WHAT IS COACHING AND WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE?
WHAT IS COACHING AND WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE?
The goals of coaching
To better understand what coaching is and how this development tool that we call Coaching works, in this article we’ll describe its fields of application as well as the cultural and philosophic background that it was shaped from, following its evolution over specific historic phases.
In short, we can say that the essence itself of coaching is accompanying a person to expressing their full potential, through an autonomous process of learning and rediscovery.
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Albert Einstein
The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “coaching” as “training, tutoring, providing guidance, preparing through facts.”
Some of these activities do not pertain to professional coaching so its definition is far from being complete given its complex and dynamic nature.
A DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY
Coaching represents a development methodology that seeks to provoke change, a real evolution that improves and amplify someone’s abilities to reach their goals, whether they be for work, sports or personal objectives.
COACH AND COACHEE
The process of coaching takes place through a relationship between a coach and a client (the coachee), through a series of meetings known as sessions. Depending on the kind of environment and goal, sessions can vary in number and duration, with a flexible schedule that can be adjusted to achieve the most effective results.
This approach makes this tool particularly versatile for corporations due to the remarkable benefits it brings both in the valorization of individuals, with the consequential improvement in human relationships, and the work environment.
Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn, rather than teaching them.”.
JOHN WITHMORE
The ICF (International Coach Federation), the largest professional coaching association on an international level, defines coaching as a partnership which through a creative process stimulates the clients’ thoughts and inspire them to optimize their personal and professional potential.
WHAT AND ESPECIALLY HOW
In coaching, how an action is performed is as important as the action itself. The relationship and how it is handled represent two important elements, as they foster a different approach to a coachee’s daily life, both on a professional and personal level.
The way a relationship is handled by a coach lets their client acknowledge their talent and abilities and use them with awareness to improve their effectiveness and performance within the new framework provided by the coaching process.
For this reason, coaching is frequently used by athletes, entrepreneurs, managers, teachers, sellers and anyone who wish to enhance their performance or reach set goals.
Origin and evolution of coaching
Like the majority of the modern world disciplines, coaching is rooted in the fertile ground of philosophy.
Philosophy features a number of directions and approaches, drawing upon the West, the East, Africa, Native Americans, etc.
However, with an extreme simplification, if we compared the western and eastern influences on coaching, we would find outstanding contradictions: In fact, Eastern philosophies promote spirituality and unity while Western philosophies affirm that our approach to the world and life must be based on reason and logic.
The philosophic method that is usually associated with coaching is the Socratic statement, “Know yourself”: When Socrates asked his pupils questions, they were encouraged to look for the answers – and therefore the truth – in themselves.
During coaching sessions, in the same way, a person can find new solutions for their goals, enhancing their own interior resources, unique and unrepeatable. By “bringing to light” the client’s individual potential, the coach helps improve skills and overcome barriers (= limiting beliefs) that prevent clients from fully realizing their best performance: Instead of teaching or training, coaches create the most appropriate conditions for change and the development of the individual, naturally emulating the maieutic practice.
By integrating viewpoints and tools linked to Eastern philosophy, coaching allows for the support of a client on a superior level through a systemic approach that lets them face all the challenges by synergically using all their resources.
Historic fun facts
The term ‘coach’ appeared for the first time in 1500 with reference to a carriage drawn by horses and led by a coachman, in the small Hungarian town of Kòcs. By the mid-1850s, the word was also used to suggest the role of a tutor, especially at British universities, a teacher able to motivate students to take their exams.
With the birth of the Humanist Movement, coaching was next introduced to the business world. In the 20th century, starting from the second half of the 1930s, trade publications started including articles about coaching even in the corporate world.
Between the 1930s and 1960s, senior managers and experienced employees started training and following newly hired people. At the time coaching was more like what we today define as tutoring and mentoring.
However, it was between the 1960s and 1980s that coaching began to gain more credence, until its methodology began to be embraced by leadership programs at American universities in the 1980s.
The real innovation, that could be defined almost as a revolution, took place in the worlds of sports and business where the term coaching took on a new meaning.
At the end of the 1990s, the first important data on the incredible productivity gains were collected on managers who had undergone the coaching process. Further data continue to confirm a direct correlation among clients’ improved liaisons, increase in ROI and coaching.
A study conducted by the International Management Association revealed that “if educational programs improve productivity by an average 22%, with coaching it reaches 88%.”
