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If you’re considering applying your skills as a professional coach, what would you most want to know from a seasoned professional coach?
We have a national expert available to prepare answers for an upcoming Patina Nation presentation.
Where should I go for certification? Is certification a must-have? What are the requirements to earn certification? What are the top areas for consulting in terms of demand?
I believe if someone is going to make a career of coaching - it is a good idea to get your ICF certification. It tells me you are serious about the profession.
Co-Active Training Institute is highly recommended by me for training. A certification tells a client you are committed to the profession and delivering quality coaching. There is a difference between mentoring and coaching and often engagements need some of both but the primary goal of the coach is to elicit from the client their own answers.
If you want to work for corporations, certification would either required or a plus. Most Coaching opportunities come from referrals and through networking groups.
After a full career that ranged from Sales Pro to Executive Sales Management I took training from Coachville and the Co-Active Training Institute (CTI). The CTI weekend workshops gave me the methodology that I use through their live role play / experiential learning process. My Business experience added to the learned delivery process works best for me. My clients benefit from my real world experience as I blend Coaching with Mentoring for them.
Is there a difference between a professional coach and a mentor?
Absolutely. They are completely different. A professional coach tries to help the coached person develop their potential. A mentor tries to convey what the mentor knows to the mentee. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but they have little or nothing in common.
I agree - I am doing coaching work with a CFO of a Patina client. I have no background or training in coaching - and my coachee knew that and picked me to work with anyway. He wanted to tap into my creativity and innovation as a former CFO who made the transition to CEO. Plus - he likes having someone outside of his company to talk to.
Completely agree - to me this is incredibly important. I am an iPEC and IFC certified coach and former CHRO. Depending on my client I provide executive/leadership coaching, mentoring or a blend. After reviewing the differences with the client, I state up front what the basis of the engagement will be but flexible to move in and out of the roles based on the needs and the clients permission.
My take on that differs a bit.
Many coaches use a process to get clients to self discover. That is great and in my opinion best suited to Life Coaching. Most Business Executives need self discovery and mentoring. When they start taking action on their challenges and have a mentor to guide them, the successes come quickly because they have to be accountable to their coach. If they really want to grow they must move out of their comfort zone patterns. The insights and support from a Coach /Mentor will get them the confidence that comes from taking actions and getting results.
In my mind, a general skills coach may not be able to be a mentor, which suggests subject matter expertise as well. I have mentored boards and individuals at different times, and part of the motivation is to be able bring perception and expertise bear that the person(s) being mentored have not been exposed to.
Conversely, if there is a particular area of personal development that is identified as a need, a mentor wish to encourage resort to a coach with experience in that. There is an overlap, but the goal of working with a mentor is to expand horizons, techniques and perception.
Mentors can be very useful in adding expertise and insight that the subject would have had no opportunity to be exposed to While this can be an experienced voice from their field of activity, for me the greatest dividends result from exposure to knowledge and experience of how others perceive and address issues and of issues that may be relevant in the future or ideas that may enable distinctive capabilities within the company or sector. One simple facet of good mentoring in my view starts with appraisal of how the individual sees not only themselves but the world through the lens of their experience. For example, a common early hurdle is to address group think and company mindset.
What are different coaching models/methodologies that are used? How do you adjust/structure the way you work with different client types to be effective? Are there different models/methodologies for different kinds of coaching relationships? How do you select the appropriate approach for a given clients? For instance, if you are working with 1) a Director level person who is just being identified as a high potential candidate, 2) a C level executive who has been in the role for a while and wants to fine tune their skills, 3) operations manager in a field office that is new to managing people. I would think your approach would need to be different for these three people, are there different methodologies? What are they? How could we get trained in the different approaches?
If you, as the Coach use a proven process the client will reveal the top issues they are facing.
If you can help them, a trust relationship will form between you. With active listening skills and your experience you will quickly “know” how to Coach them. At the risk of sounding a bit “Wo-Wo” , a good coach is also highly intuitive.
A good coach has to be able to read the wider business culture and issues and diagnose the underlying causes. No methodology universally effective. Many have uses in any given circumstance, but there are usually more than one way to succeed. Methods have to work for the coach too!
I have come to be leery of certifications. Effective coaching of senior executives is not something that can be taught in a classroom. Experience counts! These are real world dilemmas that have to be handled in real time. Some of what coaching has come to encompass is more general, techniques for this or handling that, to me this training is less individualized and more appropriate for training. For those roles, I might look at certification, or cause my people to--which is why it does help for large companies since this is the bulk of their spend.
At the higher executive level, coaching is either a very specific identified deficiency or it is closer to mentoring on an individual level and assisting in helping change management potentially if the remit extends to deliverables on a wider level. At least that is the perception that I have developed over the years: the term coach is currently more popular and more broad applied than perhaps is helpful.
In short, what is the potential customer looking for? Certification for some, experience and a belief that the person has experience, expertise and a manner that will be beneficial for others. I think that the responses that I have read seem to illustrate this dichotomy.
Tough question. Just like it has impacted everyone. Technology is still innovating Training has been impacted because you have to have the right people in the right places.
I would take a 0-base approach to hiring at every level. Trainers would have to prove themselves by do an hour workshop on some technological discovery. The trainer of the year 2000 is completely different than 2020.
Difficult
How do you define Kpis to measure the transformational process ? many coaches have an approach of no result oriented.... I am not that kind of coach.
I ask the client if they practice new behaviors what might measures of success look like in 1 / 3 / 6 months.
I am a coach, and I have comments on a couple of the issues that have been raised on this thread:
For the presentation - I would want to hear about the vast array of options for training, since to really "do right" by clients most people should receive professional training before becoming a coach. Generally, which programs are geared towards coaching professionals and business people, the reputations of these programs, and their particular philosophy about coaching. Coaching is a profession, so very few people can learn how to be a good coach just by listening to a presentation from an expert (or reading a book, for that matter).
Regarding ICF - personally, I am not ICF certified and I never have been asked by a potential client whether I have ICF certification. While there is no harm in becoming certified by ICF, in my opinion it is not a good filter for hiring a coach. The ICF certification process is not difficult nor does it assess you coaching skills. In fact, the organization from which I earned my training and certification considers ICF's focus to be a fairly basic level of coaching. Asking for referrals - from people familiar with coaching and from a potential coach's prior clients - is WAY more important.
I hope this is helpful.
