enables the services of an impartial facilitator
· not a friend (who can get offended)
· not a boss (to whom you may not want to display frailty)
· not a mentor (where a power imbalance may exist or career may be the primary focus)
· not a therapist (who is oriented to work with deficit and dysfunction).
Coaches are engaged because of their capacity for objectivity and certain skills that we (or others close to us) may not have. Coaching is often subtle, yet direct, confronting yet affirming, provocative yet non judgmental, intimate but not tender; ultimately empowering of the client whilst constantly calling for rigorous self examination.
Coaches must be aware of their own baggage, be aware of their limitations, must work within the highest ethical standards and dare not seek to work with others in order to work through their own issues. That is not to say that coaches ought not seek to improve themselves. Most of the impressive coaches I have met, have coaches themselves.
Is everyone a candidate? Coaching can support the development of those who are highly motivated and also those identified for coaching who may not otherwise be enthusiastic candidates for change.
To coach the so called "uncoachable" the coach has to help the client identify their reasons for maintaining the status quo, what homeostasis does or does not do for them and therefore what they stand to gain or lose by letting something go. If you think this sounds like a process with a psychological underpinning - you're right.
I believe that a good life or corporate coach or corporate has to work within a knowledge framework that goes way beyond ethics and empathy. That coach has to understand cognitive dissonance, defiance mechanisms, patterned behavior and be able to tolerate ambiguity and welcome, even foster, ambivalence at times.
Importantly also, the professional must have the insight and the humility to know when they have a client who should be referred elsewhere, perhaps because of burnout, excessive anxiety, clinical depression, mental illness or severe concurrent stresses that may be impinging on work performance.
There is undoubtedly far less stigma, and even arguably more prestige associated with consulting a coach than a therapist. If one considers that 20% of the population will experience some depression in their lives, then it is surely on the cards that some individuals who want or would benefit from therapy find their way to a coach. Can one manage a dual role? Can a coach be a therapist? I say yes, but four criteria must apply.
The coach:
· has to have the expertise to do both,
- has to have a clarity,consistency in his performing presentations,accompanied to his verbals
· has to be clear on which hat he/she is wearing and when
· has to have a client contract that allows for it (or the client has lost control of the process)
· must not be breaching an understanding with the person or company who has paid for the coaching; for example, a coach being engaged by a company for leadership coaching but spends all their time helping the client,grief manage to a failed relationship or simulated child learning battles with his audience colleagues.
Choosing a Coach
Obviously word of mouth helps but as a prospective client, you should be clear about the questions you ask someone being coached and what outcomes they have sought or you may find that you've inadvertently engaged a personal fitness trainer or a business strategy specialist when your objective is to develop your emotional intelligence!
I would recommend that a responsible coach meet with a prospective client at least once on a no fee basis to determine the 'fit". The fit is not purely or even about, likeability.
To establish a coaching partnership, both parties must be confident they have:
· sufficient rapport to work together
· shared understanding of the goals and the process
· negotiated the frequency, cost, duration and format of contact time (how often, how long, minimum charge, ratio of face to face, email and telephone etc)
· resolved issues around confidentiality, personal and corporate goals and progress reporting (absolutely critical where the economic buyer of the coaching is not the coaching client)
· the circumstances under which coaching might adjourn i.e. at what point might it be acceptable for one party to express a desire to discontinue.
I attended a national coaching workshop,Navi Mumbai,in 2012 and met some fantastic people. Many were undoubtedly highly skilled; all excited about making a difference but to whom? Many had solid backgrounds in marketing,educational assessments,NLP and business.I can only hope they coached people in ...marketing and business.
Some were personal trainers, some touted themselves as life coaches. A few had business cards that testified to this but when I chatted with them over coffee it became clear that they had been a financial accountant or a Reiki instructor some years previously. In other words, some of these people were in transition themselves and saw coaching as a way of reinventing themselves.
Coaching can be a wonderful tool, a source of competitive advantage for organisations, a retention strategy, a change management strategy, a stimulus for visionary leadership and a way to increase emotional intelligence in an organization.
We have examples all around us of coaches who've enabled their charges to achieve more than they did when they were still competing. Whoever coached Chess-Grandmaster,Vishwanathan Anand; did not get a higher stature as a Global player,than Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand. The Cricket Coach of Global Cricket-God,Sachin Tendulkar, who was fondly called as "Sir"Ramakant Achrekar,and feared high-and-dry at his commandant voice-cracks.These are some of the well known Indian model example of coaches. Who can forget, Subedar-Major Bhole Tiwari of Brahmin Regiment became Dhyan’s mentor inside the Army and taught him the basics of the game. Pankaj Gupta was the first Coach of Dhyan Singh who predicted that one day he would shine like the Moon, called Chand in Hindi. Hence, Dhyan Singh came to be known as Dhyan Chand after that. - See more at: http://majordhyanchand.blogspot.in/2013/05/biography-of-major-dhyan-chand.html#sthash.h7JAPDpR.dpuf Therapists and counselors may not have experienced divorce, depression or eating disorders but are able to help clients with those life issues.
In other words, the coach does not have to have "been there" to be credible and helpful, but the coach has to know how to help clients work out where they want to go and facilitate a process that helps get them there in good shape.This goes for the lesser famed guru-coach of the famed tutelage,"The Flying Sikh" Milkha Singh, as his coach words seen below,
Motivated by his coach Havildar Gurdev Singh, he left it to the elements to hone his craft -- running on the hills, the sands of the Yamuna river, and against the speed of a metre gauge train. He says so intense was his training that very often he vomitted blood and would collapse in exhaustion.
Are mentoring and coaching identical?
No. People often confuse mentoring and coaching. Though related, they are not the same. A mentor may coach, but a coach is not a mentor. Mentoring is “relational,” while coaching is “functional.” There are other significant differences.Coaching characteristics:
- Managers coach all of their staff as a required part of the job
- Coaching takes place within the confines of a formal manager-employee relationship
- Focuses on developing individuals within their current jobs
- Interest is functional, arising out of the need to ensure that individuals can perform the tasks required to the best of their abilities
- Relationship tends to be initiated and driven by an individual’s manager
- Relationship is finite - ends as an individual transfers to another job
What’s a Mentor, Anyway?
Mentoring characteristics:What is mentoring?
- Takes place outside of a line manager-employee relationship, at the mutual consent of a mentor and the person being mentored
- Is career-focused or focuses on professional development that may be outside a mentoree’s area of work
- Relationship is personal - a mentor provides both professional and personal support
- Relationship may be initiated by a mentor or created through a match initiated by the organization
- Relationship crosses job boundaries
- Relationship may last for a specific period of time (nine months to a year) in a formal program, at which point the pair may continue in an informal mentoring relationship
Mentoring is most often defined as a professional relationship in which an experienced person
(the mentor) assists another (the mentoree) in developing specific skills and knowledge that will
enhance the less-experienced person’s professional and personal growth.
What does a mentor do?
The following are among the mentor’s functions:
- Teaches the mentoree about a specific issue
- Coaches the mentoree on a particular skill
- Facilitates the mentoree’s growth by sharing resources and networks
- Challenges the mentoree to move beyond his or her comfort zone
- Creates a safe learning environment for taking risks
- Focuses on the mentoree’s total development
Talent Retention:
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) notes in this article from August 2011: - "In 2010, the Corporate Leadership Council of the Corporate Executive Board surveyed 880 high-potential employees. More than 25 percent said they planned to change jobs within the next 12 months. That's potential attrition 2.5 times greater than just five years earlier. Among the dissatisfied, 64 percent said their current employment experiences are having little impact on their development."
In an overview of its "2011/2012 Talent Management and Rewards Study, North America," Towers Watson says, "...almost 60% of North American companies are having trouble attracting critical-skill employees, an increase over 2010."
Here's a list from ere.net on the "10 Predictions for 2012: The Top Trends in Talent Management and Recruiting."
Mentoring:
In an article from The Wall Street Journal on reverse mentoring:- "In an effort to school senior executives in technology, social media and the latest workplace trends, many businesses are pairing upper management with younger employees in a practice known as reverse mentoring. The trend is taking off at a range of companies, from tech to advertising."
Talent Management magazine talks about how a good fit is crucial to mentoring.
Workforce Issues:
Here's a chart on 2011 turnover rates by industry. Here's a PDF on employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (issued earlier this month).
Articles citing this article
Constructing Mentors: Latina Educational Leaders’ Role Models and Mentors
Abstract
This article reports on the mentoring aspects of a qualitative study of 6 Mexican American female school leaders in west Texas. One goal of the study was the identification of any individuals who had been role models or mentors important to the careers of these women. A role model was defined as someone whose characteristics or traits another person would want to emulate; a mentor was defined as someone who actively helps, supports, or teaches someone else how to do a job so that she will succeed. The findings indicate that for the Latina educational leaders in the study, significant role models and mentors, primarily from nonprofessional areas of the women’s lives, mitigated the absence of a formal, traditional mentoring relationship. Moreover, the experiences of these school leaders demonstrate that these Latinas assembled or constructed a mentor from varied sources that collectively met their specific needs and priorities.
...the role models and mentors these Latina school leaders described...with their husbands. Mentor: Teacher. During their public school experiences, the...preparing Mireya to be the school's next principal. The mentors of the Latina educational...
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