It’s now just over twenty years ago that my eldest son, Clark, came to me with his request: “Dad, next time you choose a job to do, please pick something that I can explain to my friends!” Those were the early days when most people hadn’t heard of coaching outside of sports coaching. In fact, I remember bumping into executives I knew at the airport who knew I had left the law firm I had been at and would ask me what I was doing now. Somehow, they wouldn’t hear the first word when I answered “executive coaching” and they would invariably respond: “What, sports coaching?” or “What sport?"
Nowadays, most people have a better idea of what coaching is – and most of us coaches have refined our own definitions of what we do as our coaching has, hopefully, matured from something fairly transactional where we help our clients set and achieve their goals or help them resolve their dilemmas, to something more transformative where we support them in their personal and professional growth and maturity.
Yet two decades later, as the profession has developed, it’s interesting to note that even coaches are refining their definitions of coaching in distinguishing it from two offshoots of the profession, mentor coaching and coach supervision. For example, as Hawkins and Smith point out, supervision “is simply not the same as coaching another coach”, a delusion under which I (and, as I have noticed lately, many other coaches) suffered for many years. It is natural that some confusion might arise unless one is dealing daily with these distinct areas of our profession – and, even then, as we have found with coaching, our definitions of the three professions mature as we mature within them.
So, if you are not altogether clear on the distinction between the three areas, firstly, don’t feel alone! Secondly, this newsletter is written for you. I thought I would share some definitions with you with the hope that you will respond with some of your own and, in the process, refine your definitions.
Let me start with coaching. My favourite definitions or descriptions that I often lean on and read together are provided by Myles Downey and Timothy Gallwey. Downey succinctly defines coaching as “the art of facilitating performance, learning and development.” In a way, Gallwey describes this art of facilitating as “eavesdropping” on someone’s thinking processes via a synthesis of three conversations for mobility – that is, conversations for awareness, choice and trust.
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