Who Can Benefit From Coaching?

Anyone who desires to create positive momentum and change in his or her life, career, and relationships can benefit from coaching. Coaching is increasingly recognized as a successful means for improving executive and employee performance. Coaching has also been proven to help individuals find a heightened sense of purpose, meaning, and joy in their private lives and relationships.

Does Coaching Actually Work?

Coaching has been shown to be effective in multiple independent studies. According to a study done with company executives, quoted in the Economic Times, coaching resulted in a return on investment of almost six times the cost. The study also found a 77% improvement in relationships, 67% improvement in teamwork, 61% improvement in job satisfaction, and a 48% improvement in quality of life.

What Does The Coaching Process Look Like?

Coaching occurs within the context of conversations, a dialog between coach and client about any topic on which the client wants to work. The client always sets the agenda for the coaching conversations. Coaching conversations are confidential and safe. The coach asks insightful questions in order to provoke deeper understanding and awareness on the part of the client, and collaborates with the client to construct an action plan for achieving the client’s desired goals.

Where Does The Coaching Take Place?

The coaching process is designed to be efficient and accessible for people with busy lives. Although coaches and clients may meet in person for their coaching sessions, most coaching takes place either on the phone or by digital communication such as Skype or FaceTime. Coaching sessions are arranged in advance on a specific day and at a specific time mutually agreeable to the coach and client.

How Is Coaching Different From Mentoring, Counseling, or Consulting?

Put simply, counseling is understood to be oriented on the client’s past, and assumes events in the past have created dysfunction that must be remedied in order for the client to interact with himself or herself and others in a healthy way. The therapist is an expert guide who can aid in healing.

Mentoring assumes that the mentor has proven expertise and success in a specific area in which the mentee also wishes to experience success. The mentor essentially says to the mentee, “Do what I do the way I do it until you learn how to do it successfully, and then modify it to best suit your natural gifts and temperament.” In the mentor/mentee relationship, the mentor is considered an expert on a particular topic, who will teach the mentee his or her expertise.

In contrast to these, the client is assumed to be the expert on his or her own life, career, and needs. The coach is not a teacher or advisor, but is instead a professional skilled in the process of collaborating with the client to create his or her own strategies for crafting a compelling future for him or herself. The coach enters the process with confidence that the client has the necessary strengths, gifts, skills, and creativity to engage successfully in constructing a better life. The coach is not an advice giver, but is instead a guide and partner in the client’s creative efforts to live a richer, better life.

How Is Having A Coach Different Than Talking To A Good Friend?

Your coach will be friendly, but your coach’s primary goal is not to be your friend. Instead, your coach is an advocate for you to become the person you were designed to be. Your coach wants the best from you and will help you set goals for achieving your aims. Your coach will help you develop accountability systems to keep yourself on track, and will speak hard truths to you when necessary. Your coach’s job is not to entertain you or make you feel comfortable. Your coach’s aim is to stretch you, push you, and inspire you to reach towards a better future.

Also, unlike a friendship, the coaching relationship is never focused on the coach. The entire coaching relationship is unilaterally focused on the client and his or her needs and goals.

Is Coaching New-Age or Spiritual?

Coaching is not “new age.” It is a process grounded in recognized best practices of personal and professional growth. A qualified coach is highly trained in the areas of transition and personal change, and in how to assist others in making positive, intentional action a regular part of their lives and careers.

Coaching is not necessarily “spiritual.” More often than not coaching is highly practical and grounded in the everyday lives, relationships, and business activities of the client. That said, faith coaching is a specific niche of coaching increasingly recognized within Christian ministry as an effective process for soul-care and spiritual formation.