Coaching is a technology of personal and professional development based on concepts from sports, business, spirituality, psychology and organizational development.

Coaching is for passionate people who want more from their personal and business lives. The role of a coach is to help clients set larger and more rewarding goals than they might set on their own, to develop a strategy to achieve those goals and to provide support throughout the process. Having a coach is not unlike having a personal trainer or an athletic coach; a coach applies similar skills to personal or business challenges.

Individuals who enter into a coaching relationship can expect to experience fresh perspectives on personal challenges and opportunities, enhanced thinking and decision-making skills, enhanced interpersonal effectiveness, and increased confidence in carrying out their chosen work and life roles. Consistent with a commitment to enhancing their personal effectiveness, they can also expect to see appreciable results in the areas of productivity, personal satisfaction with life and work, as well as the achievement of personally relevant goals.

Coaching works when the client is experiencing a gap between where they are and where they want to be.  Successful coaching clients know the value of sharing ideas with an objective individual whose only goal is the success of the client, as he or she (the client) defines it.   Often times, a client gains complete clarity when talking about options with someone who listens with a non-judgmental ear.

Coaching works because of three unique features:

 SYNERGY: Client and coach become a team focusing on the client’s goals and needs and accomplishing more than the client would alone.

 STRUCTURE: With a coach, the client takes more actions, thinks bigger and gets the job done, thanks to the accountability the coach provides.

 EXPERTISE: The coach helps clients make better decisions, set SMART goals, develop new skills for communicating as well as to restructure their professional and personal lives for maximum productivity.

The frequency of your sessions depends on the package you select.  In addition to our scheduled sessions, your Ann Babiarzy & Associates, LLC coach provides additional e-mail access, quick check-in calls between sessions, and a wide variety of resources and tools at no extra charge based on the coaching package you choose.

The length of a coaching partnership varies depending on the individual, business, or team needs and preferences. For certain types of focused coaching, 3 to 6 months of working with a coach will do. For other types of coaching, people may find it beneficial to work with a coach for a longer period. Factors that impact the length of time include: the types of goals, the ways individuals or teams like to work, the frequency of coaching meetings, and financial resources available.

Be prepared to design the coaching partnership with your coach. For example, think of a strong partnership that you currently have in your work or life. Look at how you built that relationship and what is important to you about that partnership. You will want to build those same things into a coaching relationship. Here are other tips:

 Look for stylistic similarities and differences between the coach and you and how these might assist your growth as an individual or the growth of your business or team.

 Discuss your goals for coaching within the context of the coach’s specialty or the coach’s preferred way of working with an individual, business, or team.

 Talk with the coach about what to do if you ever feel things are not going well; make some agreements up front on how to handle questions or problems.

 Remember that coaching is a partnership, so be assertive about talking with the coach about anything that is of concern at any time.

The role of the coach is to:

 Provide objective assessment and observations that foster the individual’s or team members’ enhanced self-awareness and awareness of others,

 Practice astute listening in order to garner a full understanding of the individual’s or team’s circumstances,

 To be a sounding board for possibility thinking and thoughtful planning and decision making,

 To champion opportunities and potential, encourage stretch and challenge commensurate with personal strengths and aspirations,

 To foster the shifts in thinking that reveal fresh perspectives, challenge blind spots in order to illuminate new possibilities, and support the creation of alternative scenarios.

 To maintain professional boundaries in the coaching relationship, including confidentiality, and adheres to the coaching profession’s code of ethics.

The role of the individual or team is to:

 Create the coaching agenda based on personally meaningful coaching goals,

 Utilize assessment and observations to enhance self-awareness and awareness of others,

 Envision personal and/or organizational success,

 Assume full responsibility for personal decisions and actions,

 Utilize the coaching process to promote possibility thinking and fresh perspectives,

 Take courageous action in alignment with personal goals and aspirations,

 Engage big picture thinking and problem solving skills,

 Utilize the tools, concepts, models and principles provided by the coach to engage effective forward actions.

Measurement may be thought of in two distinct ways:

 First, there are the external indicators of performance: measures that can be seen and assessed in the individual or team environment.

 Second, there are internal indicators of success: measures which are inherent within the individual or team members being coached.

Ideally, both external and internal metrics are incorporated.

Examples of external measures include:

 Achievement of coaching goals established at the outset of the coaching relationship,

 increased income/revenue,

 A promotion,

 Performance feedback which is obtained from a sample of the individual’s constituents (e.g., direct reports, colleagues, customers, boss, the manager him/herself),

 Personal and/or business performance data (e.g., productivity, efficiency measures).

The external measures selected should ideally be things the individual is already measuring and are things the individual has some ability to directly influence.

Examples of internal measures include self-scoring/self-validating assessments that can be administered initially and at regular intervals in the coaching process, changes in the individual’s self-awareness and awareness of others, shifts in thinking which inform more effective actions, and shifts in one’s emotional state which inspire confidence.

 Professional coaching is a distinct service, that focuses on an individual’s life or business as it relates to goal setting, outcome creation and personal change. In an effort to understand what a coach is, it can be helpful to distinguish coaching from other professions.

 Therapy—Coaching can be distinguished from therapy in a number of ways. First, coaching is a profession that aids personal and professional growth and development based on individual-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success. Coaching is forward moving and future focused. Therapy, on the other hand, deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or a relationship between two or more individuals. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past which hamper an individual’s emotional functioning in the present, improving overall psychological functioning, and dealing with present life and work circumstances in more emotionally healthy ways. Therapy outcomes often include improved emotional/feeling states. While positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, theprimary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one’s work or personal life. The emphasis in a coaching relationship is  action, accountability, and follow through.

 Consulting—Consultants may be retained by individuals or organizations for the purpose of accessing specialized expertise. While consulting approaches vary widely, there is often an assumption that the consultant diagnoses problems and prescribes and sometimes implements solutions. In general, the assumption with coaching is that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own solutions, with the coach supplying supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks.

 Mentoring—Mentoring, which can be thought of as guiding from one’s own experience or sharing of experience in a specific area of industry or career development, is sometimes confused with coaching. Although some coaches provide mentoring as part of their coaching, such as in mentor coaching new coaches, coaches are not typically mentors to those they coach.

 Training—Training programs are based on the acquisition of certain learning objectives as set out by the trainer or instructor. Though objectives are clarified in the coaching process, they are set by the individual or team being coached with guidance provided by the coach. Training also assumes a linear learning path which coincides with an established curriculum. Coaching is less linear without a set curriculum plan.

 Athletic Development—Though sports metaphors are often used, professional coaching is different from the traditional sports coach. The athletic coach is often seen as an expert who guides and directs the behavior of individuals or teams based on his or her greater experience and knowledge. Professional coaches possess these qualities, but it is the experience and knowledge of the individual or team that determines the direction. Additionally, professional coaching, unlike athletic development, does not focus on behaviors that are being executed poorly or incorrectly. Instead, the focus is on identifying opportunity for development based on individual strengths and capabilities.