Coaching Defined

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The word coaching and counselling are often used synonymously. In this opinion, coaching and counselling are two very different actions. Coaching is helping a person become even more effective. Counselling is a skill used to correct an individual’s problems.

For coaching to be effective, it is necessary to make three assumptions. First, a good coach is in partnership with others. The coach wants peak performance from the people he or she has responsibility for. The “coached” wants the rewards that come from personal effectiveness, both extrinsically in the form of recognition and intrinsically because of feeling competent. Both people have an investment in accomplishment.

Experienced and motivated people who are in partnership with their coaches require a different set of skills than those needed for counselling. The superior/subordinate role may be appropriate for counselling, but coaching requires something different.

This leads to the second assumption – that people are motivated to achieve improvement and that they have a stake in accomplishing the task the best way possible. Good coaching requires neither the carrot nor the stick. It requires leadership.

Thirdly, people have experience that can be used by the coach to assist them in their growth and development. This implies that coaches don’t just tell people what to do and how to do it. Instead, effective coaching requires that coaches ask for input, listen to what is said and hold discussions for mutual benefit.