Coaching

Coaching

Overview
What is Coaching?
Why Coaching?
Coaching Distinctions
Coaching Specialisms
Coaching Ethics

Overview

My Coaching approach is very action orientated. Its about identifying your core values & aligning them with your short, medium and long term goals. Its about helping you to become more self aware and in doing so accelerate your personal and professional development.

Here is a list of some of the common challenges that I can help with:

Making a great impression in a new job
Successfully making the transition to team management
Successfully changing career paths
Successfully positioning yourself for promotion
Making a successful transition from employment to self employment
Successfully re-entering the workplace after a career break or redundancy
Building stronger relationships with senior managers
Building stronger relationships with decision makers
Presenting more effectively

What is Coaching?

Because Coaching is a relatively recent phenomenon, there is no 'industry standard' definition. However, the International Coaching Federation which is the most recognised and respected coaching body worldwide describe coaching as:

"Coaching is an interactive process that helps individuals and organisations to develop more rapidly and produce more satisfying results. Coaches work with clients in all areas including business, career, finances, health and relationships. As a result of coaching, clients set better goals, take more action, make better decisions, and more fully use their natural strengths."

International Coach Federation

Why Coaching?

We live busy lives. Lives that just seem to get busier every year. Very often this means that we don't get a chance to step back and review what we really want from our careers. Sometimes its valuable to work with someone who is able to help you take a "helicopter" view of your career. This is where a coach adds value.

Coaching can most simply be described as a catalysing relationship that accelerates the process of great performance. Working with a coach will help you to move from your current state to your desired state more quickly than you could do on your own.

A recent study by the International Coach Federation found a wide range of benefits reported by individuals who part take in coaching. These included:

Increased self-awareness 68%
Better goal setting 62%
Lower stress levels 57%
Increased confidence 52%
Enhanced communication skills 40%
Increased project completion 36%

People employ coaches for many different reasons. Here are some of the most common:

To better deal with uncertainty
To make better decisions
To set better goals
To reach goals faster
To become financially more successful
To get ahead professionally
To improve their relationships
To be a better leader
To simplify their lives
To reduce stress
To address an altered reality of employment

Coaching Distinctions

The Coaching industry is still in the early years of its development. For this reason there is still confusion about how coaching differs from other professional services such as Consulting, Therapy, Mentoring and Training. The International Coach Federation help coaches to clarify their role by making the following distinctions:

Coaching versus Consulting

Coaching emphasises the client's responsibility for the results he or she receives from coaching and focuses as much on who the client needs to be or become as what business practices need to be done differently.

A Consultant is employed to deliver an end result that meets a specific need or goal. The consultant takes responsibility for the project and is a specialist with expertise in a given situation or industry, providing content and expert knowledge. A consultant focuses on what needs to be accomplished to improve the business

Coaching versus Therapy

Therapy focuses on the life an individual is living as related to the past, often childhood issues. Therapy focuses on accompanying feelings and emotions, patterns of behaviour and any self deconstructive tendencies. A typical outcome of therapy is healing the individual, the creation of more useful and healthy coping skills and dealing with current issue and challenges.

Coaching focuses on what a person wants, beginning in the present and moving forward, developing the person to engage life with new behaviours and ultimately to achieve his or her definition of success.

A succinct way of identifying the line between coaching and therapy is that if a client's past is an issue he or she may benefit from therapy, but if the past is a fact, he or she is coachable.

Coaching versus Mentoring

A mentor is an expert with knowledge in a particular field or within a particular company who can guide others to move forward within the company or field by benefiting from his or her experience.

A coach is an expert on the development of people in general and helps people move forward on their own unique path that may be very different from that of the coach.

Coaching versus Training

Training is usually delivered to an individual or group of people over a short period of time. The focus in on sharing information and knowledge that helps the individual or group to perform an activity more effectively. In order for most training courses to be cost effective they are usually delivered in a "one size fits all" basis. Limited account is given to the specific learning needs of the individual. After the training as been delivered the trainer typically has limited contact with the people that he or she has trained. Its the down to each individual to decide how they use the knowledge that they gained during the training.

Coaching focuses on helping an individual to become more aware of HOW they learn. This insight can then help the individual to build a clearer set of performance improvement strategies. Coaching can also be used as a natural follow on from training courses where the learning taken from the course can be re-inforced through 1-2-1 coaching sessions with each participant. Specifically, coaching can help the individual to identify how, when and where they can most effectively use the knowledge taken from the training course.

Coaching Specialisms

At Matrix Business Coaching we specialise in working with professionals in the age group 25-40. These professionals may currently work for large organisations or instead run small businesses.

When researching the coaching marketplace you will find that many coaches will categotise themselves into one or more of the following groups

Personal/Life Coach

Personal or Life Coaches are focused on relating and working with the client as a human being. They are less interested in your professional circumstances and more interested in your personal circumstances. They help clients to achieve their personal goals. These might include weight loss, greater confidence & to stop smoking.

Business Coach

In business coaching we are referring to the small business with only a few employees or offices. In this environment, the needs of the business often drive the priority of the coaching. The primary beneficiary of the coaching is the business, although the individual benefits within the context of how his or her development impacts the success of the business. The coaching success is often measured by increased performance and contribution.

Corporate Coach

Corporate coaching is focused on larger organisations where there can be a matrix of relationships to consider. The ultimate benefactor is the corporation, which gains an increased competitive advantage because of the realised potential of the individuals.

Executive Coach

Executive coaching is a subset of corporate coaching, focused specifically on senior executives and management. The focus is remedial or developmental and includes issues such as effective leadership, empowerment and delegation. And, just like with corporate coaching there is benefit to the individual but within the context of the agreed-upon development for the good of the organisation.

There are overlaps between each of the above coaching specialisms simply because coaching is focused on helping an individual to accelerate his/her performance. There will always be personal benefits that come out of coaching as well as wider organisational benefits.

Ultimately, the challenges and goals that you in your life at this moment in time will go some way to determining what type of coach you work with. If the challenges are directly related to the business you work for or own then the chances are that a business, corporate or executive coach will be best placed to help you. If your challenges are much more personal and unrelated to the company you work for then a Personal Coach may be best placed to help you.

However, its vitally important that you speak to a number of coaches across different specialisms before you make a decision because every coach is unique.

Coaching Ethics

All coaches who are serious about their profession are committed to to following the highest standards. Given that coaching is an extremely personal business it is very important that each coach establishes standards of behaviour that ensure that a consistently high level of service is delivered to each. client

To this end I adhere to the International Coach Federation (ICF) Code of Ethics. This is an agreed set o of standards that all coaches who have been accredited by the ICF follow. There are ten standards within the code of Ethics which I have signed up to.

Establish sound contracts and business practices
Establish My professional competencies
Adhere to the limit of my expertise
Guarantee confidentiality within boundaries
Be respectful and constructive
Respond quickly and responsibly
Be professional at all times
Maintain appropriate distance
Be a model
Be Coachable myself

Coaching