Getting Mileage out of Coaching Amanda Levy
In professional and amateur sport, anyone who is serious about improving performance hires a coach. Those who want to achieve Olympic status, those who want to earn a place on a top team, those who want to lead the league, all see a coach as essential.

In business we seem to think differently. The ones who are ‘ear-marked’ for coaching are those in trouble, those who have not responded to conventional management direction and those who are diverted by serious personal challenges. Those who are considered to be potential top performers are left alone, to their own devices. There’s no direct support, little real guidance and almost no recognition. This doesn’t make much sense to me.

What exactly is ‘coaching’? There’s no universal definition as far as I can determine, so here’s my attempt. A coach is a person who assists another to achieve an optimal level of personal mastery. This means that it’s the responsibility of the person being coached to identify the required goals and standards, to find the internal resources and to manage the relationship. The coach is a ‘facilitator’, one who guides, supports, encourages, critiques performance, supplies external resources, and provides ongoing feedback as needed.

The focus for the coach is on process – how things get done, not on direction – what gets done. This is the primary task of the person being coached. So, if I am your coach, please don’t ask me what you should do. Certainly, I can help you to think through the goals and standards, but ultimately they are yours. You’re the one who intends to benefit from investing effort and time in improving your personal performance - so it’s your program.

If we need a coach to help us to develop and grow, we’ll need that person around us when we’re in ‘growth mode’, more so than when we’re trying to handle a crisis. The coach has to be present when we are actually performing in order to help us perform better. We could also use a coach when we're not performing, but it's our task to address the issue and get back on track. The real value in having a coach is gained when we are energized, focused and striving to do even better.

An effective coach knows how to intervene without interfering. A good coach will enhance performance not redirect it, reconstruct not redesign, catalyze not substitute. Many of us need a coach to assist us achieve our dearest ambitions for there are so many distractions and diversions along the road of life. We must, however stay in the ‘driver’s seat’ and decide for ourselves which road we shall travel.

This is how it appears to work best in sports, so why not do likewise as we apply valued coaching to the other important aspects of our life?