Coaching Pardners
The State of Coaching
Coaching has been growing in leaps and bounds for the last decade. As
reported in Fortune
Magazine in 2000, “coaches are everywhere” and the number are
growing exponentially. The
International Coaching Federation (ICF) estimated that there were 10,000
practicing coaches
in February of 2000 (Fortune, 2/2000) and reported 20,000 in July of
2001 (BusinessWeek,
7/2001). Most recent estimates are that there is more than 50,000 individuals
actively
pursuing a coaching career.
Why the Growth in Coaching?
Coaching has become a growth industry for several reasons: First, managed care has decimated the income of most therapists and social workers. When given the choice of receiving $30-50 an hour in an industry that used to pay two to three times that amount versus moving into coaching where hourly rates are still negotiable, it does not require rocket science to understand the droves of people transferring their interpersonal and problem solving skills to coaching. Second, the economy has stalled in terms of business confidence since the Bush administration took office. Hence, many organizations have reduced or wiped-out the external consulting budgets. Hence, shifting to coaching which is growing seems like a reasonable move to make. Third, industry has been downsizing for the last decade. As reported in Fortune Magazine in May, 2005, there continues to be a trend to terminate, release, cutloose, and fire talented executives when they hit 50 years old and are more expensive than younger employees. Many of these individuals are not ready for pasture and are moving into coaching.
Why Be a Coach?
Even though there seems to be a burst of entering coaches, the number of actual, practicing and successful coaches is unknown. Many coaches continue to be therapists or starving consultants or unemployed executives because they do not have the time or inclination (drive) or skill to make the leap from one profession to another. The fact remains, there is more business than there are coaches and this will continue for some time.
Successful Interventions
The Journal of Change Management reported in July, 2002, that coaching
increases leader’s
self-awareness and confidence, communication skills, assertiveness, understanding
differences,
stress management, and work/life balance. Case Western Reserve University
reported in the
same year that coaching-like training can last seven years, about 6.5
years longer than most
training. Similarly, Daniel Goleman has reported that for Leaders to
be successful, they need to
develop emotional competence. He adds that for the development of emotional
competence to
truly be successful, requires coaching. The bottom-line is that coaching
works, which for many
entering coaches is a primary reason for being in the industry, we want
to serve others and
make an impact in peoples lives. More importantly, business and many
individuals will pay for
it.
Benefits of Coaching
Most coaches know the benefits of coaching. What they don’t know that as an entering coach, all of the benefits of coaching applies to them personally. Specifically, by hiring a coach to coach them in their transition to being a successful, full-time, money-making coach, you will receive the following benefits:
- More competently achieve business and personal goals including how to make the transition to full time coach.
- becoming more aware of behaviors that served the past but are not serving in the present, such as not needing to make sales calls because referrals have served you well.
- Greater awareness of choices that can impact the fullness of life in and outside of the organization, such as how to plot your time to serve you instead of to retain your present comfort.
- Learn how to be present with your self and therefore with others in ways that increase your effectiveness as a leader, communicator, human being.
- Increased confidence personally and professionally by finding ways to take small steps of success that lead to your ultimate success as a coach.
- Greater Clarity in Self Awareness by really examining who you are and what you what to be and do as a coach and doing it.
- Enhanced understanding of business decision-making processes that impact your transitions to being a coach.
- Demonstrating greater composure in difficult situations by having support instead of your normal modus operandi of supporting other.
- Adopting stronger leadership behaviors related to decision-making and control, when appropriate and useful to do so—so your dream can manifest itself.
Why Coaching Pardner?
Pardner is the less formal spelling of the word partner. As such, its
slight difference lends
towards making the name noticeable; ergo, memorable. Where partner
tends to connote legal
and more formal arrangements between professional and business colleagues,
pardner
connotes the old west where a pardner was an individual’s closest
friend, one that knew the
person in all the glory and blemishes and supported the wholeness of
the person. Hence, as an
coaching pardner, you can expect that you will be supported in the fullness
of whom you are
and apply those traits towards enhancing your effectiveness, personally
and professionally.
Principles of Pardnering
Each client is supported by the coach applying and modeling the following traits.
- Show up and be present without preconceived notions, while having the ability to take action and enforce boundaries.
- Assess, Analyze and Contain, while saying what is so when it is so, without blame or judgment
- Connect and Feel, while paying attention to what has heart and meaning.
- Initiate, Support and Create Order while being open to outcome
Coaching Pardner Details
Coaching Pardner supports Practicing Coaches to discover and maintain their learning edge. By examining both the cutting edge and the flat-side of performance in their developing and/or existing practice, the coach is able to increase awareness and therefore effectiveness.
Visioning
Coaching Pardner involves a visioning process that determines why
the world is different
because your practice exists. During this process, an indepth core
value assessment is
completed to discover the driving values that can lead to congruence
between yourself and the
coach within. Finally, a change assessment is completed to determine
possible breakdowns in
your dreams realization. The final product is that you leave the
process knowing your vision,
mission, core values, and have developed a detailed plan to enact
the coaching practice that
you seek to create.
Forward Thinking
Coaching Pardner can support the practicing coach by creating extended competence through forward thinking. In this situations, it is known that present coaching performance is more than adequate, but future desired work or dreams require a larger skill base, an expanded mind-set, or simply a greater self awareness an confidence in order to be effective for future challenges. The focus is on expanding the capacity of the Practicing Coach.
Bridging Gaps
Coaching Pardner can also support the client by bridging the gap. Bridging the gap focuses on what is missing in the present level of performance, whether it relates to skill-base or selfawareness. Coaching Pardner builds on existing competencies by using them as pillars to build new competencies, often, required by recent moves into client requests for new competencies and/or coaching responsibilities. This can be done by exploring existing client requirements or by exploring alternative ways of managing existing situations.
Resonance
Coaching Pardner requires a clear commitment to complete the processes,
and then to meet
and digest the results. Digestion is critical. In this process, the
visioning, bridge building,
and/or forward thinking are gleaned for client resonance, that is,
applicability to present
performance and future dreams. Often, present clients or situations
do not require specific
competencies, whereas future performance may indicate a much different
orientation and/or
skill-set. Hence, client resonance is critical to the coaches progress
and success.
Commitment
Coaching Pardner tends to be highly focused and requires a major personal and professional commitment from the practicing coach. It is not for the feint-hearted as the process may reveal the tarnish under the glimmer of many past successes. It is the ability to examine the tarnish and discover new ways of being that leads to the profound changes resulting from becoming a Coaching Pardner. The process ranges from four to six months depending on the desire and depth the client seeks. The initial process generally is done in-person for one full day or is front-end loaded with two-four hour, biweekly meetings for the first couple of months, then moving to monthly meetings.