What is Coaching?
A “coach” was something you rode in, pulled by horses, that got you from where you were to where you wanted to be.
Brief History of Coaching1
What is Coaching?
What is coaching? The etymology of the word “coach” originated before automobiles, airplanes and trains had been invented. A “coach” was something you rode in, pulled by horses, that got you from where you were to where you wanted to be. Cars today still often carry the label “coach” to describe their types. A “coach” takes you from where you are now to where you want to be.
Coaching, in a nutshell, asks three basic questions:
Where are you now?
Where do you want to be?
How will you get there?
Brief History of Coaching
Upon hearing the word “coach”, many people associate it with sports. Tracing the history of the word proves to be an interesting journey. Used as an action verb, it first appears in the 1610s as “to convey in a coach.” First used in referring to an instructor or trainer, the word appears in 1830, with Oxford University defining it as a slang word for ‘tutor’: “one who carries a student through an exam.” The phrase “to prepare one for an exam” was used in 1849. Coach was first used in an athletic sense in 1861.
The roots of coaching grew in the soil of several related disciplines that emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries. These disciplines include philosophy and psychology in the 1800s. The industrial revolution brought many changes to the business world, including management theory, training and motivation of workers, personnel management, and organizational structure. The turn of the century in the early 1900s brought many scientific and technological discoveries, as well as the human relations movement. In the mid-1900s, humanism emerged and greatly impacted how workers were treated. Employers were told that people needed to be treated well.
By the 1950s, coaching was being widely used to increase athletic performance. Gradually, coaching also found a home in the business world. From 1960 to 1979, 23 articles were published about coaching, with the emphasis being on how coaching could be used to train employees. Four management books were published, highlighting how coaching could be used to increase performance and production.
In the 1970s and 1980s, coaching won solid acceptance in the business sector, with the term “executive coaching” becoming widely used. Senior leaders recognized the value of coaching for managers so that they could attain performance requirements. Coaching was viewed as essential for acquiring skills and knowledge to enhance leadership development and effective management.
In 1992, Sir John Whitmore published his book Coaching for Performance, and his popular GROW model provided a simple approach to coaching for a much wider audience. In 1995, Thomas Leonard (whom many refer to as the father of the modern coaching movement) founded the International Coach Federation (ICF) as a non-profit organization in order to provide support for the growing number of coaches and the coaching profession. In 1996, a president was elected, a Board of Directors was appointed, and by May there were 60 Chapters worldwide. The first issue of ICF Coaching News was sent to more than 400 subscribers. In 1998, the Professional and Personal Coaches Association (PPCA), founded by Laura Whitworth to strengthen the voice and credibility of professional coaching, merged with the ICF. That was also the first year that ICF credentialed were awarded.
Discover the different types of coaching2
Coaching isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Take, for example, two different personal trainers helping their clients “lose weight.” Each can have the same end goal while following completely different methodologies to accomplish them.
While one trainer insists that her client follows a comprehensive workout routine, the other encourages his client – who cannot get to the gym 5x a week – to consider other lifestyle adjustments. The second trainer puts the decision in the client’s hands – who ultimately decides he can cut down on coffee creamer and spaghetti dinners.
Fundamentally, both trainers understand the foundation of the issue – that the number of calories consumed exceeds the number of calories burned – but both employ very different approaches to solving the problem.
Traditional coaching
Traditional coaching methods focus on helping individuals, couples, groups, or organizations to clarify their goals, create action plans, and hold them to the plan.
In this sense, it can be likened to a personal trainer. Instead of the body, the focus is on the client’s life, relationship, or business. Rather than a workout routine, a coach provides their clients with accountability, and encouragement.
While this is effective to get the ball rolling, this approach often results in short-term benefits.
Why? Because people often limit their own potential. Many people put limitations on their goals or lessen the accomplishments they want to achieve. They do this in the interest of being “realistic” or “practical” … and, for some, the mindset is so ingrained that it’s unconsciously done. In reality, they may have no idea what they are capable of and are simply afraid of disappointment.
Unfortunately, as a side effect, some individuals have grown accustomed to feeling successful by just lowering their expectations for themselves – or worse, setting no goals at all. Others may have enthusiasm and are great at constantly taking action, but unable to figure out why they repeatedly fail to achieve the result they desire.
This is why traditional coaching often results in short-term benefits. It doesn’t seek to identify the hidden blocks [i.e., root causes] that cause people to fall short of their [authentic] goals or desires. It doesn’t get to the underlying cause behind self-limitations.
Without recognizing and resolving those inner roadblocks, the client will likely fall back into the same patterns of behavior, destined to repeat their old habits, routines, and actions over and over again. Traditional coaching methods can and do deliver results, but the question becomes, “will they last?”
Beyond traditional coaching
Where ordinary coaching leaves off, transformative coaching digs deeper into the underlying causes of an individual’s challenges. Skilled coaches take on the role of raising the deeper questions that a person may not otherwise ask themselves. And, they’re able to present this kind of challenge constructively, with finesse, in a way that is receptive to their clients.
With the proper training, a masterful coach can help their clients become more aware of their internal world: namely, their driving motivations and self-limiting factors. Once aware, the coach can guide them in making permanent and profound shifts in the way they approach their problems, their goals, their world, and those around them.
In this way, a transformative coach forges lasting, sustainable change with their clients. They empower their clients to create the results they desire – ultimately helping them be the agent of change in their own lives.
What is Coaching?3
Coaching is an ongoing conversation that empowers a person or team to fully live out their calling — in their life and profession. The goal of coaching is for you to discover new things about yourself, and take action to reshape your life around that learning.
The coaching relationship is expected to produce insights, greater personal awareness, changed behaviors, actions, and ultimately results that satisfy the client. Much is expected of you: to evaluate, reason, imagine, decide, and implement.
What Coaching Is
Coaching is about you — your goals, your learning, and your growth.
Coaching is about learning — rather than teaching. You are the expert on your life. Your coach uses coaching techniques such as active listening, open questions, encouragement, challenging a bit, and always remaining supportive. All to assist you in discovering insights and taking next steps.
Coaching is about action — your action. Each session you will determine 1-3 action steps you will take before the next session. You may be surprised how quickly you progress towards your goals.
Coaching is about all of you — not just your work. We all know that changing old habits and thought patterns are difficult. Your coach recognizes these patterns and will support you as you change and grow.
What Coaching Isn’t
It’s not therapy. Although many of the communication techniques are the same, like active listening, reflecting, use of questions, limited advice giving, etc., therapy focuses on the past to bring healing and unblock a person to move ahead. Coaching is future and action-oriented, for people who are basically clear of psychological and emotional issues.
It’s not mentoring. Mentors are experts in a particular field who seek to pass on their expertise to a person. Mentors provide knowledge, advice, guidance, correction, and encouragement to people who are newer and junior — by experience, if not by position or age. They may use some coaching techniques, but mentors usually play the roles of advisor and teacher to guide and impact knowledge and wisdom.
It’s not training. In training, the trainer sets the agenda. Change comes from outside the participant, via the trainer. In coaching, you set the agenda. Coaches use adult learning principles of self-discovery to motivate change from within you.
It’s not authoritarian. Did you have a tough sports coach who used to yell at you and make you do a million push-ups if you made a mistake? That’s not coaching. Your coach will push you beyond what you might think you can do, but will always be supportive. You are in control. The responsibility to decide and act is yours.
Why Does Coaching Work?
Coaching works because it brings out your best! Coaches believe you can create your own best answers and are trained to support you in that process.
Specifically, this is what your coach will do during coaching sessions:
Listen. Your story is central. Coaches fully engage in what you are saying.
Ask questions. Coaches use questions to stimulate your thinking and creativity. Questions are about possibilities and the future.
Encourage. Everyone needs encouragements, and usually we don’t get enough. Your coach will hold up your vision, your progress, and your efforts.
Facilitate while letting you lead. Coaches facilitate your learning and problem solving. Yet, they never fully leading — you are, with your agenda and your approach.
Why Use a Coach?
The reasons people want coaching are endless, and as unique as the person. Here are a few examples that motivate people to use a coach:
To make significant changes
To better deal with uncertainty
To make better decisions
To set better goals
To reach goals faster
To grow spiritually
To become financially more stable
To get ahead personally
To have a collaborative partner
To improve their relationships
To make a bigger impact on the world
To be a better leader
To simplify their lives
To reduce stress
To keep up with the speed of life
To address transitions in location and employment
What to Expect During a Coaching Session4
Coaching is a thought-provoking and creative process that will inspire you to maximize your personal and professional potential. Your ICF coach will be your partner on the journey toward identifying, clarifying and achieving your goals.
What is coaching?
Professional coaching focuses on setting goals, creating outcomes and managing personal change. Other service professions, like consulting and psychotherapy, are based on the wisdom and expertise of the professional. In coaching you—the client—are the expert. Your coach’s role is to ask powerful questions, act as a sounding board, provide objective assessment and observations, listen fully and actively, challenge your blind spots, and foster shifts in thinking that reveal fresh perspectives.
What are examples of goals I’d address with a coach?
Is there an upcoming opportunity or challenge that you want to leverage?
Do you feel “stuck” on the path to achieving your goals?
These are two excellent examples of topics to bring to a coaching conversation.
Other common reasons for partnering with a coach include:
Optimizing work performance
Expanding career opportunities
Increasing self-esteem/self-confidence
Maximizing potential
Defining strengths and weaknesses
Improving business management strategies
Managing work/life balance
What’s my role?
The most successful coaching partnerships begin with a client who has a clear idea of what they want to accomplish and is open to collaboration and new perspectives.
As a coaching client, your role is to:
Create the coaching agenda based on personally meaningful goals
Assume full responsibility for your own decisions and actions
Use the coaching process to promote possibility thinking and fresh perspectives
Engage big-picture thinking and problem-solving skills
Take the tools, concepts, models and principles provided by your coach and engage in effective forward actions
The Return on Investment (ROI) of Coaching56
Google’s Manager Research: Findings on Coaching7
Google's manager research revealed that one of the most important behaviors of the highest scoring managers was that they were effective coaches. This is seen in other professions, as well. For example, in sports, many former athletes can tell stories about how a coach changed their life by identifying strengths, unlocking their potential, and encouraging them to persevere. You can help managers be effective coaches by encouraging them to focus on the individual needs of each team member. It is also important for managers to be able to flex their coaching styles - for example, the needs of individual team members may require them to be a “teaching” coach where the manager passes along an expertise to achieve something concrete, or a “facilitating coach” where the manager asks questions and listens instead of telling or giving answers.
Across the coaching continuum, here are some tips to share with your managers:
Have regular 1:1s with your team member and be fully present and focused on the team member
Be aware of your own mindset and that of the team member
Practice active listening and ask open-ended questions to facilitate the team member’s own insight (questions that start with “what” and “how” encourage expansive thinking)
Provide specific and timely feedback
Balance positive (motivational) and negative (constructive) feedback and understand the unique strengths and development areas of each team member
What Type of Questions Does a Coach Ask?8
The Science of Coaching9
I met with the International Coaching Federation’s Director of Coaching Science, Joel DiGirolamo, to speak about the state of the field:
On Goal Setting10
Introduction: Goal Setting Theory
The beauty of a well-developed theory in the behavioral sciences is that it provides a framework for scientists to conduct research. The findings from these studies provide a framework to predict, understand and influence our own actions and the actions of others. For example, more than 1,000 studies conducted by behavioral scientists on more than 88 different tasks, involving more than 40,000 male and female participants in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America, show that specific high goals are effective in significantly increasing a person’s performance — regardless of the method by which they are set. Assigned goals by a manager, for example, are as effective as self-set or participatively set goals if they are accompanied by logic or rationale from a manager.
Why are goals so effective? A goal is a level of performance proficiency that we wish to attain, usually within a specified time period. Thus goal setting is first and foremost a discrepancy-creating process, in that the goal creates constructive discontent with our present performance. For example, if people discover that their performance is below the goal that has been set, countless studies show that, given commitment to the goal, they are likely to increase their effort or change their strategy in order to attain it. […]
The maxim to “do your best” certainly implies a high level of motivation. Yet a second core aspect of our theory of goal setting is that goals that are specific and difficult lead to a higher level of performance than a vague goal, or no goal at all. A limitation of a vague goal, such as to do one’s best, is that it allows people to give themselves the benefit of the doubt in evaluating their performance.
Leverage Points
What I Love About Coaching
Coaching is the most efficient way I know to let anyone access their most effective leverage point: the power to transcend paradigms.11
1. The power to transcend paradigms
There is yet one leverage point that is even higher than changing a paradigm. That is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to stay flexible, to realize that no paradigm is “true,” that every one, including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview, is a tremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe that is far beyond human comprehension. It is to “get” at a gut level the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a paradigm, and to regard that whole realization as devastatingly funny. It is to let go into Not Knowing, into what the Buddhists call enlightenment.
People who cling to paradigms (just about all of us) take one look at the spacious possibility that everything they think is guaranteed to be nonsense and pedal rapidly in the opposite direction. Surely there is no power, no control, no understanding, not even a reason for being, much less acting, in the notion or experience that there is no certainty in any worldview. But, in fact, everyone who has managed to entertain that idea, for a moment or for a lifetime, has found it to be the basis for radical empowerment. If no paradigm is right, you can choose whichever one will help to achieve your purpose. If you have no idea where to get a purpose, you can listen to the universe (or put in the name of your favorite deity here) and do his, her, its will, which is probably a lot better informed than your will.
It is in this space of mastery over paradigms that people throw off addictions, live in constant joy, bring down empires, found religions, get locked up or “disappeared” or shot, and have impacts that last for millennia.12
Where To Find A Coach
One of the best resources to find a coach is the International Coaching Federation’s Credentialed Coach Finder.13 14
Above all, what’s most important when selecting a coach is:
You have a great relationship with your coach.15
Your coach deliberately practices the ICF core competencies.16 17 18
If you’d like to talk through your goals and explore coaching, I’d love to hear from you:
Hastings, W. (n.d.). Brief History of Coaching.
iPEC. (n.d.) What is Coaching?
Webb, K. (n.d.). What is Coaching?
What to Expect During a Coaching Session. International Coaching Federation.
Anderson, M. C. (n.d.). Executive Briefing: Case Study on the Return on Investment of Executive Coaching. https://gvasuccess.com/articles/ExetutiveBriefing.pdf.
McGovern, J., Lindemann, M., Vergara, M., Murphy, S., Barker, L., & Warrenfeltz, R. (2001). Maximizing the Impact of Executive Coaching: Behavioral Change, Organizational Outcomes, and Return on Investment. PERSPECT Coaching & Consulting. https://www.perspect.ca/pdf/ExecutiveCoaching.pdf.
Google. (n.d.). re:Work - Guide: Coach managers to coach. Google. https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/managers-coach-managers-to-coach/steps/introduction/.
West, B. (2018, December 16). ICF Core Competencies: #6 Powerful Questioning. YouTube.
Schodowski, E. (2021, April 23). Eddie Schodowski & Joel DiGirolamo on Coaching Science. YouTube.
Latham, G. P., & Locke, E. A. (2006). Enhancing the benefits and overcoming the pitfalls of goal setting. Organizational dynamics, 35(4), 332-340.
Meadows, D. H. (1999). Leverage points: Places to intervene in a system. https://donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Leverage_Points.pdf
Ibid.
Credentialed Coach Finder. ICF Credentialed Coach Finder. (n.d.). https://apps.coachfederation.org/eweb/CCFDynamicPage.aspx?webcode=ccfsearch&site=icfapp.
Baron, L., & Morin, L. (2009). The coach‐coachee relationship in executive coaching: A field study. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 20(1), 85-106.
ICF Competencies Levels Table. International Coaching Federation. (n.d.). https://coachfederation.org/app/uploads/2017/12/ICFCompetenciesLevelsTable.pdf.
Peterson, D. B. (2011). Good to great coaching. Advancing executive coaching: Setting the course of successful leadership coaching, 83-102.
West, B. (2019, May 6). ICF Core Competencies. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDniYQhMu9z_INysMQqQWfaI5EL759TFh.