I have written some entries on this blog about coaching, but I think coaching as a subject deserves more than that. I will not brag about what others say about coaching because that will be repetitive and meaningless for you. I will write my experience in coaching and how you can compare and contrast with what you already know, so you can benefit from the “aggregated knowledge”.

To me coaching is a synergistic relationship by 2 parties to achieve different goals on the same platform. The platform is coaching relationship. The purpose of coaching has 2 clear qualifiers.

Firstly if you are in an organization that runs coaching program, that is formal coaching. And on the other hand if you have coach or coaches outside the organization that you have relationship with. If you are in the organization, the program is quite straight forward and usually very structured. You are going to be assigned with a coach or coaches (depending on your organization) and the HR will give you few documents to start, engage, proliferate and exit. In between you are going to have few get together sessions to monitor your progress and attend your issues with the coaching relationship. Besides, the HR will also monitor your coach to ensure the coaching goal is achievable and fruitful. Most of the time the coaching goals for this type of coaching program is very objective.

For the second type of coaching program, the nature of it very interesting. Simply because no one actually telling each other, “we are now in a coaching relationship”. It is like you having a relationship with someone without any declaration of the role to play. Most of the time, the role player will play their own role quite naturally. The moment the players know their role, it will be very easier and much fruitful because you are more open to issues and deeper conversation.

The coaching that demands more emphasize is the second type. The ultimate reason for this is because, there are a lot of business people and entrepreneurs like you are hungry for guidance. But you don’t have anyone to turn to. It is like you are the last man on earth, but no woman for you to live with. Not because no one is interested, but because there are none of them! How could that be possible? In current world, this is the case.

Because of the meteoric growth of businesses such as small businesses which created lots of entrepreneurs, the world supply to accommodate the need of this group still low. But you don’t have to overly worry because soon it will be fixed. 🙂 This type of coaching focusing on playing each other’s strongest strength. For example a food chain owner is very good at running his food business, but may not be capable of setting strategies to go beyond. This is where business coach will come into help. A professor in marketing may sound perfect in his lecture, but if you give him a product to market he may flounder. Peter Drucker once said, “I am a loner and a management thinker. If you give me a business to manage, I don’t think I can do it.” This is to illustrate how much we need each other to be better.