- What is the coaching?
- What is the use of coaching?
- Types coaching
- Advantages of coaching
- How is a session? coaching?
- coaching Y mentoring
We explain what coaching is, what it is for and what its advantages are. In addition, we tell you what a coaching session is like.
What is the coaching?
The coaching (of English coach, "coach" or "tutor") is a form of professional assistance that consists of advising Business, organizations or individuals by a specialist company or a person experienced in the area of interest. That is, it consists of a form of mentoring or external tutelage provided by a third party (called coach) to meet challenges and problems specific.
The terms coach, coaching and, although it is less used, coachee (“advised”, that is, who receives the service of coaching) are all anglicisms, that is, loans from English to the Spanish language, and that is why they are always written in italics. However, these terms have become fashionable in the professional and business world, and have become a way of referring to a hired mentor, advisor or monitor.
the work of coaching it is, at the same time, similar and different from what an educator or teacher can provide. Of a coach guidance, advice and teachings, but unlike the teacher, the coach he provides them based on his personal and/or professional experience, and not solely on his training. In addition, the coaching It is a form of counseling ad hoc, that is, applied to a particular issue, problem or process that needs to be addressed, improved or transformed.
There are different methods and procedures of coaching, as many as areas in which it can be applied.However, in general terms, it consists of a process of dialogue and specialized accompaniment, through which individuals or organizations are prepared to face a challenge in the best possible way.
What is the use of coaching?
The coaching, in general, consists of specialized and focused advice, which operates in the short or medium term. The labors of coach, therefore, are based on teaching, advising, preparing and monitoring the progress of an individual or an organization, facing a transformation, a challenge or a specific difficulty that, otherwise, would be much more difficult, risky and unpredictable deal.
For example, a company that has human resources problems can contract another company, dedicated to offering services of outsourcing in the area, to help her solve her personnel dilemma. Then, the contracted company assigns a coach (or a team of them) to oversee the human resource restructuring work that the applicant company needs to undertake.
Other cases of coaching may involve sports advice (to exercise properly), literary advice (to improve writing), nutritional (to lose weight safely), among many others. The coaching It serves to have specialized help when facing a process, which not only covers the areas techniques specialized, but also the dynamics motivational and monitoring so that everything goes as smoothly as possible.
Types coaching
There are many types of coaching, depending on the specific area in which advice is needed. Broadly speaking, it is possible to differentiate between:
- coaching business. It consists of providing technical services and specialized support to small and medium-sized companies that need to face complicated processes, such as restructuring, relaunching or changes deep in its dynamics.
- coaching sports.It consists of accompanying athletes in their training and preparation for an important sporting event or to start a new stage in their professional careers.
- coaching executive. It consists of providing improvement services and continuous training of the managerial and directive personnel of an organization, in order to improve their performance and its ability to leadership.
- coaching literary. It consists of combining the dynamics of the individual literary workshop with the classes of literature and editorial preparation, and everything that is useful to a novice writer.
- coaching transformational or transcendental. It consists of a personalized accompaniment service, in which the coachee to organize his life, develop his talents and prosper as an individual.
- coaching ontological or motivational. It consists of providing emotional, psychological and motivational support to a person so that he discovers what he wants to do and cannot, or at least so that he identifies what he wants as a life project.
Advantages of coaching
The coaching It has the virtue of being specialized, individual and applied advice, that is, it focuses on the process or problem in question, and not on providing advice from a general perspective.
A coach not only does it help to have the necessary elements to face a challenge, but it also helps to think about it, to determine what it is that can really be changed and, finally, it accompanies the individual or the organization as they implement their changes. . It is a work of close contact, in which the full attention of the coach, unlike the teacher training exercise.
How is a session? coaching?
There isn't a method unique to carry out a session of coaching, since it is not really a standardized activity, but a mentoring task that varies depending on the coach and of coachee. However, in the publications coaching, the GROW method of Graham Alexander and Alan Fine is often referred to.
This method gets its name from the English acronym formed by the initial letters of its steps, that is:
- goals (“goals”). The first step in the work of coaching consists in identifying, together with the coachee, the goals or objectives that they want to achieve. For example, you may want to reformulate your business structure, or start writing a novel, or prepare for your sports debut in a competition.
- Reality (“reality”). The second step consists of the detailed study of matter at its starting point, that is, of things as they are. How close is the coachee to meet his goals? What is missing? In what aspects should he work more? These are key questions for planning mentoring.
- Options (“options”). The third step is to identify the viable options, that is, the possible paths to move towards the determined goals. In this the experience of coach is key to saving coachee time wasted on trial and error.
- Will (“future actions”). The last step of the work of coaching consists of the planning and execution of actions to meet the set goals, which is carried out under monitoring and expert advice from the coach. At this stage the coach shall measure, evaluate and provide feedback to adjust the process as it happens.
coaching Y mentoring
In some areas, the difference between the work of coaching or advice and those of mentoring or mentoring. Although this difference is not formal or universal, for many it lies in the fact that the coach focuses on the processes of coachee, serving as a mirror and without revealing much of itself; while the process of mentoring is much deeper and more intimate, because the mentor shares his life experience and gets much more involved in the preparation of the coachee.
In other words, it is a methodological distinction: while the coach provides tactical preparation, applied to the situation in which the coachee, the mentor provides more strategic, more general preparation.