Wednesday 14 November 2007

Coaching

Spent all of today on a training course with the rest of the Executive Team learning about coaching skills. Coaching is a technique used to bring out the best in people or a team, and is about helping people to analyse and solve their own problems, rather than giving advice or direction. It’s often linked or confused with mentoring – the difference being that a mentor is normally an expert in the field in which the client practices and offers advice – a coach isn’t an expert and doesn’t offer opinions.

We took part in a number of exercises looking at non verbal communication, listening skills and communication styles. We also learnt a coaching model, and saw a demonstration of coaching. Towards the end of the day we were able to practise coaching techniques on each other.

It was a fascinating day – most of us went into it to learn skills which we could use as managers, but I think most of us came out of it thinking that some coaching would be good for us as well.

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