FAQ: What does a coach do and why would you want one?
Coaching a growing profession
Coaching is a leading edge professional and personal development technique. Successful companies who hire executive coaches include Kodak, IBM, Dow Chemical, Coca-Cola, Colgate, and Citibank.
Coaches are hired to work with individuals and with work teams to improve performance and enhance interpersonal and management skills. Coaching provides law firms with strategic leadership development. Firms see coaching providing raised standards of performance to remain competitive in the marketplace
Other motivations for hiring coaches include:
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Implementation of strategic goals
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Developmental needs of
lawyers who no longer fit with firm's goals
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Adaptation of lawyers new to the firm to the new culture
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Need for encouragement and guidance in marketing
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Succession planning
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Career evolution
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Personal coaching that the individual seeks
Some companies offer coaching as an employee benefit. In addition, individuals who want an edge at work and in their professional lives are hiring their own personal and business coaches.
Personal, or life, coaches help individuals to achieve a balance between work and a personal life. They help people clarify values and goals and examine their perspectives and choices to reach a point where they can find fulfillment and enjoy life and work.
What is coaching?
Time Magazine (September 25/00) commented on the nature of coaching:
"When these corporate higher-ups describe their coaching sessions, they sound suspiciously-well, shrinky. But coaching is not therapy, practitioners insist. Neither is it mentoring, training or some other form of repackaged management skills. Actually, it's a grab bag of techniques that combine bits of all these with "nuggets of wisdom" from arenas as diverse as football and 12-step programs."
The International Coach Federation explains Coaching:
"Professional Coaching is an ongoing partnership that helps clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Through the process of coaching, clients deepen their learning, improve their performance, and enhance their quality of life."
According to Seattle coach and lawyer Irene Leonard,
"Coaching is a one-to-one relationship with a professional coach who helps you clarify and articulate what you want most from life and how best to achieve it. Coaching helps you create the results you want in life, work, relationships, and spiritual growth-in spite of the obstacles you encounter. Coaching is goal and results oriented and can focus on virtually any area of life: business, career, family, health, personal growth, spirituality, intimacy, simple living, and financial development.
Coaching can be short-term, where the coach helps a client create a vision, achieve a specific goal, or complete a particular project; or it can be long-term, where the client wants coaching for a number of projects and goals."
www.coachingforchange.com
What distinguishes coaching from other services?
Therapy
A therapist works with an individual to address the past and its impact on the present. The therapist deals with people who are in crisis or are continually undermined by unresolved issues from their past.
The coach recognizes the client as a whole, healthy, creative human being. The coach starts from the "Here and Now" and helps the client find functional and effective ways to move forward to accomplish their goals and improve their lives. A coach may recommend to a client that they commence therapy first and return to coaching or may suggest that both approaches proceed in tandem.
Consulting
A consultant is usually hired to solve a specific problem in a business context. The consultant is expected to bring topical expertise to the situation give advice, opinions and solution proposals. A consultant finds the answer to a particular problem, but does not transfer a knowledge base to the client.
The coach does not give advice or fixes. A coach helps the client find the answers for him or herself, stays with the client to help implement the changes and meet the newly-defined goals, and the coach teaches life-skills in the process.
Mentoring
A mentor has history, experience, and wisdom on their side. The mentor can advise on what to do and how to accomplish it. The mentor attempts to transfer their wealth of knowledge to the
mentee.
A coach may not have that personal experience, but can draw the information and insights out of the client's own experience and creativity, and teaches the client how to continue on that path of self-discovery and creative expression. Often, a particular executive coach may be chosen because of their suitability as a mentor. Our lawyer-coaches bring a wealth of experience in the legal environment to their role as coach.
What are the basic skills and attributes of a coach?
A coach requires coaching, communication, and interpersonal skills. Many of the necessary competencies can be learned through a process of self-development which is an essential component of most coaching training.
Attributes or competencies:
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self-aware
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self-confident
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curious
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direct and truthful communicator
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insightful and intuitive
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inspirational
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risk-taker
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innovative and creative
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collaborative
Skills, including the abilities to:
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recognize ethical obligations and respect confidentiality
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create an intimate and trusting relationship with client
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practice active listening
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create and raise the client's awareness
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develop plans and establish goals with client
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manage the client's progress and hold him or her responsible for action
What types of coaching are available and who trains coaches?
There are several disciplines within the profession of coaching, such as
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executive coaching
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personal and life coaching
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business and career coaching
There are many variations of coaching and different approaches to training. The International Coaching Federation accredits programs of instruction. Here are four of the many available:
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Academy for Coach Training (ACT)
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Coach 21 Co., Ltd.
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Coach University (Coach U)
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The Coaches Training Institute (CTI)
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The Newfield Network
The individual training centers offer their own certification programs and the ICF also operates a certification process.
Normally, the coach completes training in a series of workshops, gains practical experience in coaching and then proceeds through a certification program combining additional structured learning with supervised coaching practice.
The lawyer-coach is often operating at the level of an executive coach who also addresses personal life issues with lawyer-clients.
The International Coaching Federation sought to resolve unsettled questions about executive coaching when it hosted The International Executive Coaching Summit: A Collaborative Effort to Distinguish the Profession, October 1999, in Orlando, Florida. The Summit developed this definition:
"Executive Coaching is a facilitative one-to-one, mutually designed relationship between a professional coach and a key contributor who has a powerful position in the organization. This relationship occurs in areas of business, government, not-for profit, and educational organizations where there are multiple stakeholders and organizational sponsorship for the coach or coaching group. The coaching is contracted for the benefit of a client who is accountable for highly complex decisions with wide scope of impact on the organization and industry as a whole. The focus of the coaching is usually focused on organizations performance or development, but may also have a personal component as well. The results produced from this relationship are observable and measurable, commensurate with the requirements the organization has for the performance of the person being coached."
More
Information
www.coachfederation.org/exec-coaching-summit.htm
The distinguishing characteristics of the Executive Coach involve a combination of maturity, professional skills and human qualities, such as:
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A firm grounding in business knowledge and competencies
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Thorough understanding of the world of the executive leader
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A broad understanding of leadership and leadership development
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Knowledge of systems dynamics (organization and community)
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Knowledge of the framework of adult development
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High standards of personal and professional ethics
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Highly developed communication proficiency allowing them to operate in the executives' environment
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Advanced coaching skills and capabilities
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Stature and reputation that gains respect
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A commitment to lifelong learning similar to the Leader him or herself
