Introduction to Coaching

Introduction to Coaching

1. Coaching

Coaching is revealing the talents or abilities of an individual by enabling them to put their performance into full exploitation. It entails, availing, and offering adequate support to a person to help them develop a given trait professionally or personally. Coaching assists a person to improve a particular issue on performance, by concentrating on their current position or the expected near future, and making the best use of their skills. Coaching is mostly linked with sports where a player is assisted by experts through support and guidance to become the best they can ever be. For example, footwork, attacking skills, agility, turning, passing and preliminary moves, defensive skills, and blocking are skills that need perfection when playing netball.

2. Use of coaching in the workplace context

In the workplace, coaching is useful to individuals and teams’ performance in attaining company goals. Coaching helps in enhancing the knowledge and skills of workers, taking away creativity blocks, and improving progress and creativity in the workplace. It also helps people to adapt to continuous changes that affect an organization to ensure maximum productivity and attainment of goals. For example, technological changes in accounting software invention free accounting sectors from burdensome paperwork, and coaching workers on these changes helped in attaining high productivity and meeting organizational goals.

3. Benefits of coaching for:
4. A Manager

Coaching is useful to a manager in building high performing and productive teams.  For example, coaching managers in an appropriate manner gives them the ability to use the gained skills in either coaching other team members or guiding them in their daily activities whenever they need consultations during working. This helps in maximizing the general company outcome as well as achieving the company’s set goals.

Team

Team coaching helps in creating strong relations among the participants reducing grudges and hatred at the workplace. It also reduces reliance on other team members because it creates awareness and confidence in what someone is doing. Team coaching aids in improving performance at work as it familiarizes members with the requirements to follow.

1. Individual

On an individual base, coaching helps to develop one’s skills in performing. This enables one to build confidence in what they are doing. It, in turn, aids in improving an individual’s general performance.

4. Coaching model suitable to support effective coaching in the workplace

The CLEAR model is a suitable model that can be used for coaching in a workplace, explained by its full meaning below: C meaning Contrasting, which involves the coach and those involved deciding on how they will work together, and how they can set ground rules involved in their work. L meaning Listening, which means careful listening to an individual or team, by the coach, to understand their current situation. E meaning Exploring, whereby, the team or individual work out the possible solutions of effects caused by their current situation. A meaning Action, where the attained solutions are used to decide on the best ways to achieve the set goals. R meaning Review, this is where the coach enquires on what happened during the coaching session for feedback. This is a good method because the coach is informed of the outcome and can act upon it in-case of unsatisfying feedback.

5. Barriers to coaching in the workplace
6. Lack of time

Organizations with lots of work to be done or work on tight production schedules may not find time enough for coaching. Managers may also find coaching not useful enough to replace lost profits during coaching. In such a case, an alternative coaching method can be considered, such as sparing about 30 minutes once or twice a week for coaching or using videoconferences. Managers should be alerted on the value coaching adds to the organization.

1. Personality clashes

Good communication and relation between the coach and individual are encouraged. The coach needs to ask challenging questions, and this may be difficult if the two do not get along well. If there is a misunderstanding, the coach should be changed to solve this problem

1. Lack of skills

Sometimes coaching may not be considered as an important leadership skill. This may lead to managers not being fed with coaching skills in the most appropriate manner, thus lowering their coaching ability and skills. To solve this, managers should be provided with coaching skills adequately well.

6. Use of learning styles in coaching

Different styles should be put in place during coaching, as everyone has their way of understanding. The four main coaching styles include: pragmatist, these are practical people who like to plan things, figuring out how they work, and they are good at applying what they have learned; Theorists include people who can ask considerate, good questions. They are rational, logical and able to see themselves emotionlessly; Activists are flexible, open-minded people who are never afraid of making mistakes, keen at giving everything at ago and are excited about achieving something new; The last style involves reflectors, who are careful and procedural and are slow in making a quick decision. They are a complete opposite of activists, good at listening, and providing insight.

7. Key elements of a coaching plan

They include;  SMART targets where, any kind of goals included in the coaching plan ought to be achievable, specific, measurable, timely and realistic; support from a training program or a manager needed to achieve set targets; specified strategies or tasks that a client needs to achieve their outcome; frequent reviews to help measure progress and success to help a client stay on track; and, notification of areas that need development which are goals and outcomes, that should not exceed four in number, so the client knows what to focus on at a time.

8. Importance of setting goals and targets

A goal is something that one wants to accomplish against a given timeline. Targets are smaller goals that achieved to act as stepping stones for achieving the major set goals. Set goals and targets are important because goals provide a long term plan that can be worked towards, as targets help in achieving these goals. After all, they are achieved more easily and frequently. Goals and targets are important in coaching, for they are the result if in-depth thought and questioning and are specifically made to lead a team or organization or an individual to a given outcome. They also measure the success of the set goals and targets, as well as making any necessary changes to some goals or next targets depending on new information attained.

9. Importance of constructive feedback in the coaching relationship

Feedback is the response that a coach gets from the client on how the outcomes have been. Constructive feedback gives information based on observations and focuses on given targets and goals. It focuses on outcomes that have gone well or not so well, and they can either be positive or negative. Constructive feedback focuses on given issues or areas and does not appear judgmental. It starts a dialogue between the coach and client, that helps them identify the condition and make alterations on the coaching plan, set targets and goals.

10. Importance of maintaining coaching records

Coaching records may include;  plans for individual sessions, coaching plans, coaching evaluations, and reviews. Keeping records of coaching that has been done is important, for it helps the participants to remember the coaching process used to keep track of their progress and to plan the steps to come thereafter.