Frequently Asked Questions

Coaching answers the fundamental question: "How can I be better?" Even if you're at the top of your chosen field, you can still ask yourself: "How can I improve what I am doing?" We all can improve what we do. Why else do the world's elitest athletes work with coaches?

• Coaching encourages you to know your true values and live them in achieving your goals.
• Coaching focuses on what you want - your goals and how to achieve them
• Coaching will challenge limiting beliefs and reinforce positive ones by giving you tasks that provide you with feedback

A sense of purpose

We all have dreams, aspirations and hopes for our life. Our goals bring them into reality - they shape our life. If we don't have goals, we drift aimlessly. A coach helps us to identify and achieve our goals.

Change facilitation

Through exploring an issue with the client, the coach will - show the client what the client is doing, help the client discover how to change and support that change.

'Bespoke' personal development

For many people, group personal development trainings are only useful to a point. Often, they achieve little more than scratching the surface.

Coaching is tailored to individual's needs. It addresses what the individual wants.

Value

The more people develop themselves , the more an organisation develops its business, and the more value its people are to the organisation.

Happy people perform well. If your people perform better, your profits will increase. In the end, coaching is a very cost effective and focussed way of developing people.

Coaching has its own unique skills it employs, and for many coaches "unlearning" old skill sets from other professions has to occur before they can competently pick up the new skill sets used in coaching. If you are considering hiring a coach, be diligent in asking the coach if they have been specifically trained in coaching skills and currentloy hold or are in the process of acquiring an ICF credential. Don't be misled into thinking that a coach is a competent coach because they have other professional credentials or set high fees.

Coaching is a relatively new profession. Currently no practicing certificate or other form of license is required in most countries, and there is no single governing body for the profession. Consequently, there are many individuals who call themselves coaches today. Whilst many of these people may have illustrious qualifications in their own fields, they often have no specific coaching skills training and are transferring skill sets from other professions into their coaching. Often this results in an inadequate or ineffective coaching experience for clients.

Good question. We encourage managers and supervisors to adopt a coaching approach to help their team members find their own answers and to help develop certain skill sets. However an external coach can provide assistance where a manager cannot:

• Objectivity - An external coach does not see the client daily and so can remain objective.
• Time - An external coach is not trying to juggle the running of a busy department or business with coaching a staff member as an additional task in a busy day. An external coach is there 100% for the client.
• Confidentiality - An external coach can (and must) keep the client's confidences. On the other hand, a manager/supervisor is answerable to the organisation and not the client.
• Impartiality - An external coach is not responsible for managing and appraising the client's work. So, the client is not faced with the tension of keeping up appearances. the client can relax and be honest about his/her feelings, doubts and fears. Without that honesty and frankness, coaching will be ineffectual.

The International Coach Federation (ICF) is a not for profit, individual membership organisation formed by professionals worldwide, who practice business and personal coaching to provide shape and govern the profession of coaching. In order to maintain the very highest standards of the coaching profession they have established a collective agreement of skill sets, competencies, ethics and standards. See www.coachfederation.org/ICF

Having a coach who has been credentialed by the ICF means that the coach you have hired has received professional training from a programme specifically designed to teach coaching skills in alignment with the ICF Competencies and Code of Ethics.

They must have demonstrated a proficient understanding and use of these coaching competencies and are accountable to the ethics and standards promoted by the ICF

There's no right number of sessions.

Much will depend on what your objective is for the coaching.

It is possible to have one or two sessions to address one particular issue - for example, some people like a one off coaching session to help prepare for an important job interview.

To make meaningful changes, people usually need between 10 and 12 sessions.

Senior people in leadership roles tend to have a longer term coaching relationship - where they are using the coach as an independent external sounding board

I believe that the best coaching is driven by the person being coached and not by the coach. So, you are generally better off with a coach who does not work to a prescribed format.

You will have an opportunity to stand back and take stock. For example

• you can work on crafting your best contribution to the organisation you work for, based on the strengths and talents that you have to offer
• you may want to take charge of the next step in your career and need some help doing that
• you may want some help in setting up your team for success
• you may be facing some day to day challenges in your life and work that you wish to address
• you can also work on increasing your repertoire of ideas, models and practical tools that you can used in your day to day routines

You will be stretched -
My role as your coach is not to create 'warm and fuzzy feelings' for you as you leave each coaching session. My role is to challenge and stretch you, so that you grow as an individual. So, there may be times when you leave a coaching session feeling uncomfortable or even annoyed by some of the questions that you have been asked. If that happens, it may well be that your thinking was challenged to take you into deeper reflection about how you are approaching an issue.

My focus is on you -
Whatever you decide to do, my role as a coach is entirely focused on you and helping you reach your picture of success. Coaching is not about imposing anything on you or getting you to do things that you don't agree with or want to do. You drive the agenda and the outcomes. The coach's job is to provide you the space to reflect and draw your own conclusions.

Pre-Coaching

The first session, which is complimentary, is an informal pre-coaching hour. We will usually meet face to face, to ensure that we are well matched and to agree on several points. For example

• the outcomes that you want from the sessions and aligning them to the company's or your manager's strategy for you.
• how much time you wish to spend together and how often we will meet
• building up your agenda for future sessions

Where appropriate, you are very welcome to invite your manager along to this coaching session.

If you are based outside New Zealand, coaching sessions can take place either on the telephone or via Skype.

Following this session, I will send you some materials to prepare for the following coaching sessions.

Once Coaching has started

You will have either opted to meet face to face or for the coaching to be by telephone or Skype. Both ways of coaching can be very successful, provided that the time can be dedicated with no interruptions

How often ?

Our coaching sessions will be at the frequency that we agree. Initially you may want to be coached weekly or a couple of times a month. After that,your coaching sessions should ideally be no more than 4 - 6 weeks apart. I will be available for short phone calls and by email in between sessions.

In some circumstances, e.g. where you are looking to create a new habit, an hour long coaching session can be divided into shorter time segments, either 15 or 30 mins each, where you check in by phone for some 'real time' coaching. These short sharp sessions can be very effective for keeping one on track to achieving a goal