What you might like to know about coaching …..
What is coaching?
Why would I need a coach?
What should I look for in a coach?
How does coaching differ from training?
What’s the difference between mentoring
and coaching?
What is business coaching all about?
What is executive coaching?
What results can you expect?
How might sales coaching help?
How does team coaching work?
What is coaching?
“Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us
do what we can!” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Coaching is:
- a mostly non-directive way of working with people that allows them to tap into their own capabilities
- a process of finding ways to perform more effectively, to resolve issues and to learn and grow
- designed to help individuals and organisations become more successful and more effective
- about establishing clear criteria for achieving success for a business, organisation, team or individual
- about setting goals which will motivate ourselves and others
Coaching is not a remedial activity to correct under-performance. The purpose of coaching is to help people produce fulfilling results in their personal and business lives.
Coaching translates into doing.
In a business context, doing translates into impacting the business, and this impact can be quantified and maximised. Coaching can help individuals to:
- accelerate results and clarify decisions
- be receptive to ongoing personal development
- build on their strengths
- manage relationships better
- feel better and be more satisfied with the job role
- focus on new skills and capabilities
- improve the way they do specific tasks
- improve self-awareness and self-management
Coaching gives you:
- measurable goals – each session achieves tangible outcomes in performance and personal effectiveness
- a way to cut through your assumptions, develop greater empathy and devise strategies to open communication channels
- the ability to play to your strengths, particularly in difficult environments
- strategies for managing yourself in constructive ways
- the confidence to influence your circumstances rather than being controlled by them
Coaching is an enabling process to increase your performance,
development and fulfilment.
Why would I need a coach?
If you want to:
- develop your skills and performance at your own pace
- improve how you relate to and execute your everyday tasks and duties
- increase your personal effectiveness
coaching would be the most effective method for achieving positive results.
With guidance from your coach, you will be implementing the learning points as you go along in areas such as:
- time management
- meetings, presentations, and communication generally
- sales and marketing
- HR issues (including recruitment and interviewing)
- annual appraisals and performance reviews
- leadership and management issues and skills
Your coach is your safety net when you are working out of your comfort zone.
What should I look for in a coach?
Your coach does not need to have experience in your industry or specific knowledge of the market your business operates in. The skills your coach will be helping you to develop relate more to taking control of your situation, directing your business, or improving your effectiveness, and to do that, a coach does not need to be an expert in your field.
It is important that you develop a trusting relationship with your coach. You must feel that you can be open, so make sure you find a coach you can relate to and who can empathise with you. If you are not at ease with your coach, you are unlikely to respect what they have to say, and you will not progress as quickly as you might.
How does coaching differ from training?
Coaching differs from training because it is ongoing and regular.
Attending a training course or one day workshop is an excellent way to assimilate new ideas and knowledge, but most delegates don’t know what they want to achieve from the training, and frequently they are there because their manager told them to go.
People returning from training courses usually find a pile of work or emails to deal with, so implementing the new ideas gets shelved. Often their line manager doesn’t even ask how the training went or how they intend to put the new ideas into action.
New knowledge without focus or support is completely wasted. Coaching ensures that the knowledge is relevant and applicable, and explores the most effective way that the individual can implement it to achieve the maximum result.
What’s the difference between mentoring and coaching?
Both a mentor and a coach will help to develop an individual’s skills and capabilities; the difference is in the way this is achieved.
A mentor is usually already experienced in the skill or knowledge you are trying to acquire or improve, and is often someone more experienced from within your organisation. They serve as a role model, and can direct you how to do something the way they do it. You learn how to be more effective by copying what they do.
A coach is more likely to be outside your organisation, and may not have skills or experience in your industry, services or profession. Their coaching helps you to figure out for yourself what you need to do to improve, and gives you specific and practical learning actions rather than telling or showing you what to do. A coach holds you accountable for the actions you must take to achieve your goal.
What is business coaching all about?
Who is it for?
Business coaching most benefits business owners who:
- have been trading for at least one year, or
- have a business turnover of £500,000 to £2 million, or
- are retiring or preparing the business for sale, or
- manage a family business and are passing control to the next generation.
Business coaching suits only those with an open mind and a determination to achieve success. People who believe that “I know best!” would find it difficult to benefit from coaching.
What results can you expect?
Well, the more you put in the more you get out!
If your objectives are realistic and achievable you should reach them comfortably. Business Improvements has seen people achieve remarkable results such as:
- increasing turnover by over 50% in six months
- doubling sales month on month from the previous year’s figures
- greatly reducing the number of hours worked in the business from over 70 to 40 per week
- increasing hourly rates from £23 per hour to £30 per hour within seven months
- increasing sales volumes while reducing marketing spend, including more than halving the cost of Yell advertising from over £9,000 to £4,000
What is Executive Coaching?
Who is it for?
Executive coaching is:
open to everyone in a position of leadership – from supervisors through to chief executives – who wants to improve their skills and be more effective in their role
- the most efficient way to liberate talent within an organisation
- an alternative to recruiting new people when an organisation has skill shortages
- a tool that managers and HR departments can use to uncover the unique needs and wants of employees which, if accommodated, encourage them to stay
It is particularly suited to:
- managers who adopt an inflexible approach and simply tell their people what to do because they believe that is the only way to keep control
For an organisation to become a better business, such managers must learn to re-invent themselves to become enablers, or put another way, to become coaches. This approach ensures that their people are being developed in a way that most benefits the individuals and the organisation. Giving coaching to the executives, managers and leaders is probably the best way of developing them as coaches.
- managers who don’t themselves have the skills and experiences of the people in the team they are leading
These managers will need to invest significant amounts of time to ensure that all staff fulfil their potential, and coaching will equip the managers to achieve this. Managers maintain their credibility and value by learning new skills and deepening their understanding of how to facilitate the conversations they need to have with those who report to them.
What results can you expect?
Whatever else, it will be enlightening!
The results you achieve will depend on your role in the organisation and your aims. If your problems remain unresolved because they look too big, a coach will help you to break these into manageable tasks, and hold you accountable for achieving them when you say you will.
Business Improvements has seen:
- organisations improve their staff recruitment process. Coaching allowed them to see alternative ways to recruit
- better team motivation by improving the channels of communication
- individuals understanding other roles better by using improved questioning skills and coaching their staff rather than telling
Telling people what to do may achieve short-term results. Coaching pulls solutions out of people rather than pushing them towards answers.
How might sales coaching help?
Over 70% of people selling today have no sales experience, have never had any training in how to sell, and go out day after day wasting opportunities believing that anyone can be a sales person.
Anyone in a sales role, even those with a lot of experience, can benefit from being coached. This applies as much to field sales staff as to telephone and retail sales people.
Whether you are a one-man sales agent, or part of the sales team of a multi-national, blue-chip corporation, if you want to achieve more business by selling, you would benefit from sales coaching.
You can receive sales coaching in the field or in an office, whichever is most suitable for you. Through sales coaching you will discover how to establish the prospects’ real needs, and develop the confidence to close the sale.
How does team coaching work?
Team coaching is ‘bite-sized training’ that is focused on the participants’ putting their new-found skills into practice and reporting back. Any team of around 6-8 people can be coached, such as a customer service team, a telesales team, or a branch team.
The process of team coaching
Team coaching follows a proven process:
- The team members come together to discuss the areas they need to improve, and individuals set out their objectives and agree the course of action with the coach.
- Each team member is given ‘homework’ assignments that need to be completed before the next session.
- The team members meet with the coach again and relive their experiences, the successes achieved, and the challenges they faced.
This process is repeated until the objectives have been achieved.
Business Improvements finds that team coaching works most effectively with 2-hour sessions every two weeks, with teams of no more than 8. The active learning that takes place tends to be lasting, and it also brings together people who often stay together, long after the team coaching has finished.
Who would benefit from team coaching and how?
Virtually everybody, whether they work together or come from different departments. Success has been most noticeable in the areas of time management and telephone skills.
In one company, after only two team-coaching sessions with Business Improvements, each person in the telesales team trebled the average number of sales appointments made in a morning from 3 to 9!
