Communication is essential in companies; however, many methodologies are imprecise and have low effectiveness. Coaching, as a communication system based on soft skills, offers resources and methodological tools to organizations, both their leaders and workers, to achieve better results in what they do. The objective of this chapter is to determine what coaching consists of, how this tool works, and to show some essential knowledge that may be of great interest to reinforce aspects of organizational leadership in team management. The chapter is complemented with highly effective and easy-to-practice resources, so the reader will have easy tools to implement in their business environment.
TopIntroduction
Coaching is a non-scientific model or system of communication and behavior, with applications in people and companies. According to the IAC (International Association of Coaching) (2021) coaching is: An advanced form of communication that aims to help an individual, organization or team to produce a desired result through the co-creation of awareness and solutions to problems. In short, coaching is a completely integrated and personalized “technology of success”.
This definition expresses some essential principles of coaching as a discipline of success in companies (Saviet & Ahmann, 2021): Understanding help is needed, the Coach helps with their presence and their questions in the Coaching conversation to co-create new visions and results. Although the Coach is not and should not be the creator of deciding, it is his questions and reflections in feedback format which make it easier for his client to see other perspectives and even make different decisions than usual, achieving results as well different.
Coaching applied to organizations and talent management is an integrated and personalized methodology, as expressed by IAC (2021). Integrated because it is adaptable to organizational models.
Coaching has the ability to adapt to all kinds of requirements and natures of the human team with which the Coach works. On the other hand, it is personalized because no two Coachees or clients are the same. While the headline for what they need may be identical, for example improve leadership, defuse conflict, or achieve greater inspiration and motivation, each case is unique. The Coach must know how to apply his package of tools adjusting them to the needs of the current moment of the client. That is why Coaching, both in the field of business and in the humanistic or personal sector, is always personalized (Babcock, 2021).
What is a Coach?
Coach is the professional who takes care of taking the clients from the situation they are to where they want to go. To do this, he uses the methodologies expressed in this chapter, always using a conversation model. In addition to this, the Coach uses classic tools such as generation of attunement and alignment, deep listening, questions, confrontation, and other specific tools depending on the case to be addressed.
According to ICF (International Coaching Federation) (2021), the Coach helps to set better goals and to meet them. Help your interlocutor to do more than what would have done by himself. Provides focus for more quick results as well as tools, support, and structure to improve.
Indeed, the role of the Coach in the organization becomes key since he offers other points of view sometimes not contemplated by the Coachee, who is his client. On the other hand, by challenging your client to go further to try other versions of what they already know and to communicate and interact in a different way with their teams, clients, and suppliers, they achieve sometimes spectacular results (Carmel & Miller, 2015).
What is not a Coach?
A Coach is not a mentor, nor is it a counselor. He is a professional who cannot and should not tell his client how to act or where to go, since this would be matter of other disciplines. The Coach is neither a listener nor a confessor. They certainly listen, but they do it with one goal: to understand the situation the client is telling, so they can ask the right questions to help them improve. In many Coaching sessions in which there is high emotional level, such as stress worries, dispersion, etc., the Coach's work must focus on listening. In this kind of situation, the client needs to release their tensions. Despite this, the Coach must direct the conversation in order the client reaches conclusions about how that influences him and makes him feel. Then the Coach will challenge the client to change their situation to feel better (Coutu & Kauffman, 2009).
The essential key that distinguishes what would be a coaching process from another model or conversation system is that the Coach always seeks for the Coachee to reach a goal and a commitment after the session. The commitment may be small, but it must exist. If there is no commitment, it is hard to make progress. If there is no progress, there is no action. If there is no action, there is no Coaching, it's only a conversation and there are no results (Deiorio, Carney, Kahl, Bonura and Miller, 2016).