There are many definitions and approaches to Business and/or Professional Coaching. I like what The Professional Business Coaches Alliance (PBCA) says as they provide a nice summary definition of Business/Professional Coaching. They state:
Business coaches help business owners (or business leaders) in business effectiveness and personal effectiveness.
Business or Professional coaches work with successful people who are “stuck” in certain areas of their business or professional career. These areas can be related to risk-management/ethics issues, weak profits, sluggish sales, cash flow challenges, people problems, or working too many hours, which can result in an unhealthy work/life balance. Other common challenges include quality issues, service failures, lack of leadership depth, a poor company culture, and limited company value.
Some of these problems make a business owner feel paralyzed. They are filled with stress, grief, concern, anger, frustration, and doubt. These negative emotions compound the challenges business owners face and can create new problems of their own; some at work, others at home.
A professional business coach helps get the client out of the proverbial trees so the owner can work strategically on business development and systematically solve these problems. This results in higher profits, better cash flow, and a happier workplace, which in turn leads to a healthy, productive, and joyful life.
The second distinct area where a business coach comes in is when the client knows what he or she should be doing, but isn’t doing it – or – when the client is knowingly doing something he or she should not be doing but continues to do it anyway. This is what we call “personal effectiveness.”
In the area of personal effectiveness, business coaches help with issues that stem from bad habits, poor risk management procedures/strategies, and/or addictions. Others actually stem from personal strengths that are overused so much they actually become weaknesses. For example, think of how strong and powerful a bull is… now put him in a china shop!
Personal effectiveness starts with knowing yourself and knowing your own personal vision and goals. Then it moves to how you interact with other people of all personality and behavioral types. Ultimately, personal effectiveness is about behavior that is congruent with values. It is about being physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy.
The ultimate responsibility of a business/professional coach is to provide a “safe place” to guide and support his or her clients in reaching the clients’ stated objectives. The term “safe place” is critically important to this definition and should be clarified in more detail since the meaning of this term is not necessarily self-evident.
The term “safe place” refers to a positive, supportive environment free from judgment or hidden agendas. There are also no self-imposed (or “coach imposed”) limitations on what is possible. In this safe place, the client is free to speak openly and honestly knowing that anything discussed will be held in complete confidence. If “providing a safe place” doesn’t seem significant, just think of this:
However, when a person hires a business/professional coach, the coach represents the self-interests of just one person: The client. There are absolutely no hidden agendas – ever.
The fact is people constantly project their own agendas, ideas, opinions, thoughts, and even fears onto other people. In fact, it’s normal. And that is why it is so special to have a place that is “safe” from all that noise. That safe place is with a business coach.
Unlike traditional business consulting, business/professional coaches don’t fix the problems for their clients and then go away. Instead, a business coach helps guide business owners into finding their own solutions to their problems. The coach guides the client in putting strategic plans in place which will solve the problems (or capitalize on new opportunities). The coach facilitates creative and strategic brainstorming. The coach then helps to facilitate the creation of tactical “action steps” that the client or client company will take to implement the strategy. Once the action steps are committed to, a good coach provides a structured environment where the client is accountable to him or herself for executing the plans.
Business/Professional coaching is absolutely an art and a science. You have to know yourself, know other people, and you must know business! Much of what you do as a business coach comes naturally, but there are also many important techniques and skills you need to master in order to provide excellence to your clients.