Chapter 1: What is Coaching?

Overview

We define coaching as:

The process of helping people enhance or improve their performance through reflection on how they apply a specific skill and/or knowledge.

Coaching is about developing individuals beyond where they currently are. Before we say more about what coaching is, perhaps we should say something about development in general terms.

Development is fundamental to the survival of both the individual and the organization; it is to the business world the same as evolution is to the biological world. Few companies have a business plan which aims to make their organization extinct or less competitive and successful. All individuals need to adapt to the rapidly changing, and increasingly complex world in which we live “ whether they adapt by opting out or by embracing newness.

Development is defined as:

A continuous process of growing and learning; by developing, we continuously become more than we were.

Development is about gaining new knowledge, skills and behaviours; or about adapting the ones we have (ie learning). It is, therefore, about change. Change is something that happens to everybody but that does not stop it being difficult and stressful, even at times painful. In her book Message from Forever , Marlo Morgan says, ˜Life is change. Some big, some little, but without change there can be no growing. And change and growth do not imply either pain or sacrifice.

Coaching is one tool that can be used to help others develop. It is, therefore, about supporting the change process and, used effectively, coaching should help lessen the impact of change and maximize the opportunities for growth.

Change is a cyclical process. As a coach it is useful for you to be aware of the cycle, which describes our natural response to change, so that you can help your coachees to move through the cycle.

Figure 1.1: The cycle of change, as described by a number of authors including Elisabeth K ¼bler-Ross. It is important to recognize that individuals need to move through all stages, to acceptance, before they can move on