Wishful Thinking » Blog Archive » What Is Business Coaching? - The Diigo Meta page

• 05 Apr 08
  

  wildgrace
  • Coaching is a collaborative process, in which people have clearly defined roles: the coach is responsible for keeping the conversation focused on a clearly defined goal, facilitating the other person’s thinking, keeping track of progress and delivering constructive feedback; the coachee is responsible for generating ideas and options, taking action to achieve the goal, and reporting progress.
  • Even when a coach ‘knows’ the answer to a question, s/he will typically ask the other person for his ideas rather than tell him. This is because one of the main aims of coaching is to facilitating someone’s thinking and get them to use their own creativity and initiative. If you tell someone what to do, you take away a learning opportunity, while conditioning them to rely on you for guidance.

  • Giving observational feedback instead of making judgments

     

    Coaches have a low tolerance for poor performance, so they deliver feedback in the way that is most likely to effect a change in behaviour. This often means avoiding pronouncing judgement in favour giving specific, observational feedback that helps people examine their own performance and come up with better options for the next time.

     

    So a coach would be unlikely to say “You didn’t handle that meeting very well” - this is a vague judgement that could mean anything and immediately puts the other person on the defensive. Instead, the coach might ask “Did you see the look on the client’s face when you told her we couldn’t change the text at this stage?” - which draws attention to the consequences of a specific action and invites reflection on whether it would be better to do things differently in future.

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