Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2010; it describes coaching as a business still spreading from the US to South America and Europe and growing every year so far.
This business emerged in the United States to help companies grow and to train business owners. The practice of coaching has already spread to South America and crossed the Atlantic, where it has become a much sought-after service among European companies.
What is coaching?
Coaching is a program in which a trainer (the coach) helps the client (the coachee) develop their innate qualities and bring out the best in themselves in every area of life. Bear in mind that people who receive this kind of help don’t necessarily have problems (they aren’t sick, and they aren’t patients but clients); it is simply a matter of multiplying their possibilities.
As a business, coaching is aimed at companies, which provide it to their employees. Even so, there are different levels of coaching:
- Personal coaching
- Business coaching
- Management coaching
In personal coaching, the coach will help you improve all those areas where we tend to fall short. They’ll help you identify the times of the day or week when your mood shifts or when you have less energy to face everyday problems, both at work and at home. They’ll look for ways for you to find the solution yourself, bringing out your own worth so that you thrive in your social life as well as in your working and family life.
In business coaching, coaches help company employees perform at their best in their respective positions and roles. They look for ways for those employees to find the motivation they need in their job by themselves. As we all know, a motivated employee is a far more productive employee.
Management coaching is the luxury version, and therefore the most expensive. Directing workers and being their leader, making decisions that can change a company’s course and, not least, carrying your own problems along with your employees’ is no easy task. Add setting targets to all that, and a company manager may well be one of the people under the most strain and pressure. Managers around the world say they have gained real benefits after completing their coaching, because they discovered hidden abilities in themselves.
Like any business that starts to succeed, coaching has also begun to come under attack and criticism. Perhaps one of the criticisms it faces is the lack of official accreditation or an academic qualification to practice it. Its defenders, however, point to the results obtained and the goals achieved. Word of mouth has done the rest, turning this practice into a business that, so far, is in greater demand every year.
Featured image: Michael Coghlan, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
