The term “coaching” has become a catch all word for all sorts of performance improvement practices. When one enters a conversation about “coaching,” it’s often confusing, we may be talking about apples and oranges–both are important, but they are very different.
We engage coaches for a variety of different purposes: Personal development for improving our lives. Executive and business coaching to improve leadership and other business related skills. Career coaching, focused on helping navigate career paths. Sports/fitness coaching, helping improve our performance in selected sport related activities. Health/wellness, which may focus on nutrition, lifestyle. Educational coaching, focused on developing learning skills and achieving academic goals. Life coaching, gaining clarity and direction for our purpose and establishing a fulfilling life. Mentorship is a form of coaching, leveraging the experience and expertise of someone in a field we desire to develop skills.
We engage coaches individually or in groups with shared goals. Sometimes a group approach is very powerful in driving collaborative peer learning.
Across all these different types of coaching, we find some commonalities in the goals and approaches for high impact coaching.
It’s a collaborative process established between the coach and the coachee. Typically, it involves assess where the individual currently is, their situation, goals, and challenges. Collaboratively, the coach and coachee establish goals and the action plans to achieve these goals. In the process of implementing these goals, the coach supports the coachee in thinking about what they are doing, adapting their approaches, sometimes shifting goals and directions. Through the process, the coach and coachee review progress, make adjustments, and continue to move forward.
While the coach provides a lot of support in the process, it is the responsibility of the coachee to actually “do the work.” It is this process of “doing the work” that drives development and improvement. Sometimes, in the process, the coachee may get their teeth kicked in. The coach and coachee look at what has happened, what they have learned and discuss how the coachee might go forward.
The process continually evolves, collaboratively. Both the coach and coachee are constantly learning, adjusting to more effectively achieve the shared goals.
There are different methods leveraged in coaching–some highly effective, some very ineffective.
We know directive coaching is very ineffective in driving long term development and performance. Being told exactly what and how do do something eliminates “learning/development.” It, also, eliminates accountability on the part of the coachee. If the coachee fails to achieve the goals, it’s the coaches fault–the coachee was just doing what they were told to do. Since this never develops skills or capabilities, the burden is always on the coach for figuring out what needs to be done.
Directive coaching focuses on providing answers, absolving the coachee of figuring out what the answers are and what they mean. As a result, virtually no learning occurs.
By contrast, we know non-directive coaching is much more impactful. It is a collaborative learning process, helping the coach and coachee learn and think differently. It helps the coachee develop their own critical thinking and problem solving skills, learning how to apply them, learning how to adjust them to achieve their goals. The coach serves as a thought partner, often introducing new ideas and approaches the coachee might consider.
The last few paragraphs might better be summarized as “Give a person a fish, they will have a meal. Teach a person to fish, they will eat forever.”
There is a new form of “coaching” emerging with AI/LLMs. Many are calling it “coaching,” but it’s the furthest thing from coaching that one can imagine. This form of coaching “does the work for the coachee.”
For example, rather than learning how to do the research on a customer, in preparation for meetings, these new AI/LLM coaches does the work for the person. Or the “coach” may write the prospecting emails for the person. These new “coaches,” do all the work and provide the answers to the coachee.
By analogy, if we applied this to developing a basketball team’s 3 point shooting capability, this new type of coaching would have the coach taking all the 3 point shots while the team stands around watching. Or rather than a student taking a test, the teacher takes the test for the student.
What this form of coaching misses is that coaching is really about learning and development. We don’t learn by being told the answers or how to do things. We don’t learn by having someone else do all the work for us.
Coaching is about learning, growth, and development. We learn through doing the work ourselves, practicing, growing. We learn through failure, picking ourselves up, adjusting and moving forward.
Regardless, what you seek in being coached, make sure that you are engaged in the coaching process and not just going through the motions.
Afterword: I’ve been experimenting with an AI tool that offers an intriguing discussion of the issues I raise in this post. It’s a fascinating discussion, hope you enjoy!
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