Business coaching is the activity that a company carries out, applying specific techniques, to achieve better productive results in its workers (improve their productivity) and, at the same time, motivate them and ensure that they are satisfied in their job.
The idea is to help people and the company itself so that they have greater capacities to achieve the objectives that are proposed (both at a productive level and at a personal level) through techniques that provide them with a more accurate and realistic perception of reality.
Although in principle, it is designed for managers, business coaching can be applied to workers at all levels.
It is, therefore, an activity that complements the training processes (internal or external) that the company implements for the continuous training and promotion of its personnel, which, in addition to being an economic necessity, are provided for and regulated by art. 23 of the Workers’ Statute (Legislative RD 2/2015, of October 23).
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How business coaching works
As we said at the beginning, it consists of ensuring that the subject has a better and more adjusted perception of reality, of the present.
It is not about reviewing the past (why we have reached this present) but only about knowing what is at the moment (carpe diem) and what are our attitudes and aptitudes to preserve what is good and improve what needs improvement.
For this, what the coach does is ask, questions that must be very well designed and provoke a response in the subject and it will be the subject himself (the coachee) with his answers who analyzes reality and reaches the conclusions and decisions that they chase each other
In the case of group coaching sessions or work teams, the communication between the individuals that comprise it must also be analyzed, as well as how their relationships are in terms of respect, camaraderie, etc.
For the group, it will be pursued that each component discovers what their abilities are to contribute to the functioning of said team, which, as in the individual case, they must discover themselves by answering questions from the coach.
Business coaching design
If we are going to start the application of these techniques in a company, the first thing we must do is to know what the reality of the company is and what are the objectives or goals that we want to achieve with coaching.
For this goal setting and the consequent design of how the coaching is going to be carried out, it will be good to know the point of view of the staff that is going to participate.
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The coaching contract
Various parties are involved in business coaching, each one to carry out its task and know the conditions under which it will be carried out: they are the ones who must sign the contract:
- The company requesting a business coaching service that will intervene through its legal representative.
- The sponsor is the section or department within the company that requests the coaching: it can be the head of one of the departments or, directly, the human resources department.
- The provider is the company that provides business coaching services.
- The Coach is the person designated by the provider to provide the service directly. It must be specifically designated in the contract and be guaranteed by the provider and have Certificates by the International Coach Federation (ICF)
- The interested parties (which we call coachees) are the workers of the company who are going to receive the service.
The contract must clearly state the objectives that, normally, will coincide with those defined by the sponsor.
Regarding commitments, the coach must agree to follow the ethical and behavioral standards of his profession.
The client and the (or the) coachee are responsible for their actions and decisions, the coach is not responsible for what they do or the results that are achieved since the coach is not a therapist and does not replace a treatment to treat problems sick or mental.
Nor is the coach performed to give legal, mental, health, or similar advice. If the coachee is undergoing treatment for her mental health, it must be reported in the contract with sufficient detail.
The coachee must commit to participate in the sessions, dedicate the necessary time and do so with sincerity and accept the comments made.
The contract will describe the services to be provided, the number of sessions, their frequency, their duration and the place.
The economic terms (the price of the service) will also be agreed upon.
Normally, a confidentiality clause and a regulation of the use of the information obtained in the process are also added.
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GROW model
It aims to help the coachee to define objectives, draw up plans and put them into practice. This is done in four phases in which the coach’s questions will be:
- Objective What do you want to achieve? How much do you control your objective? What steps lead you to the objective? Why do you pursue the objective? How will you know that you have achieved it?
- Reality What, when, how, and where is your objective now? Who or who participates in it? If the objective goes wrong, what happens? What have you done so far? How does it affect others? What are the obstacles?
- Options What options have you used in the past for the goal? What else can you do? What resources do you need?
- Decision What are the best options? What problems or limitations are we going to encounter? What other people do you need to have for your plans?
Model OUTCOMES
The objectives, development and questions in this model are the same or, at least, very similar to those of the GROW Model.
In this case, they are more oriented toward management personnel and everything is done in a more structured way.
ACHIEVE model
It is a longer method and with more need to adapt to the system than the previous two. It takes place in seven steps.
- Evaluate the current situation with this the coachee will become aware of what this situation is and why it has come to it.
- Brainstorming must be done quickly and agilely. The coachee can be easily blocked, it is the job of the coach to ask the right questions to help him carry out this step effectively.
- Select the objectives (or goals), these objectives must mean something to the coachee and be important.
- Generating options should be the coachee himself who reaches the conclusion of the possible options, to questions from the coach; but the latter should not provide them, if it is not the subject himself who finds these options, they will not be applied properly imposed from outside.
- Evaluate options by analyzing those found.
- Validate the design of the action plan by comparing the present with the state we are pursuing.
- Maintaining motivation the coach will carry out the necessary actions and communications to help his client in his moments of discouragement.
