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What is Coaching?

Coaching is focused. Coaching is action.  Coaching is powerful.  Coaching delivers results.                    

Coaching empowers individuals and organizations identify and achieve specific goals.  Advancing in your career, establishing  a new career, becoming a more effective manager, creating a new business, expanding your resources, increasing effectiveness in parenting, improving focus, and optimizing key relationships are just some of the reasons people are utilizing coaches today.  Coaching is a process that assists already highly functioning people maximize their personal or professional development in order to achieve their goals.

It is now commonplace to see executive coaches utilized in Fortune 500 companies where leadership, managerial excellence, and interpersonal performance are essential.  Stars are no longer identified solely by their resumes and degrees.  Stars are now measured by their level of emotional intelligence (EQ), interpersonal skills, and ingenuity.  Therefore, both executives and managers have been dramatically increasing their competitiveness by employing the services of a professional coach. Although coaching is now commonplace in corporations, it is of course equally powerful for individuals in medium to small businesses.

How is Coaching different than therapy?

Although Coaching incorporates many tools and interventions that are drawn directly from the field of psychology, coaching is not therapy.  Coaching does not address personal pain, and is not appropriate for individuals who are currently suffering from mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, active substance abuse, etc….  I always and continuously assess my clients to ensure that they are getting the type of services that most effectively address their issues.

How does it work?

Similar to therapy, effective coaching relies heavily on the alliance between the coach and the client.  Therefore, although most coaching is done over the phone, I highly advocate at least a one time in person coaching session.

The first step in the coaching process involves filling out a client questionnaire that I will e-mail you.  This allows me an opportunity to create an agenda that will address the specific type of coaching that would be appropriate for you to meet your goals and aspirations. 

The second step is also part of my assessment.  It involves completing online standardized assessments that you access through a secure website.   These assessments are scientifically developed tools that provide objective feedback that will be utilized to create your coaching success.  The questions on these assessments are short, easy to answer and the results are kept strictly confidential.  These invaluable instruments are scientifically proven to be reliable and valid.  Since I have my doctorate in clinical psychology, I am authorized to administer and interpret these advanced instruments. I will give you my interpretations both orally for us to discuss and in a written report. 

Now that the coaching agenda and plan have been layed, the third step is to create the synergy of the coaching alliance. The coaching alliance is a collaborative relationship based on respect, authenticity, support, feedback and accountability.  I will direct you in brainstorming and together we will explore issues and roadblocks, combined with strategic planning.  I also utilize a technique called “appreciative inquiry”.  Originally developed by the Weatherhead School of Management, appreciative inquiry is a powerful development tool to move a client or organization forward. So often we are focused primarily on our weaknesses at the expense of losing connection with our powerful attributes that don't become fully actualized.  Appreciative inquiry involves me asking a series of questions/provocative propositions that create a preferred vision that actually stimulates new physical structures in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

Finally coaching involves us collaborating on “action steps”, identifying and managing obstacles, accountability techniques and “forwarding the actions”.   At this point in the coaching process, you are in an action state seeing the results.  I provide constant support and accountability to keep you focused.