What is and what is not coaching?

Coaching is a new discipline that brings us closer to the achievement of objectives allowing us to develop personally and professionally. It is a competition that helps you think differently, to improve the communications you maintain and deepen yourself.

Content

• What is coaching?
• What is not coaching?
  • Coaching is not a therapy
    • Some coincidences
    • Some differences
  • Coaching is not formation
  • Coaching is not consulting
  • Coaching is not mentoring

What is coaching?

You could say that Coaching is the art of working with others so that they obtain unusual results and improve their performance. It is an activity that generates new possibilities for action and allows extraordinary results.

Another way to define coaching is, alliance between tutor and client, is an agreement between the parties, where the objectives to be achieved are established, how to carry out the program, the work agenda and the evaluation of the results that the student It is reaching.

Coaching is much more than a tool for management, it is a way of being and doing. Which makes it a great tool in business management and an incalculable value tool in personal development to obtain both personal and professional goals.

So that:

• We can associate coaching with learning. The coach or instructor instructs the student or coachee and collaborates with him to put into practice the guidelines he has given him. Coaching implies "tutoring" from beginning to end. That is, the tutor feels the bases, instructs and collaborates with the student correcting and supporting him.
• Coaching is based on a dialogue Between the coach and the coachee in an environment conducive and oriented to the results. Coaching consists of training individual people to make the best of them and that they know what they know.
• On many occasions people are not able to emerge all their knowledge. Therefore, the tutor assists them to find answers, perhaps to questions never asked. On many occasions it is more important to know that questions are more appropriate, than in knowing all the answers.
• With coaching we try to discover, recognize and change. People are constantly changing, and what it is about is that these changes have a good end. Therefore, coaching will help us enrich ourselves and change towards the right direction, bringing the best of ourselves, influencing not only about knowledge but also about emotions.

Many believe that coaching is still an incipient technique. However, and after the premises given, we can think that coaching, although not baptized, exists since the beginning of time.

There have always been tutors providing support, stimulus and planning actions to achieve a specific objective. In another more formal slope, many of the principles of coaching derive from psychology, and education. Therefore coaching is not a new discipline. Perhaps what has been achieved is that it is also based on philosophy.

What is not coaching?

The basis of coaching is in psychology, specifically in psychological theory, and many times in psychological practices. Coaching is based on humanistic psychology, a science created by Maslow And that deals with human values ​​and their personal development.

Tutoring implies the examination and clarification of the needs and values ​​of the individual, and the development of objectives that lead to personal and professional development.

Coaching is not a therapy

Although we can say that it is based on some therapy models.

Although there are many others, it is based on the following:

• Therapy based on the principles of constructivist learning. This therapy is considered a system to change the history of an individual. It is used in organizations to lead individuals towards deeper personal development. The person transforms their reality, becoming a being more aware of their own history.
• Therapy aimed at the solution. This model is focused on focusing the problem, analyzing it and proposing alternative solutions. Thus an action plan is drawn to solve a problem and reach the sets set. It is based on the belief that the individual has all the answers and that it is only necessary to dig in it to obtain them.
• Transactional analysis. Developed by Eric Berne, it helps the individual to identify the states of his ego (father, adult and child) and to evaluate the ways of acting to get mature and realistic.
• Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Study the functioning of thought, language and behavior. It is used in organizations, to promote learning, establish objectives, improve relationships and emotions.
• Psychodynamic therapy. It is based on the subconscious of individuals. It is believed that the deep causes of current problems are almost always in the history of the person. In this case Freud and his psychoanalysis is fundamental and the coach must be formed to make the best of his student. The importance of evaluating the real fund of certain behaviors is highlighted. It is not easy.

Once the types of therapy are known, we will list the fundamental coincidences and differences between therapy and coaching.

Some coincidences

• They focus on the individual, investigating him and evaluating him.
• In both cases of listening and reflections are made, talking about all situations.
• It is based on fixing the strengths and weak points of each person.
• In both cases it is about achieving personal development.

Some differences

• Therapists almost never give advice, however the coach is free to make suggestions, give advice and face the individual.
• Therapists tend to focus on the solution of traumas based on past problems that have left their mark, while tutors know their impact on the individual, but do not explore it in depth. The coach drive the person towards the action leaving the feelings aside.
• Therapy usually focuses on feelings associated with the past, while tutoring is related to setting objectives and moving forward.
• The therapy explores negative resistance, while coaching tries to reconvert complaints on targets, driving an individual towards a higher level of success.
• Therapy is related to progress, while coaching is associated with performance.

Coaching is not formation

Training is an important point is everyone. All organizations make large investments for training programs.

Anyway, it is demonstrated that only between 8 and 12 percent of those who attend training courses, transform the new techniques and knowledge into a measurable improvement of performance. This is due to the fact that many programs do not allow the implementation of the techniques learned: the individual tries, but if he meets pitfalls, he returns to his previous behavior.

Training programs do not benefit everyone, only some. Coaching, on the other hand, is personalized and oriented to the needs of each of the individuals.

In the training the change comes from abroad, while coaching tries to clarify interior values, enhancing its motivation.

Coaching is not consulting

The consulting of the workplace is another discipline closely related to coaching and sometimes confused with it. The workplace consultancy usually involves overcoming a low performance situation by solving a specific problem.

Sometimes a consultant in the workplace can adopt a coaching function. However, there are differences between the traditional consulting and coaching model.

The purpose of the consulting is to ensure that employees with problems are aware of them and that they are able to recognize that there is a difference between their current performance and the desired performance. It is necessary to develop a plan to correct it and solve it. Instead, Coaching is a continuous development process that allows employees to obtain the capacities they need to evolve professionally and personally, and better do their homework both at work and personal life.

Coaching is not mentoring

As much as mentoring seems a synonym for coaching, it is necessary not to confuse both disciplines. Mentoring, according to Lewis, is "a natural form of transmission of knowledge, techniques and experiences to others by someone who is usually greater, more scholarly and endowed with life experience and a broader specific knowledge".

Other two Mentoring definitions are:

• According to Shea: "Who offers knowledge, reflection, perspective or wisdom especially useful for another person".
• According to Rolfe Flett: "Profession partner who knows your specialty in depth and advises and encourages you".

The mentoring is based on the "mentor", which was traditionally those of the elderly and more cultured that transmitted their wisdom, knowledge and advice to someone younger, but less expert.

This knowledge was transmitted from generation to generation. However, modern mentoring relationships are based on a more mutual, equal and collaboration alliance. These characteristics also apply to the coaching relationship.