Q: What is Coaching ?

A: A supporting relationship with a trained professional that enhances clients' ability to learn, make desired changes, solve problems, and achieve goals. Coaches work with their clients individually or in groups, face-to-face or by telephone, typically in a series of regularly scheduled sessions.

Q: How is coaching different from consulting, teaching, or therapy?

A: Coaching differs from consulting because the coach's primary role is not to give advice or design solutions. Coaches ask questions and suggest alternatives that guide clients to discover their own unique answers and choose their own path. A coach may provide ideas, expertise, and skill-building techniques, but doesn't solve clients' problems for them, nor tell them what to do.
   Coaching differs from teaching in that the coach doesn't determine what the client will learn, nor provide a curriculum to be followed. The client decides what he or she needs to know, and the coach facilitates learning by providing accountability, feedback, helpful resources, or useful models.
   Coaching differs from therapy because coaching sessions are primarily focused on learning and achievement, rather than healing or resolution. Coaches help clients to make changes in their lives by observing present conditions, visualizing future goals, and determining action steps. Analyzing past events, understanding emotional reactions, or determining the cause of a client's behavior are typically not addressed in coaching. 

Q: What do people get out of working with a coach?

A: Coaching clients experience a sense of partnership and support in achieving their personal goals that is often not available elsewhere in their lives. Regular coaching sessions provide clients with dedicated time to focus on what they truly want and what must happen to create it. Coaches help their clients design action steps to meet their goals, then hold them accountable to their own stated desires, providing perspective, feedback, and smart questions along the way. As a result, clients stay motivated, make significant changes, and achieve more than they may have thought possible.

Q: What kinds of people use coaches?

A:  A typical coaching client is someone who wants to make changes in his or her life, and is ready to take action. You might hire a coach for yourself when you are looking for a new job, needing to improve your management skills, wanting to increase profits in your business, launching an ambitious new project, planing you retirement, or dissatisfied with some of the conditions in you life and seeking a new direction. You might hire a coach for your organization when you want to improve productivity, increase teamwork, implement new ways of working or adjust to changing conditions.
  Coaching clients are men, women, and young people, of all ages, professions, and income brackets.What they have in common is a desire for partnership, support, and strategic guidance in solving problems and achieving goals that are personally important to them.

Q: How does someone know if he or she is ready to work with a coach?

A: To get the most from a coaching relationship, clients need to be willing to learn new ways of doing things and make changes in their attitudes and behavior. Anyone who is open to hearing new perspectives, willing to question how they are currently acting, and ready to take on new challenges in their life or career can benefit from working with a coach.

Q: What qualifications are needed to be a coach?

A: The best coaches are those who excel at listening, communicating, questioning, action planning, and creating accountability, and have the ability to hold the client's agenda rather than follow their own. Coaches come from a wide variety of backgrounds, including business, counseling, consulting, training, and sports. There are no standard education or licensing requirements for coaching. Many coaches have completed formal training programs or earned a credential from a training school, university, or professional association. Others have built their coaching abilities through substantial career or life experience.