It’s a question I’m often asked by business people – “What can coaching do for me?” They may have seen the value of sports coaches, but they say business is not a sport and cannot see what value it can bring them. An easy response is to say that coaching moves an already successful person towards greater effectiveness. For those people who’ve experienced it, they give a wide variety of answers, based on their individual experience and outcomes.
As a coach, I’ve synthesized their answers into this unusual perspective – Click Image for video.
Video: What Is Coaching All About?
It is not always easy to see, and we can forget that whilst we live, we are always growing – whether we’re growing in knowledge, awareness, confidence, capability, kindness, compassion and integrity – or we’re growing in disappointment, criticism, cynicism, judgements, complaints, or self-deception. Have you consciously choose which you’ve grown? In this context I’m speaking here of the ‘being’ content of people, not just the skills and competencies that we normally associate with growing ourselves.
One to one coaching can provide the self-reflective processes that allows you to see what you’ve grown to date, and help you make conscious decisions to overwrite those negative qualities with more positive and life-enhancing ‘being’ content. Coaching can and does facilitate the examination of your skill-sets and helps you to determine where, when and how these should be addressed as part of the process.
But more importantly coaching allows you to stop and look again at what you are thinking, feeling and doing and (if you have a good coach) challenge and hold these habits up for re-examination. In a safe, non-judging environment, you can examine who you have become and by connecting to the deeper motivations that drives you, you can bring about real change.
The environment and context in which we operate has a powerful influence on which type of habits and behaviours we grow inside of ourselves. Without stopping and examining the natures of conversation, behaviours, standards and attitudes are common and norm for our business contexts, we can be swept up into untruthful, disrespectful and unjust ways of going on that everyone considers normal. The case of VW, RBS, and other financial organisations that we can bring to mind, demonstrate the power of a culture to breed behaviours and mindsets that facilitate bad habits; that without external challenge and inner reflection are not stopped and lead to catastrophic outcomes.
Coaching at its best facilitates self-awareness and the building of a personal consciousness that acts in present moment thinking. It means growing positive, life enhancing qualities and supportive, helpful attitudes that benefit you and others around you. It means that you are more empowered to act and to challenge yourself and others around you if the thinking, attitudes and actions fall below standards that you know are ethical, humane and just.
Penny Sophocleous
10 May 2016
mike
Thanks Penny. A typically clear and thought provoking article. Clarifies certain aspects for me!
Penny
There have been so many interpretations of what coaching does that I thought I would go to the heart of it first and work out from there!