Coaching
Coaching is an accompaniment process in which a qualified person (the coach) helps another (the client or coachee), or a group, to achieve an specific objective or solve a problem, always orientated to personal, family, social and professional development, or even all of them together.
This process is done during several sessions between coach and coachee, they are either face to face and/or on the distance (phone, videoconference, chat, ...). Results are achieved thanks to the work that both of them do during the session, and also the one the coachee does between sessions.
The coach is a professional that owns the tools and capacities to help the coachee in order to take the right steps, either to define the objectives he/she has, or to do the needed actions to achieve them. The starting point is to know that the coachee is totally capable in order to face these process of changing by himself/herself: he/she has the capacities, the potential to do it. The coach helps him/her to look for that potential, to explore new territories, new possibilities. He helps him/her to become conscious about those new unexplored paths, and motivate him/her to try them.
The coach's labor ends whenever he becomes unnecessary and the coachee becomes autonomous and decides which ones are the right steps to take in order to guide his/her life/project/relationship...
Sometimes the difference between coaching and other disciplines such as therapy, counseling, ... is unclear. We will try to specify the differences in a simple way, knowing that sometimes some routines and others can get overlapped.
Coaching |
Psychological |
Counseling |
Mentoring |
Training |
|
Objective |
Help the client to achieve an objective. Achieve pleasure |
Help the patient to avoid a problem/pathology. Avoid the pain/suffering |
Guide an organization with the steps to follow | Use an expert's experience to develop others | Get the pupils to learn some knowledge |
Based on |
Future and solutions. Coachee/client's potential |
Past and causes | System knowledge | Experience | Field knowledge |
Answers |
Coachee/client | Therapist | Counsellor | Mentor | Trainer |
Moreover, coaching has an own deontological code, where there are specific conditions about confidentiality, process privacy, interests conflicts, professionalism and ethics.