What is Coaching?

Coaching is a type of psychological support aimed at increasing awareness and unlocking the potential of the client, on his own path to achieve the goal. (APC definition – Association of Professional Coaches).

The official definition by the International Coaching Federation (ICF): “Coaching is a continuous cooperation that helps customers achieve real results in their personal and professional life. Through the coaching process, customers deepen their knowledge, improve their efficiency and improve their life quality.” Coaching is the science that was created at the confluence of psychology, management, philosophy, logic and life experience.

Who is a coach?

This is your personal success trainer who helps you get from point “A” (the current state) to point “B” (the desired state) with the lowest resistance and in the shortest time.

Communication with a coach proceeds in the following way:

A coach asks you questions, orally or in the form of a test (remote cooperation i.e. Internet coaching is possible), you answer them. The questions are aimed specifically to identify your predisposition to a particular type of activity, the causes of conflict situations, internal resistances, and hidden abilities. The results are presented in such a way that you understand all your mistakes on your own and identify the further steps. This is the philosophy of coaching.

Professional coaches:

• Help customers to determine their most important goals and then achieve them with the minimum obstacles
• Help customers to achieve greater results in life, than they would ever be able to on their own
• Focus customers on their targets for a faster achievement of the results
• Apply the optimum work structure, professional methods and provide support to achieve greater efficiency

The coach will help you with the new goals setting, same as with changing or adjustment of the old ones. After all, as it happens: we strive for targets imposed on us by the society, somebody else’s targets. However, the achievement of those does not bring any success or satisfaction. Understanding what you really want, what are your priority goals – one of the most difficult personal tasks of each person and one of the first goals of coaching. Moreover, for a coach, it does not matter in which area of life these tasks are (types of coaching are different): business, career, personal life, hobbies, or something else.

A coach works at:

• Increasing a client’s internal power
• Strengthening and developing the internal potential of the client
• Defining goals based on the personal values of a client

Coaching results:

• You begin to behave more consciously
• You immediately undertake more efficient and goal-focused steps without delaying them “for later”
• You stop tolerating the things that weight you down
• You have an impulse for actions and it is easier to achieve the results
• You define your priority goals that are difficult to define without the help of a coach

Coaches are people who are focused on success and thinking in terms of success, they are something in between a psychoanalyst and a business coach.

Coaching genesis:

Forty years ago, Timothy Gallwey, a professor of Harvard University, as well as a large expert in tennis and golf, wrote the book “The Inner Game of Tennis”, followed by “The Inner Game of Golf”. These books review the traditional idea of coaching, which was previously considered only as the transmission of technical skills by a coach to a player.

Timothy Gallwey began to spread the idea that a sport victory is determined by the internal state of an athlete, and working with his/her inner state is no less significant than physical preparation. The term “internal”, used in the names of the both books, implies the psychological state of a player, not the technique: “The opponent in player’s own head is much stronger than what he has in front of him on the golf course.”

Inspired by the ideas of Gallwey, John Whitmore, a world-famous consultant and coach, applied this approach to business. It was he who defined the coaching essence as “unlocking a person’s potential to maximize his efficiency. Coaching does not teach, but helps to study.”

Thus, the principles were transferred from sports to business, and later on to personal life.

Word “coach” originates from Hungarian, it got widespread in England in the XVI century, and meant a “wagon”. In the second half of the 19th century, English students called their private tutors using this word. In the early nineties of the 19th century, the word “coach” enters into sports vocabulary and means a “trainer”. Gradually, the word in this meaning spreads and is used with regard to any activity related to counseling.

The first coaches in the United States appear in the 70-s. The term “coaching” was introduced in the business management in the early 90-s by an English businessman and consultant, Sir John Whitmore.

The development of coaching may be divided into 7 stages:

1. 70-80-s of the XX century – “genesis” stage (USA)
2. Middle of 80-s of the XX century – “spreading” (USA)
3. Middle of 80-s of the XX century – “outbreak” (Germany)
4. End of 80-s of the XX century — “personnel comprehensive development” (Germany)
5. Beginning of 90-s of the XX century — “differentiation” (Europe, USA)
6. Middle/end of 90-s of the XX century — “popularization” (Europe, USA)
7. Starting from 2002 of the XX century — “advanced professionalization”

Thus, the first stage — “genesis” (70-80-s, USA).

Initially, in American management coaching meant the development-focused work of the manager with his subordinates. Each employee was supposed to reach his professional and personal maturity in his job position under the tactful guidance of his boss. Skillfully using the motivational component, the leader contributed to a successful performance of work-related tasks and, sometimes, to the career growth of the subordinate. This approach was quite consistent with the spirit of the times reigning at that time in America.

Second stage — “spreading”.

In the mid-80s, the use of coaching in careers of young and capable workers is gradually expanding, now with assistance of expert managers in their field who are not their direct managers. Although a lot of attention is paid to young “talents”,  and their career is going into the right direction, but this phenomenon does not develop into any kind of a system, but gradually develops into educating or mentoring.

The third stage — “outbreak”.

The processes that began in the United States at the middle tiers of management, in the mid-80s migrated to Germany immediately to the top-level. Coaching has turned into counseling of top managers exclusively by external coaches on specific topics: conflicts at the top management level, problems of leadership, strategy issues. However, other topics were also considered, such as: family problems or relationship problems with other people. The coach was supposed to help his client to realize his personal worldview, the peculiarities of his communicative style, the strong and weak sides of his personality. Previously, the leaders of the top management echelon have not yet received a direct feedback that would help improving their social influence in business in such scopes. This option of coaching with its “dash of exclusivity” attracted the attention of the general public and in an extremely short time the key coaching ideas became extremely popular.

These were the initial stages of coaching development and coaching forms in Germany. In the United States, the option of outsourced psychological counseling for top managers remained almost without attention until the end of the 80-s, but several years later returned to its “motherland” in full scope.

The fourth stage — “personnel comprehensive development”.

Not only outsourced coaches used to offer coaching but also human resources and personnel development departments inside the companies. For a long time, these two groups were in confrontation, discussing which leadership-related topics correspond to the coaching style and which do not. Where the personnel development department was engaged in the coaching, the target group remained in the middle and lower tiers of management for a long time. The role of a personal coach was assigned to the direct manager who was supposed to develop his subordinates holding coaching seminars inside the company.

Finally, in the 90s, both groups reached peace and consent and approved coaching in various versions and ways of action as a method for managers development irrelevant of their levels. For TOP-level management, individual and teambuilding coaching has become the most important tool for unlocking personal potential. Gradually, the core topics for coaching were determined and mainly classified, as well as the cases requiring coaching, and who should be considered as a coach and as a client.

The fifth stage — “differentiation”.

Thus, in the 90-s coaching achieved the merited success. The first “battles” around concepts, methods, topics, directions, and origins remained behind. Coaching got more and more versions, with a new meaning, contents, and specific procedures.

Coaching in its key concept has turned into a comprehensive, deep, and phycology-focused consulting methodology. It began to be used both in “individual” cases, and as a form of personal support for higher management during company reorganization. The scope and the methods used at this stage have developed rapidly.

The sixth stage — “popularization”.

After coaching got really appreciated by the top management, has proved the non-randomness of its success and high status, the term “coach” naturally very quickly became a word, which everyone used on any occasion. Even classical organizational counseling transformed itself into coaching. “TV-coaching”, “dancing-coaching”, “astrological coaching”, “info-coaching”, etc. flooded the market.

The seventh stage — «advanced professionalization».

Since 2002, target groups and methodically differentiated use appear in coaching. The requirements for the quality of practice are increasing, standardization in coaching training begins, the intensity of research is growing, international congresses and meetings are organized. The Internet data bases of coaches, coaches’ communities, and the coaching federation are created and engaged in discussing the coaching-related contents, methodology, standards, and quality issues. Coaching goes to the scientific level, experts started to develop its methodology and tools.

Currently coaching offers three main branches:

— Life-coaching. It considers the achievement of the goal in the interests of a person as an individual and his/her relationships with the world and the circle of acquaintances.

— Business-coaching. This is a joint work on achieving professional and personal goals of the client in the context of his business or organization. The goal in this case may be both an improvement in the business results and indicators, and personal fulfilment.

— Corporate coaching. Achieving the goal or solving problems in the interests of the company. As a result of the corporate coaching introduction everyone get certain benefits: key employees get awareness of the company prospects, clear ideas about the directions of future steps, greater independence, and support of their own initiatives. The company Head gets loyal, interested, efficient associates. As a result of the corporate coaching the company profit increases. According to the data of International Coaching Federation, the coaching costs recovery is 5.3 to 1. (information about the coaching history is provided by ICF).