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Aren't coaching and consulting the same thing?
Coaching is not consulting. While we do both, they are discrete disciplines. Consulting is about providing answers. It requires specific subject matter expertise. Coaching is a process of asking compelling questions - of "drawing the answers out" of the client. The two disciplines, used together, can help organizations and individuals learn and sustain new skills and behavior.
What are the differences between coaching and psychotherapy?
The latter typically looks into the past to identify and treat the sources of pathology. Most often, the therapist's objective is to produce a "normal," healthy person who can function. Coaches don't dwell on the past. While some of a coach's work may be remedial, it is grounded in the notion that paradigms can change with the success that comes with new behavior. Our clients are most productive when past psychological issues have been, or are being, resolved. The best coaches also believe that "normal" and "healthy" are insufficient aspirations. "High performing" and "fully actualized" better characterize our goals for clients. In cases in which the need for therapy is evident, we'll make that recommendation and/or provide a referral.
My best friend is a great sounding board. Can't she be my coach?
Coaching cannot be conducted professionally by an untrained confidante. A balance of "ownership" and "professional detachment" must be pursued for a coach to be effective. Training is also a prerequisite for becoming an effective coach. A confidante may be an adept sounding board for "recreational complaining." We focus on the realization of possibilities and the achievement of planned results.
Where I work, our executives are trying to act more like coaches. Can't my boss be my coach?
Coaching, in the context that we pursue it, cannot be conducted by "your boss." Whether you are a CEO reporting to a Board of Directors or a professional/technical person reporting to a manager, those relationships all embody "agendas" that impede real reflection and honest, complete disclosure. A professional coach has only one agenda: the success of the client. A large part of the coach/client relationship is about total truth-telling by both parties and obsessive listening by the coach. Most people never get to experience relationships that are unconstrained by ego or judgment.
Coaching by phone seems impersonal and distant. Does that really work?
It really does. The combination of a coach's skills and the ease of disclosure with a geographically remote person make coaching by phone as successful as coaching in person. These sessions can be combined with face-to-face meetings, but some of the most successful coach/client relationships are produced by people who've never met. Keep in mind, the technology of coaching was build around the assumption that it would be conducted on the telephone. The approach has been validated over time. Testimonials have been published in national magazines, including Fortune and Time.
Who are candidates for coaching?
Anyone is a candidate for coaching. Some are sponsored by their organization; others are not. Clients are involved as often because of their high potential as for remediation. People enter coaching for personal, as well as professional development.
Our firm will work with middle-managers through CEOs. The reason is simple: We believe that, while not critical, professional empathy, compatibility and results are easier to achieve when the client and coach have similar backgrounds.
What kinds of issues are amenable to coaching?
Name one! Some clients want to "ramp-up" a new business quickly; others want to balance their personal and professional priorities better. Some want to eliminate "tolerations" (those are the irritations most people believe, erroneously, they have to put-up with); others want to improve their organization's results. Some clients want to eliminate their "to-do" list; others want to design and implement a new career path.
Is there a code of ethics, or something similar, in coaching?
There is. We include that with our coaching contract.
Learn more about team coaching
Learn more about individual coaching
