What does coaching mean to you? What does coaching mean at work? All of us have taken on the role of student or teacher/trainer/coach at some point in our lives. This can be at school, in the home or at the workplace. We tend to associate it with mentoring, counselling and training. There are, however, key differences. By understanding the definition of coaching, we can adopt a better approach in helping others learn or seek the right skilled people to assist.
What does coaching mean to me?
Coaching is me trying to help my kids develop in competitive tennis as well as their studies. As a business analysis consultant, it is also me trying to train and mentor my clients in understanding and applying different analysis techniques. I always thought it was coaching but I have come to realise that I have totally misunderstood it.
Coaching is about helping others learn from their own experiences
I realised that I have been imparting my knowledge upon others and sharing my own experiences, thinking that it was coaching. “Son, you got to hit it with more top spin!” or “Buddy, this is a better way to run the analysis” or “From my experience, this method has a lot of challenges”. Pretty much centred on me, don’t you think?