What is Coaching?
Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.
-- Timothy Gallwey
The Coaching Relationship
Coaches are equal partners with the client. Together, they explore the client's reasons for coming in for coaching. The coach is not a teacher, a mentor, or a therapist. The coach does not have the answers, and is not a problem solver who tells the client what to do. Instead, the coach uses curiosity and powerful questions to make the client think about things in new ways and reveal new solutions and perspectives.
Coaching vs. Therapy vs. Teaching
Teachers tell students what to do. The students follow the instructions, and with luck, they gain skill. Therapists treat mental illness. Patients who seek therapy need treatment because they are in a "bad place". Coaches do neither of these. Coaching works with people who are in a "good place" but want to do better. Coaches help the clients come up with solutions to the problems, so the clients can personally own those solutions. Ultimately, this can be more effective than being told what to do.