What is Coaching?

We often hear coaching, mentoring, therapy, consulting and all sorts of other terms bandied about. What are they and what’s the difference between them? The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching as:

 

“Partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”

 

Charlie Lang, current president of the Hong Kong International Coaching Community and Managing Partner of Progress-U, gave me his definition of coaching recently. He describes coaching as a two-phase process: help people to be better thinkers so they can create more choices for themselves; then keep them accountable so they can achieve their chosen objective. The ICF adds the following:

 

“Coaching is an ongoing relationship which focuses on clients taking action toward the realization of their visions, goals or desires. Coaching uses a process of inquiry and personal discovery to build the client’s level of awareness and responsibility and provides the client with structure, support and feedback. The coaching process helps clients both define and achieve professional and personal goals faster and with more ease than would be possible otherwise.”

 

So what’s the difference between coaching, mentoring, therapy, consulting and all the other stuff?

Stephen Fairley – professional speaker, best selling author and President of Today’s Leadership Coaching – has created the following chart that neatly encapsulates some of the differences between these specialist professional fields:

 

This chart is reproduced from Getting Started in Personal and Executive Coaching by Stephen G. Fairley and Chris E. Stout (Wiley, 2004) where the authors also explain the following:

 

Coaching is a “one-to-one interactive relationship” to help people “identify and accomplish their personal and professional goals faster than they could on their own.”

 

Consulting is about being seen as the expert. Consultants are people “who give you direct answers to specific problems.”

 

Mentoring is less structured than coaching and, unlike coaching, it doesn’t usually deploy specific goals and measurable results.

 

Managing is different from coaching in that the management relationship automatically confers “authority, permission and trust”. In coaching, the coach must always ask permission of the executive being coached to make behavioural changes. The coach-coachee relationship must be grounded in mutual trust and partnership.

 

Training or teaching is typically about a one-off event to deliver a one-way transfer of knowledge whereas coaching is an ongoing partnership of equals to help the coachee identify and achieve personal and professional goals.

 

Facilitation is usually where one person helps the members of a group communicate with each other by staying objective – often on the sidelines. A coach is an objective person but does not stay objective: they actively participate with the executive being coached to drive them to achieve their goals faster than they would otherwise by themselves.

 

Counselling or psychotherapy is mainly focused on people who are “broken, bruised or in need of healing” and who may be suffering from depression, anxiety or severe relationship difficulties. On the other hand, coaching focuses on people who are “creative, resourceful and whole” and helps healthy people perform at a higher level.

 

Asking not telling

An underlying theme here is that a coach recognises that ultimately his client is the best expert at his personal situation: what his objectives need to be, how he is going to achieve them. However the coach recognises that the client may not have figured these out properly so the coach helps the client explore issues through asking questions. It is often helpful if a coach understands the context of the environment in which an executive works but a coach does not presume to be an expert in the coachee’s job. The coach does not (and should not) tell his client what to do by giving answers. Different approaches are valid depending on the client’s situation and in practice in executive coaching relationships the coach does provide teaching or mentoring too. But the process of coaching is primarily about asking not telling.