FAQs
What is professional coaching?
Professional coaching is based on science, training, assessments and oversight. Professional Coaching utilizes the process of self-directed change to achieve desired outcomes. It is not a former executive relying on their experience to direct others. Professional coaches are held accountable by an organization on their competencies and ethics. Two of the largest organizations, The International Coach Federation and The Association of Coaching represent the two largest groups with over 55,000 members in over 140 countries.
The International Coach Federation (ICF), www.coachfederation.org, defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential, which is particularly important in today’s uncertain and complex environment.
Coaches honor the client as the expert in his or her life and work and believe every client is creative, resourceful and whole. Standing on this foundation, the coach’s responsibility is to:
- Discover, clarify, and align with what the client wants to achieve
- Encourage client self-discovery
- Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies
- Hold the client responsible and accountable
This process helps clients dramatically improve their outlook on work and life, while improving their leadership skills and unlocking their potential.
Impact Coaches are certified by various associations including the International Coach Federation and The Association of Coaches. Our coaches work in 80 countries and coach on our global coaching platform in more than 122 languages. In addition, all coaches must maintain an industry leading customer satisfaction rating.
I’m already overbooked so how do I find time for a coach?
Too busy to get better? Or not willing to consider change?
If you are too busy, coaching can provide frameworks for getting more out of each day; time management, complete communications, delegating and empowering are just examples of how coaching can guide you to carve out time for you to invest in yourself; becoming your best possible version.
Our global coaching network gives you access to certified, provisional coaching 24 hours a day., you can get schedule coaching anytime that works for you. The same technology that pings, tweets and alerts you 24/7, provides real-time video conference coaching. Your coach is your partner and will schedule for whatever time of day or night works best for you. Your coaching course is securely kept in our Impact Cloud giving access to you and our coaches anytime, anywhere for any reason.
Not wanting to consider change is the landmine for leaders. It’s clear that you are capable and successful. You have spent your career making better, faster decisions than others around you. Every experience builds on the other giving you volumes of data in your mental library. So, you continue along confident and in control. Until………
Have you considered the possibility that at some point your past successes, mental library, will begin to work against you? It could be a unique situation, new environment, new pace of change, a different culture, challenging generation, changing social norms, retooled shareholder demands, government regulations, global financial evolution and so much more. At what point will your mental library start holding you back and slowing you down. Maybe even become stuck. New stress from previously unknown conditions.
It isn’t about not having the time. It’s about making the time. Time to invest in yourself. You and your Impact coach will work on future proofing you. Invest in your self to become your best possible self.
In what languages can I receive coaching?
We recommend that you receive coaching in your primary language. Coaching in your primary language maximizes the depth and breadth of your experience. The real challenge with coaching and language is when a company wants to provide sponsored coaching for leaders and high potentials globally. Global leadership development and coaching is a powerful capability that only Impact Global Coaching can offer.
Currently the Impact Global Coaching Platform accepts input from and translates between 132 languages. Impact can provide a common coaching course for any leader in any country and any language. Our project management provides for quality control and coaching oversight for quality of coaching and movement of the leaders’ development.
NOTE: Impact program management adheres to confidentiality and ethics supported by the International Coach Federation and the Association of Coaching. In addition, Impact follows GDPR regulations
What makes coaches such good facilitators?
Coaches operate with an elevated level of Emotional IQ, ask questions about everything, are so very curious and skilled at managing conflict.
Most important is that coaches coach. There isn’t a program, workshop, discussion, assessment or feedback of any type that doesn’t benefit from coaching. When a coach talks about desired outcomes, best version of the client’s self and how the client wants to be seen by others, magic begins to happen. Coaches are trained to surgically apply challenges and support to keep the mind open and the workshop on track and on time.
Another benefit to coaches as facilitators is that the content of the event has the potential to gain much higher retention than a facilitator alone. Coaches are able to expand the retention of knowledge by help the individual attach it to something of value, personal or professional in a follow up coaching session or group webinar.
What has caused the tremendous growth in the coaching industry?
Coaching has grown significantly for many reasons, among them:
- Coaching prepares leaders for the generational challenges by increasing awareness and expanding leadership capacity. These changes include the blending of three distinct generations (Baby Boomers, GenX, Millennials) and the pending introduction of GenZ. Each new generation operates with a higher emotional IQ and the need to collaborate and the desire to add value.
- Global business isn’t just for multi-billion-dollar companies any longer. The Internet has given access to a global marketplace. This new dynamic of a culture that is global is challenging for the best entrepreneurs. Coaching helps leaders define, distribute and establish a winning culture no matter where in the world they are located.
- The speed of business continues to accelerate. Low Emotional IQ and/or bad behaviors can destroy customer success. Coaching can keep your team ahead of the need for constant change.
- Downsizing, restructuring, mergers and other organizational changes have radically altered the “traditional employment track.” Companies can no longer achieve results using traditional management approaches.
- With the growing shortage of talented employees in certain industries, companies must commit to investing in individuals’ development to develop, retain and create future leaders.
- The disparity between what managers were trained to do and what their jobs now require of them is widening due to increasing demands for competitive results.
- People are wrestling with job insecurity and increased workplace pressures to perform at higher levels than ever before.
- Companies must develop inclusive, collaborative work environments to achieve strategic business goals and to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.
- Individuals who have experienced the excellent results of coaching are talking to more people about it.
People today are more open to the idea of being in charge of their own lives. Coaching helps them do just that.
How long should I work with a coach?
The length of a coaching partnership varies depending on the individual or team’s needs and preferences.
Coaching for a specific transition or event can last 3-6 months. Coaching for development of a leader and/or their team can be as little as 6-months to years.
Many leaders find that having a coach is an invaluable asset. In these cases the coach becomes a part of the leaders staff. The coach’s role is to assist the leader in exploring, evaluating and engaging in new opportunities and relationships.
Factors that may impact the length of time include: the types of goals, the ways individuals or teams prefer to work, the frequency of coaching meetings and financial resources available to support coaching
How do you ensure a compatible coaching partnership?
Overall, be prepared to design the coaching partnership with the coach. For example, think of a strong partnership that you currently have in your work or life. Look at how you built that relationship and what is important to you about partnership. You will want to build those same things into a coaching relationship. Here are a few other tips:
- Interview more than one coach to determine “what feels right” in terms of the chemistry. Coaches are accustomed to being interviewed, and an introductory conversation of this type is usually free of charge.
Impact Coaching has hundreds of professional certified coaches in 130 languages from which to choose
- Look for stylistic similarities and differences between the coach and you and how these might support your growth as an individual or the growth of your team.
- Discuss your goals for coaching within the context of the coach’s specialty or the coach’s preferred way of working with you or your team
- Talk with the coach about what to do if you ever feel things are not going well; make some agreements up front on how to handle questions or problems.
Remember that coaching is a partnership, so be assertive about talking with the coach about any concerns.
What factors should Human Resources consider when considering use of external coaching?
Human Resources has three reasons to consider external coaches:
- Executives demand external coaches for privacy
- Internal coaches have limited scope of coaching capabilities
- No internal coaching program exists
Whichever of the three environments apply to you and your company Impact Global Coaching suggests you consider the following:
- Coaching should be part of your leadership development program
- Internal and External coaching should utilize existing HR leadership resources
- Coaching should include program management
- Coaching should have a common platform utilized by internal and external coaches
Whether you run HR for a start up in need of teambuilding or a global company in seeking to develop world-class leaders, you need to establish a common coaching platform, protocols and program management. Let Impact Global Coaching help you establish a vertically integrated leadership development and coaching program that secures confidentiality, maintains corporate culture (or helps you establish it) and provides program management to assure consistency and results.
What Questions do I ask a prospective Coach?
- What is your coaching experience (number of individuals coached, years of experience, types of coaching situations, etc.)?
- What is your coach-specific training?
- Do you hold any graduate degrees in Organizational Behavior, Organizational Development or Psychology
- What is your coaching specialty or areas in which you most often work?
- What types of businesses do you work with most often? And, at what levels (executives, upper management, middle management, high potentials, leadership development, etc.)?
- What is your philosophy about coaching?
- What types of assessments are you certified to deliver?
- What are some of your coaching success stories (specific examples of individuals who have succeeded as a result of coaching)?
- With what associations are you certified; International Coach Federation, Association of Coaching, Sherpa, Coaches Training Institute?
- How long is your typical coaching engagement?
- How do you set your fees?
- What technology do you use in support of your coaching?
- Do you provide any leadership specific training?
- Tell me about your group coaching experience.
- In what languages can you or your company provide coaching?
How much does a Coach cost?
Coaching costs range from $49 to $5,000 per hour.
It’s a legendary saying that is true to this day, “You get what you pay for”.
If you want a coach who is qualified (link to how do I pick a Coach) you will find the following as guidelines only.
- Senior Executive (C-level) and Board of Director Coaching
- $ 800/hour and up
- Executive Coaching (VP’s and Senior Directors)
- $400/hour – $800/hour
- Mid-Level Management
- $ 250/hour -$400/hour
- Group Coaching
- $400/hour – $800/hour
- High Potential Coaching
- $250/hour – $400/hour
Coaches also are excellent at providing job benchmarking, feedback, leadership development and assessments. Typically, these services are charged on a daily rate. Daily rates can range from $2,000/day to $10,000/day.
The most important element of any of the above services is to agree to a Statement of Work (SOW). The SOW should set all activities, deliverables, travel and reporting.
I’ve used a coach and it didn’t work, why?
There are three primary reasons that your coaching experience didn’t work for you.
- The Coach not qualified; not a Certified Professional Coach
- Trust wasn’t established in the relationship
- You needed a Coach with operational experience in the role and or industry
The responsibility falls on the part of the client to properly vet potential coaches to determine if they are qualified. This includes proficiency in one or more styles of coaching, graduate degrees in Organizational Behavior, Organizational Development or Physiology. In addition to training and education it’s important to feel a connection with the coach which will accelerate trust and thus development.
Speaking of trust, just how does it play out in a coaching relationship? It’s critical in order for the Coach to be able to challenge the client. Yes, challenge. There are many cycles in the coaching relationship. When you and your coach are exploring and forming new ideas the challenges are soft or frankly supportive.
- How does that make you feel …
- Why do you think …
- How would this impact ….
- If you had to prioritize …
It’s when the development of plans starts to occur that the coach needs to challenge the client in order to expand their awareness.
- How is this different than what you were doing?
- Explain how this is going to support your goals?
- You just told me 15 minutes ago that you didn’t think you could do it. So, what’s changed?
- You said you would feel empowered. What are you going to do with that power?
- How will you know when you have achieved this goal?
As an executive or entrepreneur accustomed to being in charge challenges can be uncomfortable unless trust has been established between you and the coach.
So, you’ve picked out a great coach. Lots of degrees, credentials and coaching experience. Together you have built a great set of highly desirable future outcomes for you, your team and your company. But now you find yourself stuck.
It’s like going into the wild with an experienced guide. Your goal is to get to the top of the mountain. For days you hike through treacherous ground and see some incredible flora and fauna. Yet you see yourself getting closer and closer to the mountain when you come up to a cliff. You are stuck because you don’t know how to get across the ravine to accomplish your goal.
If your coach can’t help get you unstuck then your satisfaction with the coaching experience will plummet.
A key benefit to Impact Global Coaching is that we have certified professional coaches around the globe. If you and your current coach get stuck, we can assign another coach to move you forward. Better yet, each of our coaches use the same online coaching environment. This provides a seamless transition to your new coach.
Talent acquisition and development is getting more complex. Can Impact help me?
Absolutely! Planning for the desired outcome is a business principal that is often overlooked in Talent Acquisition. Simply put, if you don’t hire for the future don’t expect to develop for the future.
When was the last time you benchmarked the position for which you are hiring? The key element is you benchmark the position and not a person. By investing in Job Benchmarking, you’ll secure the talent necessary for success while eliminating common biases often associated with the hiring process.
When Job Benchmarking is implemented properly, it will have a direct effect on your business’ bottom line. You’ll not only attract the best candidates, but you’ll save time and money by hiring the right people the first time and reducing the learning curve with new employees who are strategically matched to fit your company.
Impact Coaches will work with you to execute a successful benchmarking process. This includes mapping the need to have and like to have elements of the job benchmarking to our personality profiling from TTI Success Insights (link to https://www.ttisuccessinsights.com/ ). This EEOC* (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) approved process becomes your first filter in the talent acquisition process. Cost effective, efficient and accurate. All assessment date is securely saved and available for internal and/or external coaches to utilize for developmental activities.
Moreover, our validated assessments set Impact apart from the competition and provide clients with the necessary tools to:
- Hire right the first time
- Identify true star performers
- Enhance employee engagement and productivity
*The suite of talent assessments used have proven capable in organizational hiring practices, ensuring the job and employee are a match. Our validated job benchmarking processes are not “pass/fail.” Rather, they are on a scale of zero to 10 to illustrate not only our industry expertise, but also our compliance with the “80 percent” rule and other EEOC guidelines regarding Adverse Impact.
Why Impact Global Coaching?
As a global coaching and leadership development company we are uniquely qualified to develop your leaders and their teams in 132 countries in 109 languages.
Our coaches are all certified professional coaches who meet the standard of the International Coach Federation or the Association of Coaches; the two largest coaching associations. The participate in continued education, utilize the latest in coaching science and deliver the highest quality of coaching anywhere, anytime.
As an executive or entrepreneur your investment in leadership development is fully leveraged and documented.
Human Resource professionals can be assured that Impact systems will plug into their enterprise systems to support global initiatives while providing local, highly impacting, coaching and development.
Individuals who look to maximize their career acceleration will benefit for our global network and powerful development programs.
Founded by www.barrymgeorge.com Impact Global Coaching is built on the principle that executives, entrepreneurs and their teams must pursue the very best version of themselves to maximize results in the dynamics global economy.
External vs. Internal Coaching, what’s the difference?
External coaching is designed to protect a client and the company from having sensitive personal and professional situations known throughout the organization. Senior managers and board members are secure from the possibility of sensitive information, personal or company, being exposed to internal employees.
Internal coaching is when the company employs its own staff or outside contractors to provide coaching to various layers of leaders and individual contributors that are not part of the senior or executive staff.
Many of the same skills are utilized by internal and external coaches. The application of that coaching for internal coaches is typically informal coaching whereas the application for external coaches is formal coaching.
Once perceived as an exclusive perk meant to address the development needs of senior executives and emerging leaders, coaching is now offered to employees at various stages of their careers and with two primary applications; tactical and developmental.
How should Human Resources leadership manage internal and external coaching programs?
Historically, HR has had a difficult time evaluating the value of coaching. Unlike the mechanics of financial analysis, to date coaching has been more about the narrative of improvement than verified results. With over $167 billion per year spent globally on HR systems, internal leadership employees, external leadership workshops and various enablement programs coaching is both a necessary adjunct and a challenging element to measure results. Add the additional complexity of much of multiple languages and the individual interpretation by outside coaches of corporate development goals and you can feel the ever-expanding black hole. Finally, external coaches cry confidentiality when you ask then to report results.
Impact Global Coaching has developed a global overlay program to solve the above issues. Our CoachSimple platform is a multi-lingual input and translation solution that can connect with any HR system, manage corporate development goals and connect inside and outside coaching in any language and country. The Impact project management process consults (HR & C level), connects (to your systems through API’s) and creates (specific content) a local, regional, theater and global execution plan.
Each Impact Coach knows that there will be a project manager, a senior coach, who will provide quality reviews of their coaching sessions, which are all captured in the CoachSimple platform. It’s like having multiple attorneys or doctors on your case providing checks and balances of their work and all covered by client privilege.
In addition, each coaching agreement between your employee and their coach is designed to accommodate “carve outs” for these specific development goals.
Finally, your internal coaches can use the same CoachSimple platform giving you, the HR leader, a single dashboard of participates, number of sessions and topics.
Join the global CoachSimple global development platform.
For more information on the fundamentals of using internal coaching Click Here
How can I determine if coaching is right for me or my team?
Coaching is about creating an environment to consider, explore and implement change in order to increase personal capacity, build high performance/functional teams, develop better leaders, improve communications, change direction of your company, identify/accelerate high potentials or just become more aware of what you want from your career.
To determine whether you or your company could benefit from coaching, list your desired outcomes; personally, professionally. Then ask yourself if your current activities, behaviors and capacity are achieving your desired outcomes. If not, a coaching partnership can be a useful tool for developing a strategy for how to achieve these outcomes at an accelerated pace and with greater ease.
How is coaching distinct from other service professions?
Professional coaching focuses on identifying outcomes, setting goals, initiating change and accelerating results. Sometimes it’s helpful to understand coaching by distinguishing it from other personal or organizational support professions.
- Therapy: Therapy deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or in relationships. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past that hamper an individual’s emotional functioning in the present, improving overall psychological functioning, and dealing with the present in more emotionally healthy ways. Coaching, on the other hand, supports personal and professional growth based on self-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success. Coaching is future focused. While positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one’s work or personal life. The emphases in a coaching relationship are on action, accountability, and follow through.
- Consulting: Individuals or organizations retain consultants for their expertise. While consulting approaches vary widely, the assumption is the consultant will diagnose problems and prescribe and, sometimes, implement solutions. With coaching, the assumption is that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own solutions, with the coach supplying supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks.
- Mentoring: A mentor is an industry or role expert who provides wisdom and guidance based on his or her own experience. Mentoring may include advising, counseling and a form of coaching. The value of a mentor is to guide you based on their experience. Mentoring can misfire if the mentor doesn’t have the specific experience of subject matter expertise.
- Training: Training programs are based on objectives set out by the instructor, trainer or even built into SaaS based Human Resource or Learning and Development systems. Training also assumes a linear learning path that coincides with an established curriculum. Coaching is less linear without a set curriculum and based on frameworks that can be adapted to each client.
- Athletic Development: Though sports metaphors are often used, professional coaching is different from sports coaching. The athletic coach is often seen as an expert who guides and directs the behavior of individuals or teams based on his or her greater experience and knowledge. Professional business coaches possess these qualities, but their experience and knowledge of the client determines a unique direction. Additionally, professional coaching, unlike athletic development, does not focus on behaviors that are being executed poorly or incorrectly. Instead, the focus is on identifying opportunity for development based on individual strengths and capabilities; increasing capacity and performance.
What are some typical reasons someone might work with a coach?
An individual or team might choose to work with a coach for many reasons, including but not limited to the following:
- New role, company or team. Coaching through this onboarding process will assure successful outcome
- Something urgent, compelling or exciting is at stake (a challenge, stretch goal or opportunity)
- A gap exists in knowledge, skills, confidence or resources
- Employee reviews not being received well
- Turnover rate is increasing
- Executive acting out
- A desire to accelerate results
- A lack of clarity with choices to be made
- Lagging leadership development
- You’re unsure of your career path, both at your current company and beyond
- Success has started to become problematic
- Work and life are out of balance, creating unwanted consequences
- Onboarding into a new role
- Core strengths need to be identified, along with how best to leverage them
- Leader challenged with certain employee demographics
- Must validate spend on systems and development
- Uncertain about the future of your career
- Getting stuck. The things that used to work aren’t working so well any more
- Succession planning
- Brainstorming
- Need better facilitation and follow up
- Your team is dysfunctional and pulling apart not collaborating together
- The need to objectively plan a succession plan
- BOD and CEO are out of sync
How is coaching delivered? What does the process look like?
For Companies: Impact seeks to leverage existing corporate assets and promote leadership standards in every theater, country and region. Through our web-based platform we can align your corporate leadership programs with facilitators and coaches in over 132 languages in any country.
Impact coach/consultants interview leadership stakeholders to understand and provide insight to customize a development program from the C Suite to your high potentials. We validate the program design through our assessment process. Then manage the delivery of videos, workshops and of coaching.
Impact brings both truly global delivery and oversight to assure you are getting the results you desire and the return on your investment; anywhere, anytime, anyone.
No other company is as technologically, language oriented or progressive as Impact Global Coaching!
For Individuals: Coaching typically begins with a personal interview in what we call an Intake Session. This 45-minute session is delivered on The Impact Global Coaching Platform. The outcome of this session is to provide insight into the specific coaching course of interest, it’s components and the clients responsibilities. This is also the time for the client to explore their individual needs and expectations. After the intake the client receives a detailed proposal for the coaching course that best fits them.
All clients complete one or more assessments instruments. These assessments provide a way to deconstruct a client’s personality establish a common platform of understanding, then reassemble it according the desired outcomes of the relationship. This includes the number of sessions, length and type.
After the assessment, goals are reevaluated and the coaching process begins. Sessions are either in-person or over video conferencing. the coaching program begins. Between scheduled coaching sessions, the client may be asked to complete specific activities that support the implementation of their goals. The coach may provide additional resources in the form of relevant articles, checklists, assessments or models to support the individual’s or business’ thinking and actions. The duration of the coaching relationship varies depending on needs and preferences.
- Assessments: A variety of assessments are available to support the coaching process, depending upon the needs and circumstances of the individual or business. Assessments provide objective information that can enhance self-awareness, as well as awareness of others and their circumstances; provide a benchmark for creating coaching goals and actionable strategies; and offer a method for evaluating progress.
- Concepts, models and principles: A variety of concepts, models and principles drawn from the behavioral sciences, management literature, spiritual traditions and/or the arts and humanities may be incorporated into the coaching conversation to increase self-awareness and awareness of others, foster shifts in perspective, promote fresh insights, provide new frameworks for looking at opportunities and challenges, and energize and inspire forward actions.
Appreciative approach: Coaching incorporates an appreciative approach, grounded in what’s right, what’s working, what’s wanted and what’s needed to get there. Using an appreciative approach, the coach model’s constructive communication skills and methods to enhance personal communication effectiveness. He or she incorporates discovery-based inquiry, proactive (as opposed to reactive) ways of managing personal opportunities and challenges, constructive framing of observations and feedback to elicit the most positive responses from others, and visions of success as contrasted with focusing on problems. The appreciative approach is simple to understand and employ, and its reach can be profound, opening up new possibilities and spurring action
Do I really need to take another personality assessment?
Yes! And here’s why. There are different forms of assessments, various reporting methods and the all-important analysis by a trained professional. Each of these three areas should always be considered when presented with the opportunity to take a personality assessment.
Personality assessments come in two forms, normed/validated and not normed/validated. If an assessment is normed and validated, it is called an instrument. An assessment instrument has been designed without bias to deconstruct any personality no matter the demographic; economic, social, generational. At Impact Global Coaching this means your personality will be assessed accurately.
Reports represent the way in which the data from your assessment is grouped together. With Impact Global Coaching your report will be constructed from over 3.3 billion data points collected from more than 30 million assessments. The purpose of the report is to compare and contrast various aspects of your personality to the population at large. Further the report will integrate the data for the analyst to review.
Analysis, by a certified professional becomes the foundation for coaching and leadership development. That’s because we aren’t looking for right/wrong, strength/weakness or even better/worse. The analyst looks for patterns or grouping of data points to determine balance, conflict, communications and other foundational indicators.
The result is the foundation for understanding. To be the best possible version of you.
NOTE: Impact Global Coaching only uses assessment instruments analyzed by certified professionals.
Within the partnership, what does the coach do? And the client?
The coach’s role:
- Provides objective assessment and observations that foster the individual’s or team’s self-awareness and awareness of others
- Listens closely to fully understand the individual’s or team’s circumstances
- Acts as a sounding board in exploring possibilities and implementing thoughtful planning and decision making
- Champions opportunities and potential, encouraging stretch and challenge commensurate with personal strengths and aspirations
- Fosters shifts in thinking that reveal fresh perspectives
- Challenges blind spots to illuminate new possibilities and support the creation of alternative scenarios
- Maintains professional boundaries in the coaching relationship, including confidentiality, and adheres to the coaching profession’s code of ethics.
- Creates the coaching agenda based on personally meaningful coaching goals
- Uses assessment and observations to enhance self-awareness and awareness of others
- Envisions personal and/or organizational success
- Assumes full responsibility for personal decisions and actions
- Utilizes the coaching process to promote possibility thinking and fresh perspectives
- Takes courageous action in alignment with personal goals and aspirations
- Engages big-picture thinking and problem-solving skills
- Takes the tools, concepts, models and principles provided by the coach and engages in effective forward actions
The client’s role:
- Be present throughout the session
- Ready to consider change
- Focus on one’s self, the tough questions, the hard truths and one’s success.
- Recall the behaviors and communications you’ve had with others
- Listen to the voice inside you
- Challenge existing attitudes, beliefs and behaviors and develop new ones that serve one’s goals in a superior way
- Leverage personal strengths and overcome limitations to develop a winning style
- Take decisive actions, however uncomfortable and despite personal insecurities, to reach for the extraordinary
- Show compassion for one’s self while learning new behaviors and experiencing setbacks, and to show that compassion for others as they do the same
- Commit to not take one’s self so seriously, using humor to lighten and brighten any situation
- Maintain composure in the face of disappointment and unmet expectations, avoiding emotional reactivity
- Have the courage to reach for more than before while engaging in continual self-examination without fear
How can the success of the coaching process be measured?
Measurement may be thought of in two distinct ways: external indicators of performance and internal indicators of success. Ideally, both are incorporated.
Examples of external measurements include achievement of coaching goals established at the outset of the coaching relationship, increased income/revenue, obtaining a promotion, performance feedback that is obtained from a sample of the individual’s constituents (e.g., direct reports, colleagues, customers, boss, the manager him/herself), personal and/or business performance data (e.g., productivity, efficiency measures). The external measurements selected should be things the individual is already measuring and has some ability to directly influence.
Examples of internal measurements include self-scoring/self-validating assessments that can be administered initially and at regular intervals in the coaching process, changes in the individual’s self-awareness and awareness of others, shifts in thinking that create more effective actions, and shifts in one’s emotional state that inspire confidence.
How do I pick a Coach?
There are three things you need to consider when picking a Coach.
- Where did they get their Coaching Credentials
- What formal education do they have to support their Coaching
- Do they have any operational experience; role, industry
Meeting the above criteria does not guarantee a good fit. It’s not about what the coach wants. A coach needs to be someone that is curious and interested in you.
During an intake coaching session listen to what the coach talks about. Are they asking you questions or are they telling you how wonderful they are?
You have the power in selecting a coach. You can say no!
How do I fire a Coach?
The number one reason for a broken coaching relationships is lack of due diligence before hiring the coach.
So, if you haven’t yet hired a coach, please take the time to ask all your questions, have an intake coaching session and be sure this is a person you can trust.
Talk to your coach. Share your concerns and/or feelings. Be clear and direct. If you don’t feel comfortable with the relationship it may deter your progress even if your coach is technically capable.
If you have already engaged with a coach and do not feel comfortable in how things are going:
- Tell your coach that you are unhappy
- Provide details of how you feel and why you are not connecting
- Ask if there is another coach (this is the reason to work with a coaching company) in the firm that might take over coaching
- Be clear that if things don’t change you will not renew coaching agreement
Should I use an Internal or External Coach?
Yes, and it Depends.
Internal coaches are valuable for the general population of workers and managers. The coaching can be single session problem solving or a few months in length when working on behavioral and emotional issues. It can be difficult, however, for internal coaches not to use coaching sessions as a way imprint the corporate fingerprint on the client thus limiting exploration and creativity.
External coaches for High Potential Employees (HIPO) and Executives provides both the exploration and creative environment in the Coaching Session that will result in maximum growth and return for the company. If properly vetted the coach for such a group can also be qualified as an Advisor to further accelerate the development process.
What’s the difference between developmental and performance coaching?
The difference is based on desired outcome.
Performance Coaching is based on a predefined outcome and how to get the coaching client to that point as quickly as possible. Most often utilized in sales organizations, performance coaching is typically a short term, 1-5 session, coaching process. These sessions may also be as short as 15-30 minutes in length. Performance Coaching may or may not have lasting results. For long term changes in awareness and choices Developmental Coaching is required.
Developmental Coaching is about exploring, defining and implementing changes in awareness and behavior to increase a leader’s capacity to communicate, coach and collaborate in their present and future roles. This extends to groups and teams as well. This process can take 3 to 6 months and often continues throughout a leader’s career. Sessions can be between 60 and 90 minutes in length.