What is Coaching?
Sir John Whitmore, one of the founding fathers of coaching, defines coaching as: “Coaching is unlocking people’s potential to maximize their own performance.”
Coaching is therefore based on the following beliefs:
• The most powerful motivator for people at work is the opportunity to make progress on something that’s personally meaningful
• To engage with your team, it’s important for you to understand what drives your staff
• Regular conversations are the most important habit.
The core skills of coaching include:
• Questioning
• Active listening
• Trust building
• Self-awareness (as an individual, and the ability to invoke awareness in others)
• Facilitating goal setting and development
As the co-designer of the GROW model, Whitmore was able to effectively take insights from high-performance sports coaching, and apply them to the corporate arena. He defined the importance of active listening, asking thought-provoking questions, clear goal setting and the essential ingredient of empathy in coaching conversations. You can watch Sir John Whitmore briefly explain coaching and the GROW model here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyCroYn3Zr8
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